Former prime minister Jean Chretien was accused yesterday of being a key architect of the sponsorship scandal as newly released cabinet records showed he was informed of nitty-gritty details of the controversial initiative. The documents show that Mr. Chretien personally signed off on increased budgets for federal communications after the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty, with a clear description of which events would receive the funding. The lists detailed millions in spending on car races, tennis tournaments, professional sports teams and cultural events -- most of them in Quebec -- where Ottawa provided funding in exchange for the placement of Canadian flags and banners. "It indicates the special status of that program that the prime minister decided to handle that file personally. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that there was personal knowledge and personal supervision of the entire program," New Democrat MP Pat Martin said. "Finally, the genesis of this boondoggle has been revealed. We now know clearly how this sick matter evolved, who was in charge, who the architects were. This was bungling by design," Mr. Martin said. Mr. Chretien is expected to testify on his role in the sponsorship program before either a parliamentary inquiry or a judicial inquiry into the scandal. He has in the past denied any wrongdoing by any of his Liberal officials on the file, but Prime Minister Paul Martin recently said that there had to be "political direction" in the program. The cabinet records, which usually remain confidential for decades, were released to the parliamentary inquiry, launched by the public accounts committee of the House. Records show that the sponsorship program was never officially created, having never received formal approval by the Treasury Board. Instead, the program was informally set up in 1997 when Mr. Chretien and his then-minister of public works, Alfonso Gagliano, personally signed off on a $19-million increase in communications spending, which was largely used for sponsorships. At the time, a special branch of Public Works Canada was created to handle sponsorship spending, advertising and polling. The branch, called the Communications Co-ordination Services Branch, was isolated from the rest of the department. In the past, the top civil servant in charge of federal communications reported to an assistant deputy minister and a senior financial officer. After 1997, however, CCSB reported on paper to the deputy minister, but in fact did most of its business directly with Mr. Gagliano's office, leading to a virtual absence of checks and balances. Meanwhile, a number of current and former ministers said they do not remember a comment made in a cabinet subcommittee meeting in June, 2002, when a minister praised the work of some of the advertising firms that worked on sponsorship. The unidentified minister said that the fees paid to the firms were "legitimate costs for services" and that the government should not "destroy the reputation of the advertising industry" with its changes to the sponsorship program. Current and former ministers who said they did not remember who made the comment included Privy Council President Denis Coderre, former intergovernmental affairs minister Stephane Dion, former fisheries minister Robert Thibault, former transport minister David Collenette and former natural resources minister Herb Dhaliwal. Advertising firms are at the heart of the scandal, which revolves around allegations of fraud, misspending and overbilling. Auditor-General Sheila Fraser said in a report released earlier this month that the firms received $100-million in funding since 1997, often providing little or no value to Canadians. In the House yesterday, Conservative MP Monte Solberg accused the government of setting up the sponsorship program as a "Liberal money-laundering scam."
Reply
|
