The Power behind the thrones

The Western Standard ^ | 14 February 2005 | Mark Steyn

[catiwompus]

"The Power behind the thrones" by Mark Steyn at The Western Standard (registration required)

I always love the bit on the big international news story where they try to find the Canadian angle. A couple of months back, every time I switched on The National, there seemed to be no news at all and Peter Mansbridge was in the middle of some 133-part series of reports on “Canadians making a difference in the world,” which at least three nights a week seemed to be an “encore presentation” of the same worthy soft-focus featurette about some guy helping with an irrigation project in Sudan. (snip)

[catiwompus]

There have been a number of fine posts on the real reason why Canada opposed any involvment with the war on Iraq. This Mark Steyn column adds to the data and is worth a read. The Canadian government has been interested in the oil money all along according to this article. It's worth a read.

[TWohlford]

"But, if it was all about oil, then the fact--fact--is that the only Western leader with a direct stake in the issue was not the Texas oilpatch stooge in Washington, but Jean Chrétien: his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren stood to be massively enriched by the Total-Saddam agreement. It depended on two factors: Saddam remaining in power, and the feeble UN sanctions being either weakened into meaninglessness or quietly dropped. M. Chrétien may have refused to join the Iraq war on “principle,” but fortunately his principles happened to coincide with the business interests of both TotalFinaElf and the Baath party."

Uh huh. Yup. Thought so. "Follow the money" once again.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

How is Chretien connected to Total ?

[JudyinCanada]

I believe that his son-in-law and daughter are major share-holders in the company.

[nuconvert]

Good Article!

[catiwompus]

Jean Chrétien’s daughter is married to Paul Desmarais’s son. Paul Martin was an employee of M. Desmarais’s Power Corp., and his Canada Steamship Lines was originally a subsidiary of Power Corp. that M. Desmarais put Mr. Martin in charge of. In other words, Paul Martin’s public identity--successful self-made businessman, not just a career pol, knows how to meet payroll, etc.--is entirely derived from the patronage of M. Desmarais.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I did a bit of business with CSL years ago but never saw the name "Power Corp," associated with it.
Guilt by holding stock in a publicly traded company would seem to be a stretch to me...