EX-TRUSTEE'S SON STASHED DRUGS IN HER LAUNDRY ROOM

A former federal Canadian Alliance candidate and local school trustee
didn't know her son had hidden more than $50,000 worth of crack
cocaine in her laundry room.

For the crime, Matthew Granger, the 21-year-old son of Betty Granger,
was sentenced yesterday to a total of five-and-a-half years in prison
for drug offences.

Mr. Justice Nate Nurgitz, of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench, said
Granger only has to serve three years of his sentence because he has
already been locked up for the equivalent of 30 months awaiting sentencing.

But Nurgitz warned Granger that he should give up his criminal
activity or he would find himself spending even longer periods in a
penitentiary.

"The business you were in is a business which invariably ends up in
rooms like this," the judge said.

Earlier in court, Crown attorney Ian Mahon said police searched
Granger's parent's home in River Heights on June 9, 2005, after the
department's organized crime unit got a tip.

Mahon said the search found one kilogram of crack cocaine hidden in
the basement laundry room.

As well, the search found more than $13,000 in cash in a basement bedroom.

"His mother was checking his room to make sure he was staying on the
straight and narrow, but she didn't know about the drugs," Mahon
said, adding that when arrested Matthew Granger also told police his
mother didn't know about the drugs.

Betty Granger, a longtime Winnipeg School Division trustee, generated
controversy during the November 2000 federal election when she told a
group of university students she was concerned about an "Asian
invasion" of Canada.

Granger lost the election to Liberal MP Anita Neville.