Terrence Corcoran on the Mulroney-Shreiber story...

Terrence's piece in the National Post is the best thing I've read on the Mulroney-Schreiber affair since it became a feeding-frenzy a few weeks ago:

A Scandal Made for Television
Terrence Corcoran - December 7,2007
Schreiber played CBC journalists as patsies


Follow the money, they say. Well, I'm trying here, but after three bouts of testimony from Karlheinz Schreiber, international fugitive and grease monkey to Europe's finest corporations, let me tell you where the money takes us: nowhere. In fact, based on what we've heard so far, my bet is that there isn't any money to follow.

Aside from the $300,000 paid to former prime minister Brian Mulroney in 1993, a public embarrassment first disclosed six years ago, the only people who should be freshly shamed today are the little group of CBC journalists and a few others who have been riding this non-story for more than 12 years.

It's possible there's more to come. Maybe, just maybe, somebody's going to show up with disbursement records from the various accounts and corporate fronts that Mr. Schreiber and associates maintained, revealing millions in cash payments flowing out to the highest and mightiest in the land. But I doubt it.

Among the shell-shocked from the non-revelations so far appears to be Linden MacIntyre, one of the hosts of CBC's the fifth estate, a show whose staff maintains a Web shrine to the Mulroney-Airbus affair with the devotion of nuns at an isolated convent in the Italian Alps.

After Mr. Schreiber's testimony on Tuesday, during which he said Mr. Mulroney received no money on the 1988 Airbus deal, Mr. MacIntyre appeared on CBC television's The National looking like he'd just been taken to the cleaners by a card shark.

Well, noted a quizzical Peter Mansbridge, looks like the Schreiber "balloon fizzled a bit today."

Not so, said Mr. MacIntyre, depends on your point of view.
"If you look at it from Schreiber's point of view," it was a big day. He's now a free man. "His game plan is to avoid going to Germany," and he succeeded.

What Mr. MacIntyre didn't say was the obvious, which is that Mr. Schreiber is not going to jail in Germany because he played the fifth estate as patsies. Had it not been for the fifth estate's refloating of the same old Airbus allegations against Mr. Mulroney, Mr. Schreiber would now be heading for trial in Germany on charges of fraud, tax evasion, bribery and who knows what other malfeasance and ethical breaches -- instead of regaling a Commons ethics committee with incoherent stories about money and payments that, it turns out, were never made, or have certainly not been seen to be made.

Fifth estate producer Harvey Cashore, co-worker with Stevie Cameron on innuendo-filled books about Mr. Schreiber and Mr. Mulroney, made an effort yesterday to spin his way out of the fact that Mr. Schreiber, after six hours and mountains of "documents," had produced not one new dribble of usable information to make 12 years of innuendoes look any more credible.
"We got some very direct questions and some very direct answers and I think a lot more clarity about what he was actually saying about a lot of his money dealings," Mr. Cashore said in a television interview.

If he thinks Mr. Schreiber's testimony offered a lot more clarity, no wonder the fifth estate thinks it's working on a major $20-million payoff scandal.
Mr. Cashore seemed especially pleased that Mr. Schreiber had said yesterday that in 1988 a German industrial giant, Thyssen, had paid $4-million to a Schreiber shell company in Liechtenstein, after the Canadian government signed an agreement for a tank-manufacturing project, known as Bear Head, in Nova Scotia. Some part of that money -- $500,000 -- was transferred in 1993 to another account and in turn $300,000 was paid in cash to Mr. Mulroney.

The illogic of the Thyssen payment trail (leaving aside that the money apparently has nothing to do with Airbus, which is what Mr. Cashore and the fifth estate have been alleging all along) is kind of staggering. The $4-million was allegedly paid by Thyssen because at one point it thought it had the Bear Head deal in the bag, a deal supposedly greased by Mr. Schreiber and others. But the tank plant was never built --killed later by Mr. Mulroney, who was personally involved in turning it down.

So Thyssen wasted $4-million, apparently. But why then pay money to Mr. Mulroney for having killed the Bear Head plant --and five years after the event? More important, even if the money paid from Liechtenstein actually came from Thyssen, it tells us nothing of Mr. Schreiber's motivation.
Money is fungible, as accountants put it. It was Mr. Schreiber's money at that point, five years after Thyssen paid it, and there is no necessary connection back to Thyssen. Mr. Cashore, however, seems to think the dollars have Mr. Mulroney's fingerprints on them all the way back to Germany.

