Canada: Bracing for the Gomery report

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Bracing for the Gomery report
Liberals’ future, reputation at stake
Opposition will size up public’s reaction
Prime Minister Paul Martin faces some of the toughest challenges of his political career as opposition MPs eagerly await a chance to bring down the Liberal government over tomorrow’s Gomery report… The release of Justice John Gomery’s findings on the sponsorship scandal has the potential to shake up government, alter leaders’ careers and rewrite the reputations of prominent national figures…

The Prime Minister… might also have to cope with… another round of public feuding between Jean Chrétien and Gomery. Chrétien is expected to come out swinging if the judge lays the blame… at his feet. The former prime minister, who told the Gomery hearings the sponsorship program was part of his fervent bid to keep Quebec separatists from destroying Canada, has denied that he knew of any wrongdoing under the $250 million initiative.

He has also accused Gomery of being biased against him… Chrétien will not hesitate to renew his legal battles with Gomery… but such a move is likely to prompt widespread denunciations of the Liberal party from the public. Martin’s office is trying to be prepared for anything, including a bid to force the election call sooner than the Prime Minister’s promise to do so within 30 days of Gomery’s final report…

Auditor General Sheila Fraser discovered… evidence of systematic kickbacks of federal government money to the Liberal party… Says Conservative MP Gary Lunn, the party’s spokesperson on Gomery “This is a scandal where millions and millions of taxpayers’ dollars wound up in the Liberal party.” He said the Liberals are unfit to govern and have “to be held accountable for a scandal of this magnitude.”
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**Gomery verdict carries weight
******Voter reaction to sponsorship inquiry report might determine next election
22 per cent say they’ll change their vote to Conservatives, NDP or Bloc
Nationally, 22 per cent of poll respondents said their votes would probably move to the Conservatives, New Democrats or Bloc Québécois because of the Gomery report. But not all the vote-shifting was bad for the Liberals. SES reported 7 per cent saying they would change their vote to support the governing party. In Ontario, 10 per cent said they’d switch to the Liberals, though 10 per cent also said they’d change their vote to the Tories and 9 per cent said they’d go to the NDP.

When broken down by region, 19 per cent of Quebecers predict their vote will move to the Bloc because of Gomery’s findings, the poll found. The Liberals now have 133 seats in the Commons, the Conservatives have 98, the Bloc has 54 and the New Democrats have 18. There are four independents and one vacant seat. The SES poll shows the governing Liberals are still hovering at about 40 per cent support in the polls, with the Conservatives at 28 per cent and the NDP with 15 per cent.

But the number of undecided has jumped to 20 per cent, an increase of six percentage points since an SES survey in August… Martin has vowed to call an election within 30 days of Gomery issuing a report of recommendations in early February. But all bets are off as to whether the government can hang on that long, especially if the opposition senses that Tuesday’s report has given them enough momentum to force a quicker election.
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**Duceppe won’t let scandal die
**Prods Quebecers over sponsorship ****
**BQ MPs to take `corruption’ tour
[Bloc Quebecois leader] Gilles Duceppe told the convention that former prime minister Jean Chrétien and Prime Minister Paul Martin bear responsibility for the sponsorship program — Chrétien because he headed the government, and Martin because he was finance minister, vice-president of Treasury Board, and number two in the government.

“They didn’t know. They don’t remember. They’ve lost their memories,” said Duceppe, who was greeted with cheers and applause. “We are going to have a campaign which will refresh their memories…” The Bloc Québécois leader launched a pre-campaign yesterday using the provincial slogan “Je me souviens” — “I remember” — to remind Quebec voters of the scandal…

Duceppe said the federal government wanted to crush Quebec’s aspirations with the sponsorship program. “Quebecers are indignant. They feel betrayed by these anti-democratic practices,” he said. "The time has come for everyone to say `I remember’… every infuriating detail that emerged from Judge John Gomery’s inquiry into the sponsorship program.

The golf balls, the ties, the triple-billing for a single report and the Christmas decorations — all paid for by sponsorship funds and revealed in embarrassing detail by the inquiry — are mocked in ads, commercials and a video. Next week… Duceppe and the other Bloc MPs will tour Quebec, stressing the corruption, cronyism and camouflage that Duceppe says was revealed.
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Ani,
How do you see the average citizen reacting to news of this report?
 
