Posted on 04/08/2005 10:07:15 AM PDT by GMMAC
Canada's Watergate
Don Martin
National Post (front page!)
Friday, April 08, 2005
He glanced at reporters salivating to escape his news quarantine, looked at the bank of television cameras carrying his inquiry live for the first time in a week and issued the order: Unleash hell.
When Justice John Gomery lifted his own publication ban Thursday on jaw-dropping testimony by Groupaction president Jean Brault, a nightmare of allegations against the federal Liberal party gushed forth into the public domain in a firestorm of ferocity.
National television networks went live, government antagonists went wild in Question Period, urgent alerts pinged across the newswires.
The dam protecting federal Liberals from the disclosure of their party's ugly past had been breached -- and Canada's Watergate spilled out.
In six days of unflappable testimony, Brault recounted living a life of dirty tricks with rotten scoundrels pocketing, procuring and defrauding taxpayers by using a $100-million advertising pot set aside to promote national unity in post-referendum Quebec as their own private slush fund.
The Liberals swapped cash for contracts, kicked back money for nothing and traded payola for spots on Brault's payroll.
It's the darkest side of ugly Canadian politics, confirming every cynic's worst suspicions that grease and slime lubricate the wheels of government activity.
If Brault's allegations stick and voter revulsion spreads beyond Quebec, this Liberal government's fate can now be carved in six words on its sponsorship program tombstone: Extortion. Kickbacks. Forgeries. Blackmail. Fraud. Waste.
Brault painted a graphic picture of Liberal conduct in Quebec as that of a secret mutual backscratching society where public money was laundered through bogus business deals to fill up cash-strapped Liberal party coffers. It was bold, crass, transparent sleaze with organized crime overtones, complete with cartoon-caper nicknames like White Head for one top operative or Choo Choo Man for the head of Via Rail.
Cuddling with the Liberals in Quebec in the mid to late 1990s meant the right hire or the correct amount of cash in an envelope was the fast track to juicy government contracts. If that wasn't reward enough, there was the option of kickbacks through false invoices, inflated costs or simply taking the money for pretend projects.
The legitimate worry now being reflected even by federalist opposition parties is that a program custom-designed to promote the face of Canada in Quebec will give separatism an referendum-winning facelift. The irony is too ugly to contemplate.
OK, perhaps a journalistic Valium is in order here -- this is, after all, all single-witness testimony. And the witness is not exactly lily-white, with Brault now facing six conspiracy and fraud charges, with a June 6 court date.
Still, corroboration by others involved in the scandal is emerging and some of Brault's say-so on the stand has documentation to support his recollections.
So will the scandal stick? Haven't a clue. But after days watching the testimony on closed-circuit television, little things linger in the memory as defining images of the scandal.
Like, say, the $5,000 in an envelope Brault says he brought to pay off a Liberal fundraiser he was told to hire. (Brault left it on the table when he visited the washroom, only to find it gone when he returned.)
Or the Liberal insider ordered on to Groupaction's payroll for $7,000 a month, whose only work appeared to be writing a fawning biography of former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.
Or the racing car we paid $30,000 for, to be decorated with two Maple Leaf bumper stickers.
It all adds up to a party brand tarred and feathered for the long run, which could end up turning its minority rule into a short-term proposition.
If Brault's testimony is not rendered fictional by future testimony at the inquiry, being Liberal means never having to worry about being elected in Quebec. They'd have better luck running in the dry Grit gulch of Alberta, where the provincial Liberal leader is thinking of changing his party's name to escape the poisoned brand name.
While the tentacles reach high into Jean Chretien's organizational chart, it must be stressed they stop short of touching Paul Martin. That might not matter. This is one heavy albatross Martin will haul into the next election -- and while I'd never underestimate the Ontario voters' ability to forgive the Liberals almost anything, this is going to be harder for Martin to overcome than his 2004 sponsorship mea culpa.
The Liberal spin of this as a scandal confined to a small band of unsupervised rascals who auctioned off contracts to the highest bidder and used the proceeds to line their own pockets is a tough sell. How, then, to explain the rogue party official who was able, after receiving a $50,000 cash bribe, to muscle the justice ministry into killing a planned advertising tender for the much maligned firearms registry, leaving the business in Brault's hands? That's deep penetration stuff, not just the small circle running the sponsorship program.
