Con’t from yesterday…
National Post is reporting on the tone of the testimony, if not substance.
…Former advertising executive Jean Brault broke down in tears on the witness stand at the Gomery Commission yesterday. It occurred in mid-afternoon as Mr. Brault was being grilled by the inquiry’s chief counsel, Bernard Roy
…Mr. Brault appeared to tire under the relentless questioning as the day wore on, and at one point buried his head in his hands and began weeping. He is scheduled to resume testifying today. The incident came just before the commission’s regular mid-afternoon break, which the judge then called. After a 20-minute respite, a composed Brault returned to the stand and resumed his testimony.
Monte Solberg writes; “it sounds like Judge Gomery has rolled over a really big rock and a lot of creepy crawlies came scurrying out from underneath.”
Watch Greg Staples for updates. I’m listening to CBC radio – there is not a whiff of this story there, nor as he points out, on their website.
Not so strange, that.
Groupaction timeline.
Also: read this March 16 “I’ll break your jaw” post at Conservative Groundswell. And from the Globe and Mail (sorry, no link) on March 29th;
Civil servant Huguette Tremblay testified at the Gomery inquiry Tuesday that she was ordered by those in charge of the sponsorship program not to leave a paper trail for an event.
[…]
Ms. Tremblay said that on most of the files it was Mr. Gagliano, not his office, who spoke to Mr. Guit�.
She said she believed the paper trail had to be hidden because the event took place outside of Canada.
The inquiry also heard that the sponsorship program used a discretionary fund for unforeseen events to finance a host of minor projects in the ridings of Mr. Gagliano and of then-prime minister Jean Chr�tien.
The existence of the fund and its use for events in Mr. Gagliano’s and Mr. Chr�tien’s ridings had first been reported by the Globe and Mail in 2001 but the inquiry Tuesday added new details.
So many contracts from that innocuous-sounding account were linked to Mr. Chr�tien and Mr. Gagliano that “it became a running gag,” communications executive Gilles-Andr� Gosselin testified Tuesday.
Mr. Gosselin recalled that the office of Mr. Guit�, the civil servant who ran the sponsorship program, regularly sent his firm a list of pre-approved projects that were to go under an $490,000 annual budget for “Unforeseen Events.”
Inquiry counsel Guy Cournoyer asked Mr. Gosselin if he noticed that a large portion of those contracts were associated either to Mr. Gagliano or to Mr. Chr�tien.
“When you do the tally at the end of the year, there is indeed a lot. Let us say there was a running gag in the office,” Mr. Gosselin said. “It became a running gag. Here, there’s another Italian coming.”
A Toronto Star timeline of testimony coverage headlines – very useful.
All of this too heavy to slog through on a fine bright Saturday? Take a break and run a word or two through Flikr…
One other quick thing… we need to remember that is was our government and its agencies who actually found the corruption and are dealing with its outcome. There was no pressure from us (citizens) or opposition parties, but it was our agencies (Public Works Dept, and Federal Ethics Committee) which found out we weren’t paying close enough attention to government advertising contracts.
At least we can police ourselves.
Well said Tim !
Not everybody is in this “so-called” sinking boat.
No politician should be elected to a second term.
We need to get rid of the Senate as it exists and substitute the needed seats to balance out MP balance to reflect the ‘representative vote’.
The Conservatives started this Quebec slush fund, the Liberals expanded it. Both are corrupt.
We will get no change until we wake up and force change on the government.
As for not paying MPs enough – I think the rats are getting more than enough. Each province/territory should send 4 old vets (male or female, but not lawyers or retired lawyers) to Ottawa to run the country. Fire all present politicians.
Murray
Publication ban lifted… get some info here:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1112800598471_30/?hub=TopStories
This problem we are looking at now is only with respect to millions of dollars.
I’d love to see what would come out of an investigation of the gun registry. Is this scandal we have now just the lesser of two evils?
Tim, you’re only partially correct here.
Many of us more conservative-minded voters have been harping about the sponsorship scandal for awhile.
Also, don’t forget that the opposition HAMMERED the scandal aspect of the Martinites during the federal election (albeit to little effect, except to prompt Martin to call this hearing).
So you’re giving the government way too much credit here.
Of course, I guess some credit should be given to Martin for calling the hearing, but to suggest that we should thus ignore the brazen corruption and arrogance of the Liberal party and its members is foolish to say the least.
I for one, will not play part to the dismantling of the rule of law and democracy in Canada by voting in a party that can perpetrate such a scandal (as well as be incredibly incompetent on other items such as national defence).
the main thing is that changing our MP won’t change a lot. I pretend (even if I can’t pretend that I have truth) that some (rare) politicians still are honnest. But these are not heads of their party, they are only back benchers.
�power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely� pretended a well informed in the matter former Quebec prime minister, Maurice Duplessis.
To many east canadians, Conservative party is only Reform party with a mask and that reform scares eastern canadians because they are too rightists. Stephen Harper was never able to cross Quebec border because that (as any politician) he never came to Quebec trying to see what Quebecers expected from his party and it is well known here in “la belle province” that he is against 50% of the local population. Liberals are well footed in Ontario, Conservative/Reform in Western Canada and CFC/NDP is eastern provinces whilst the Bloc �owns� Quebec.
It is sad to say so but Canada is more split than ever. Wilfrid Laurier pretended, a hundred years ago that �Canada is vowed to break down�. It’s a pity to realize that it was said by a liberal Premier and that liberals (as much as formerly Conservatives) are, in many cases, crooks above the law and other parties are probably no more honnest 🙁