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aimee:
Ani,
How do you see the average citizen reacting to news of this report?
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I really don’t know. Most of the folks in my neighbourhood don’t seem to care; they are going to vote NDP no matter what, which will only make matters worse. I am absolutely disgusted. Have been for years.

The Feds have taken money from us over the Sponsorship Scandal – for having it in the first place and then for prosecuting it – and for the Waterfront debacle(s). The Province of Ontario owe us 5 billion dollars which the Conservatives ‘lost.’ The City owes us a couple of million over a crooked computer purchase deal.

All of this took place during a period of supposed austerity when government at all levels were telling us there wasn’t enough money for health, for education, or for housing. They were closing hospitals, schools, and ignoring the growing numbers of street people who freeze to death every winter. It’s a flipping disgrace.
 
This is the day the Gomery Report will be released to the general public. In total 355 million dollars have been taken from the Canadian public from the Liberal Party. The Liberals have made sounds about returning the money, but so far this has only looked like a couple of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Insiders say Gomery to focus on Chretien’s team

Projections are that former PM Chretien will be hung out to dry. He is not going to take that lying down.
Justice John Gomery won’t directly accuse Chretien of wrongdoing. But he will say Chretien was the program’s architect and that Jean Pelletier, Chretien’s former chief of staff, is the man who issued the orders.

Conceived in the aftermath of the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum, which the federalist side almost lost, the sponsorship program became a vehicle for Liberal party kickbacks… Jacques Corriveau – a Liberal organizer and close friend of Chretien whose firm earned $8 million in sponsorship subcontracts – is expected to be named as a key player in the alleged scheme…

CTV News has learned the Liberals will repay the kickback money. The party will write a cheque to the government on Tuesday for $550,000. The party will also announce a code of conduct for itself.
Another $7 million remains missing, but sources say Gomery has no real sense of where it went or who has it. Many of those transactions were conducted in cash, making it impossible to trace them.
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Sponsorship Timeline

Key dates throughout the Gomery Commission and Sponsorship Program dating back to 1995.

Question and Answer

Answer to key questions regarding the Gomery Commission and Sponsorship Program.

Video

Highlights

Watch video highlights from Justice John Gomery’s sponsorship inquiry.

Profiles

Key Players

Here’s a look at some of the key players throughout the Sponsorship Program.

Testimony

Chretien Testifies

Former prime minister Jean Chretien pulls out some props to defend his reputation.

Fighting Back

Bill Doskoch on why being called ‘small-town cheap’ rankled Jean Chretien.

Martin Testifies

Prime Minister Paul Martin testifies he played ‘no role’ in the administration of the sponsorship program.

Guite’s Testimony

Chuck Guite tells all during his testimony at the Gomery Inquiry.
 
Martin must account for scandal too: Opposition
Deputy Conservative Leader Peter MacKay refuses to believe Martin didn’t know what was going on at the time. “Willful blindness is a pitiful excuse for leadership,” MacKay told CTV’s Mike Duffy early Tuesday. “You can try to blame it all on Jean Chretien, but he was in the best position to try to stop what he knew was wrong…”

Conservative MP Gary Lunn had a similar message: that a so-called ‘culture of corruption’ persists in the federal Liberal Party. "All of this has continued under Martin’s watch. “This is a Liberal Party scandal and it’s unfathomable to think how anyone could re-elect this government after the millions of dollars that have been stolen.”
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Ani Ibi said:
****Sponsorship Timeline

Key dates throughout the Gomery Commission and Sponsorship Program dating back to 1995.

****Question and Answer

Answer to key questions regarding the Gomery Commission and Sponsorship Program.

Video

****Highlights

Watch video highlights from Justice John Gomery’s sponsorship inquiry.

Profiles

****Key Players

Here’s a look at some of the key players throughout the Sponsorship Program.

Testimony

****Chretien Testifies

Former prime minister Jean Chretien pulls out some props to defend his reputation.

****Fighting Back

Bill Doskoch on why being called ‘small-town cheap’ rankled Jean Chretien.

****Martin Testifies

Prime Minister Paul Martin testifies he played ‘no role’ in the administration of the sponsorship program.

