PUBLICATION: | The Winnipeg Sun |
DATE: | 2002.05.16 |
EDITION: | Final |
SECTION: | News |
PAGE: | 7 |
SOURCE: | BY GREG WESTON |
DATELINE: | OTTAWA |
PANEL COULD HAVE LOTS TO DO WIDENING SCANDAL SURROUNDS SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM
The Commons public accounts committee has been asked to launch an investigation into the widening political scandal surrounding the Liberal government's controversial sponsorship program in Quebec.
Good idea. The move follows Auditor General Sheila Fraser's recent damning indictment of federal officials involved in three government advertising and sponsorship contracts awarded to the Montreal advertising firm Groupaction Marketing.
The chairman of the public accounts committee, Canadian Alliance MP John Williams, confirmed yesterday he has received a formal request to begin hearings.
The request for an investigation was made in a formal letter to Williams from Winnipeg MP Pat Martin, an NDP member of the committee, "in light of the shocking revelations of the auditor general."
Martin asks that the witness list include former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano, responsible for the sponsorship program from 1997 until a few months ago.
In March, Jean Chretien conveniently appointed Gagliano to be Canadian ambassador to Denmark, just as the Groupaction affair was breaking in the media.
Martin wants Gagliano recalled to answer for the "shocking abuses" in federal contracting that took place under the former minister's watch.
"We need to know if there was any political interference in this matter," Martin wrote to the committee. "It is up to us to discover if the current or former minister, or anyone under their direction, ordered these senior government officials to break the rules."
Given that the contracts reviewed by the auditor general were only three of hundreds of similar dubious deals, the committee could be sitting for a long, long time. While they're at it, here are a few other witnesses, most still on the government payroll, who might be of interest to the committee:
- Pierre Tremblay, Gagliano's former chief of staff, who then ran the sponsorship program from 1999 until last year. As such, he could address the issues of both influencing and being influenced.
- Denis Coderre, federal immigration minister, and a key Liberal organizer in Quebec. He might have an interesting perspective on the $10 million in sponsorship money paid to the publishing firm Groupe Polygone, having once been the company's vice-president of government relations.
- Martin Cauchon, federal justice minister and Gagliano's successor as the Liberals' political boss for Quebec. No doubt he will be able to dispel any connection between firms getting sponsorship contracts and their generous contributions to the Liberal party.
- Lawrence MacAulay, federal solicitor general responsible for the RCMP. Maybe he could tell the committee why the Mounties have so doggedly ignored widespread contracting irregularities uncovered by government audits.
- Jean Carle, formerly Jean Chretien's political operator in the prime minister's office until the mid-1990s. He might be able to give details about the distribution of lucrative advertising contracts in Quebec, since we are told most of them, in his day, would have crossed his desk.
- Jean Pelletier, Chretien's chief of staff until last year. It is said that nothing moved in Quebec without Pelletier's knowledge and approval. Who knows -- maybe that included the $70 million a year going to Quebec firms in federal advertising and sponsorship contracts. Failing that, now that he is chairman of Via Rail, perhaps he could describe the current internal audit of Liberal ad contracts doled out by that particular federal agency.
WOULD BE FASCINATING
- Jean Chretien: It would be fascinating to hear how hundreds of government contracts, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, have been doled out in gross violation of federal contracting rules -- all this, and not one of the PM's ministers nor senior staffers ever mentioned a word of it to him.
If you believe that, you may also believe a Commons committee will get to the bottom of this mess.
Good on them for at least trying.