These and a host of other inquiry revelations have left the Prime Minister of Canada floundering in a political maelstrom, the leader of a party that could be dragged into an election at any time by Opposition forces while it remains vulnerable to an electoral wipeout in Quebec.
As for Jean Brault, he's no hero. The spectators who cheered him as he left the inquiry have confused him with an altruistic whistleblower. He's nothing of the sort -- merely a self-admitted scam artist taking down as many cohorts as possible before he's hauled into court. But as of today, he has unleashed enough hell on the government that the keys to 24 Sussex Drive are jangling in front of the Conservatives.
If only the Quebec Liberals' mentality prevails in the next government, someone in Stephen Harper's office will reward Jean Brault with a hefty advertising contract. No kickback required.
© National Post 2005
I went to Mark Steyn's website but nothing on this yet. I'm dying to see his take on this in one of his funny columns.
"The three Canadian parties are left of our Democrats" = YOU are out to lunch!! Hot air from someone who knows NOTHING. These folks who think a country like this is irrelevant ought not to be so interested in our water and natural gas. Astoundingly ignorant statements.
If our Conservatives get in, which is now a distinct possibility, we will be standing with you. Stephen Harper will have a VERY GOOD relationship with President Bush. I hate those loud mouth anti-American nut cases here. They hate their own country as much as any other. They thrive on hate far as I can see.
OK, OK, the 3 main Canadian parties are all to the right of the democrats. Is that what you need to hear?
Yes I know Toronto and their resident elites are a big problem. However, that still doesn't account for all those other seats that seem to "eventually" go Liberal with each election. I know some Conservatives from Ontario, they are great but there seems to be a small number of them. It really threw in the last election that Ontario would vote for Liberals after the OPENLY CORRUPT CHRETIEN GOVERNMENT OF WHICH MARTIN WAS A VERY VERY BIG PART. It completely ruined my hope for Ontario. But I am open to be pleasantly surprised.
In B.C. we HAD a completely free enterprise party which ran our Province so well for about 30 years. Eventually, the head of and founder of the party retired, his son was then elected and he was pretty good. He remained in power for about 10 years. Then we had another guy, a very successful dutch businessman who also ran the Province well. The MEDIA "created" a scandal out of a nothing situation which resulted in his resignation. The party then went to a woman who in a very short time, DESTROYED the Party. It has NEVER been the same since. Incidentally, I read your profile and I am the same as you. I am a born again bible believing Christian who thinks that the Government should stay OUT of peoples lives for the most part.
LOL - hiccups??
Did you know that Stephen Harper has promised to ABOLISH the gun registry as soon as he gets elected Prime Minister. He will also cancel Canada's involvement in the Kyoto Treaty.
NO! The Canadian Conservatives are REAL CONSERVATIVES!
Sorry. Their track record speaks very differently.
For example, even when the so-called conservatives were in power, they did nothing to allow freedom of choice in medical care, or allow private medical care to be allowed.
They are right of Stalin, but still well to the left of the republicans.
yes, I did
You are right ofcorse, but I was thinking big umbrella
Liberals = "Centrists" really Socialists
NDP = Marxists
If I judged Western New Yorkers by what I saw and heard via their news media,not to mention by how they vote, I'd presume they were all socialists as well.
Sorry. Their track record speaks very differently.
For example, even when the so-called conservatives were in power, they did nothing to allow freedom of choice in medical care, or allow private medical care to be allowed.
They are right of Stalin, but still well to the left of the republicans
You have just proven how ignorant you are as to Canadian politics.
he PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVES were considered the"alternative " to the LIBS for years up here.
AFTER the complete ROUT they suffered following Brian (I know nothing about slime and corruption, but I was Ron Reagan's buddy) Mulroney the Red tories languished under Joke Clark's "leadership". Then came the Reform movement, etc. If interested, Google it. There is a LOT more to the story than I can relate in what I had HOPED to be a quick reply.
That said:
The Conservative Party of Canada, led currently by Stephen Harper, is most definitely and decisively FAR more conservative than the administration leading the USA.
Perhaps a little research before you "let fly" with your uninformed and vitriolic bilgewater might be in line with NOT sounding like a completely uninformed dolt?
I'm sure you can't be as much an idiot as you sounded in your last post. You are a member on FR, after all.
So I fail to see the big deal in all of this? The World Bank has been doing this sort of thing in DC for years, except, supported by American taxpayers, they have REAL MONEY to spend.
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