****Guite’s Testimony

Chuck Guite tells all during his testimony at the Gomery Inquiry.
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Prime Minister Martin says he was left out of the Loop… :hmmm: doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
 
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aimee:
Prime Minister Martin says he was left out of the Loop… :hmmm: doesn’t sound quite right, does it?
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Martin was shunned by Chretien. They were bitter enemies. Nevertheless, Martin was – I believe – Finance Minister at the time and therefore has to answer for the wholesale robbery which went on. I find it difficult to believe that kickback on this scale went unnoticed by Martin. If it did go unnoticed, then Martin wasn’t doing his job, was he?

Breaking news: Chretien and Corriveau are named; Martin not named. The language is of Corriveau’s criminality. Chretien is ‘reluctantly’ exonerated, but it is clear that Gomery is not happy with Chretien. He makes it clear that Chretien “bears the responsibility for the defective way” in which the Sponsorship program unfolded. “There is only one prime minister who had the guts to end it and that is Paul Martin.” Very strong language from Gomery.
 
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Jayson:
Sadly, as long as the Conservatives take positions on issues which are also in line with Christian teachings, they won’t come to power in Canada.

People think the Conservatives are evil because they are against abortion and gay marriage.

prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/media/release-jun-11-04.shtml

I am sick of this Liberal government.
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I am sick of this Liberal government too. I am also sick of the Conservatives who can’t get their act together and who were also responsible for billions of dollars ‘going missing’ at least in the Province of Ontario. The NDP is … well … socialist. The Green Party has some interesting platforms, but is not pro-Life.

There is the Christian Heritage Party – something Catholics should be cautious about, but at least which has a respectable Life platform.

I guess now would be the time for us to be writing the candidates and making it very clear that unless they move against Morgentaler and toute sa gangue, they won’t get our votes. But before even that, letters need to be sent out demanding that our political representatives return the money which they wrongfully appropriated from the public or just plain managed to ‘lose.’
 
Breaking news:

Gomery blames Chrétien for sponsorship flaws
They include Chuck Guité, the “untouchable” bureaucrat who considered the program his baby and used it to reward friends as well as Liberal-linked ad firms, and Jean Corriveau, a good friend of Chrétien’s who ran a “kickback scheme” to funnel taxpayers’ dollars from the program to his own pocket and the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Also implicated is former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, “who chose to perpetuate the irregular manner of directing the sponsorship program.” However, those people would not have been able to mismanage or benefit from the sponsorship program had it been set up correctly in the first place, Gomery found.
“Since [former Prime Minister] Mr. Chrétien chose to run the program from his own office, and to have his own exempt staff take charge of its direction, he is accountable for the defective manner in which the sponsorship program and initiatives were implemented.” Chrétien’s long-time chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, was Guité’s chief contact in the Prime Minister’s Office, acting as an un-elected cabinet minister when it came to running the mostly unpublicized and unchecked disbursement of millions of dollars, Gomery wrote.

“Mr. Pelletier failed to take the most elementary precautions against mismanagement – and Mr. Chrétien was responsible for him,” the commission chairman wrote.However, Gomery said there was no evidence that either man was directly involved in Corriveau’s “wrongdoing,” entitling them “to be exonerated from blame for Mr. Corriveau’s misconduct.”

“The Department of Finance and its minister have no oversight role for other departments’ expenditures, other than setting the financial context via the fiscal framework,” the report said. As a result, [then Finance Minister] Paul Martin “is entitled, like other ministers in the Quebec caucus, to be exonerated from any blame for carelessness or misconduct.”
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Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien leaves his home in Ottawa, Tuesday, Nov.1.
 
Gomery report fingers former PM
Jean Chretien as among those to be blamed
The report is a no-holds-barred account of how the sponsorship program, designed to raise the federal presence in Quebec after the federalists’ near loss in the 1995 referendum, became a cash cow for a handful of Liberal-friendly advertising executives, and, in turn, a financial helpline for Liberal party in Quebec. Gomery concluded Jacques Corriveau, president of Pluri Design Canada and a longtime Chretien pal, was “at the heart” of an elaborate kickback scheme to enrich the coffers of the Liberal’s Quebec wing.

