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I
hope -- I really, really hope -- that the revelations
of federal corruption spilling out daily at the Gomery
inquiry into Adscam lead to jail sentences if they prove
true.
Including
for politicians.
Adscam
wasn't just standard penny-ante contract padding. And
it wasn't "waste," as so many brain-dead Canadians
seem to think.
It
was a systematic, $100-million-dollar looting of the federal
treasury which was plainly orchestrated (at least in large
part) from the highest political office in the land, the
Prime Minister's Office.
If
this happened in the United States, the whole country
would be in an uproar. But not here. The man on the street,
or in the next office, says, "Yeah, they wasted a
pile of money, but, hey, what can you do?"
The
sponsorship program funneled $250 million over eight years
to federal propaganda projects in Quebec. Of that, according
to the Auditor-General, about $100 million was billed
by, and paid to, Liberal-friendly advertising agencies
for no reason at all.
In
short, the $100 million was stolen. But who ended up with
it? The Quebec sleaze-balls who sent in the phony invoices,
or the politicians who approved them?
To
find out what happened, Justice John Gomery is conducting
a public inquiry, and has heard some amazing stories.
For
instance, the sticky notes.
The
politician most heavily implicated in the scandal (so
far) is former Public Works minister Alfonso Gagliano
of east-end Montreal. He and his political chief of staff,
Jean-Marc Bard, kept track of who got what payola, mainly
by attaching sticky notes to otherwise incomplete file
documents.
The
stated (but unwritten) policy of the sponsorship program
was to keep no incriminating records, and to involve as
few civil servants as possible.
Three
weeks ago, Justice Gomery heard that on the day that Gagliano
was removed as minister of Public Works in 2002, three
of his staff spent the evening sorting through hundreds
of documents in two filing cabinets removing and destroying
all the sticky notes.
The
judge was incredulous. "This would be unknown in
the private sector," he said. It smacks of criminal
destruction of evidence.
But
it doesn't seem so to politicians of the sponsorship mentality.
To them, it's not the purpose of politicians to serve
the interests of the government. It's the purpose of the
government to serve the interests of the politicians--the
standard backward assumption of every one-party banana
republic in the world.
Thus
the breathless but phony urgency of the whole sponsorship
scam.
Last
week, for example, Guite was explaining (between bouts
of stonewalling and backtracking) why he approved a 1996
contract to supply $325,000 worth of nation-saving golf
balls and Christmas decorations.
In
the process, Lafleur Communications got its standard 15%
commission for doing nothing except placing an untendered
federal order with the owner's son.
There
was no time, they needed the items right away, Guite explained.
"Golf balls?" asked commission lawyer Neil Finkelstein.
"Christmas ornaments? In March?"
Guite's
memory then failed him. No sticky note, I suppose.
We're
just in the beginning of this huge mess, and haven't heard
yet from Chretien and his cabinet accomplices.
But
Canadians should start preparing now for the strong possibility
that the men who ruled our country for ten years may face
criminal charges, and may go to prison.
If
they ever do, it will do more to save Canada than anything
I can think of.
Link
Byfield is chairman of the Edmonton-based Citizens
Centre for Freedom and Democracy.
"Just
Between Us" is a feature service of the Citizens
Centre for Freedom and Democracy. The purpose of the Citizens
Centre is to enhance freedom and democracy by enabling
ordinary citizens to become active and effective on important
issues outside the normal processes of party politics.
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