Prime Minister Paul Martin and former prime minister Jean Chretien should testify before the public accounts committee, opposition MPs said yesterday as they accused the Liberal government of shutting down committee hearings to protect political players in the sponsorship scandal. They said they will also propose that the committee probing the sponsorship scandal sit next week in a bid to hear a handful of key witnesses. However, they said there may be nothing they can do to stop the Liberal majority on the committee from forcing it to wrap up its proceedings, paving the way for an election without getting to the bottom of the scandal. "This is exactly the pattern that we saw during the investigation of the Groupaction contracts in 2002," said New Democrat Pat Martin. "As soon as we get close to linking the PMO (Prime Minister's Office), to linking political interference, the hammer comes down and they put a stop to the investigation." Yesterday, the panel that has spent several weeks shining light on the federal sponsorship program moved behind closed doors. It received a voluminous report from its researchers summarizing the testimony so far, but sources said the committee accomplished little more than to read the report and ask a few questions. Earlier in the day, opposition MPs convened a news conference to say they want the committee to move back into the open and to hear as many witnesses as it can before an election is called. Bloc Quebecois MP Michel Guimond said his party has tabled a motion calling on the committee to hear from Martin, Chretien, former Chretien aide Jean Carle, and Warren Kinsella, a Liberal strategist who was an aide to former public works minister David Dingwall. The Conservatives are proposing the committee sit next week, even though it is a break week for Parliament. While charges were laid Monday against ex-bureaucrat Charles Guite and advertising executive Jean Brault, Martin vowed at the outset to get to the bottom of the affair before going to the polls, said Conservative Jason Kenney. "He promised Canadians in February that he would leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of this scandal. Well, in fact yesterday he demonstrated that he is leaving every stone unturned." That is something Martin will have to deal with on the campaign trail, he predicted.
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