The judge says there is no evidence either Chretien or Pelletier were directly involved in funnelling sponsorship funds back to the party, but that they must be “blamed for omissions.” Gomery said the professed “good intentions” of promoting Canadian unity are "not an excuse for maladministration of this magnitude. "The prime minister and his chief of staff abrogated to themselves the direction of a virtually secret program of discretionary spending to selected beneficiaries, saying that in good faith they believed in good faith that those grants would enhance Canadian unity.

Gomery disparages each man’s testimony that they thought the program would be properly administered by Guite and his organization. “They did not verify this assumption even though they had created a program lacking all the normal safeguards against administration,” Gomery said. “The assumption was naive, imprudent and entirely unfounded.”
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CTV is also talking about a ‘culture of intimidation’ which occurred among federal public servants: people who were afraid to say anything and I remember that this was true. We were hearing all sorts of stories at the time and I would respond, well why don’t you tell this to media and they would answer hek they could lose their jobs, their pensions.

http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/media.canada.com/cp/national/20050208/n020809a.jpg

Former prime minister Jean Chretien prepares to testify in Ottawa Tuesday at the Gomery Inquiry looking into the sponsorship program.

Edit: Two questions which emerge in high profile:
  1. What additional information will Chretien bring into the fray in order to defend his damaged reputation? We expect a statement from Chretien later today.
  2. What will be the effect of the Gomery Report and the outing of the kickbacks on the Separatiste cause in Quebec?
 
The feeding frenzy has begun already. NDP leader Jack Layton is on tv right now. If the opposition parties think they can get away with it, they will have an election before Christmas. Of course, Christians will be preoccupied with Christmas, leaving issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and so on with little notice.

Here is an American view on the situation:

Report: Senior Liberal Party officials worked kickback scheme
The scandal centers on a sponsorship program set up by the Canadian government in 1996, after an independence referendum in Quebec failed narrowly. It was designed to boost the cause of federalism in the French-speaking province.

The scandal has dominated Canadian politics for the past 18 months and public anger cost the Liberals their parliamentary majority in a June 2004 election. Martin has promised to call a new vote within 30 days of Gomery’s second and final report, due on February 1. [This is the first
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report.]

Two successive (Quebec Liberal party) executive directors were directly involved in illegal campaign financing, and many of its workers accepted cash payments for their services when they should have known that such payments were in violation of the Canada Elections Act.
 
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Jayson:
Aren’t we supposed to have an election within 30 days of now?

Here’s an example of why I voted for my member Norm Doyle (from a page criticizing his stance on same sex marriage and just about everything else that’s important to catholics): xenomix.com:8080/mingmusic/altmingdot/mingdot/1102961964/index_html
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Martin promised to call an election within 30 days of the release of the Second Gomery Report. That takes us to sometime in February 2006.
 
Good. I won’t have to deal with that around Christmas. Now I have to deal with it around my Birthday.
 
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Jayson:
Good. I won’t have to deal with that around Christmas. Now I have to deal with it around my Birthday.
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Everything depends on Jack Layton. If he thinks the NDP will gain seats by riding on the agony of the Canadian people then he will join the Conservatives in a non-confidence vote which will end parliament and then an election will follow immediately.

The polls says that the NDP is losing support. Good. They deserve it after the fast one they tried to pull in London with Judy Rebbick just before Morgentaler and Malloy got their ‘honours.’ I hope the NDP is reduced to rubble – or should I say rabble.
 
This, to me, is another consequence of there being no effective checks and balances in our Canadian parliamentary system. One hears much lip service about a government being responsible to the majority in the House of Commons, but for a member to vote a government out of office, he/she must vote himself/herself out of a job. And getting the job back means spending money, money typically controlled not by the people’s elected representatives, but the political party.

A Prime Minister with a Commons majority is a virtual dictator; in a minority situation, he can get control through fear of an election. Perhaps if the elected members, rather than party members at a convention, chose the Prime Minister – Canadians have no direct say through elections on who gets that job, only a very indirect one – things would be better. Members now choose the Commons Speaker through a secret ballot. Perhaps they should choose the Prime Minister the same way. Then, party centred political rot, as Justice Gomrey documented, might be curbed at least a bit.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
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