Elsewhere, Mr. Schreiber has created a black box of dollars and claims about money and transfers that never happened or might not even exist. Certainly he offered no proof of anything. At one point he calmly confirms that $20-million was paid by Airbus to a company called Government Consultants Inc., run by Tory insider Frank Moores. This makes no sense. Airbus allegedly had a contract to pay a Schreiber company, International Aircraft Leasing (IAL), about $20-million on completion of airplane sales to Air Canada. If IAL got the money, did it simply pass it on to Frank Moores' company, without taking a cut? Unlikely.

Does this $20-million Airbus payout even exist, and if it does, who got it? One assumes it was paid. After all, the fifth estate Web shrine to the Airbus scandal has a little section in which it claims to have "obtained a copy of the secret deal between IAL ... and Airbus Industrie." But the document posted is actually an Airbus agreement to pay Schreiber's IAL commissions on Airbus sales to Thai Airways. There must be better documentation around than that, but it's not on display anywhere at the moment, and we certainly have no idea how the money was distributed and where.

My theory is that Mr. Schreiber and others made off with the $20-million, and Airbus got nothing for it. The biggest flap yesterday was over Mr. Schreiber's allegations that former Mulroney aide Fred Doucet once asked Mr. Schreiber to arrange a transfer of cash from Frank Moores' GCI to accounts in Europe. The money, Mr. Schreiber says, was to go to Mr. Mulroney's lawyers in Geneva. The reason: "Airbus."

It's a scandalous idea, except Mr. Schreiber said he never made the transfer and thought it absurd of Mr. Doucet to even suggest such a payment. And Mr. Doucet said yesterday he never asked for any such payment.

And on it goes, from one loose thread to another, each leading nowhere.
It is my guess that the upcoming public inquiry will fail to find a pot of gold at the end of it all -- unless, of course, you're Karlheinz Schreiber.
He knows what his money can buy.

Questions
Karlheinz Schreiber's testimony yesterday left a number of holes and apparent contradictions unanswered. On Tuesday, Schreiber told the committee Brian Mulroney had nothing to do with Airbus, or with kickbacks for the purchase. Yesterday, he testified that in fact lobbyist Fred Doucet instructed him in 1992 or 1993 to send Airbus money to Mulroney via a Geneva lawyer, a revelation he said shocked and "nearly froze" him.

Yet later yesterday, asked if in his "heart of hearts" he believed Mulroney received money for Airbus, he replied "No." - Despite two hours of questioning, no one asked Mr. Schreiber the name of the Geneva lawyer, or if he sent the money. Schreiber said in a 2006 letter to Mulroney that he was the "best advocate I could have retained" and had no involvement in Airbus. But in another letter to Mulroney in May, 2007, he accused him of being part of a conspiracy and demanded help for his extradition case or he would say Mulroney had taken Airbus money, supported fraud and tried to get him to commit perjury.

Asked yesterday if he would sign a letter containing false information, Schreiber insisted he wouldn't. Later he acknowledged he signed the 2006 letter to Mulroney even though he didn't agree with the contents. "At that moment ... yes, I would sign anything." - Schreiber said on Tuesday he was unaware his German lawyer had testified that Schreiber had paid $10-million to influence Canadian politicians. According to author William Kaplan, Schreiber was in the Toronto courtroom when his attorney made the statement in 1999. "I was a close witness to the painful decline of the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, and I am a pretty good observer with an impressive memory," Schreiber said on Tuesday. Yesterday, he said he couldn't remember what year Doucet asked him to send money to Mulroney, though he recalled the conversation in detail.

The Mulroney-Took-Bribes-Club

Operating for the better part of the last decade, the Mulroney-Took-Bribes-Club (MTBC) is mostly made up of CBC journalists, Allan Rock, special RCMP investigators and several Liberals.

The president of the MTBC is none other than journalist turned government agent Steve Cameron. Other executives include VP-media relations Harvey Cashore, treasurer Linden Macintyre and secretary Robert Thibault.

The raison d'etre for the MTBC is to discredit former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney with allegations that he took bribes for his role in Air Canada's agreement to purchase aircraft from Airbus to the tune of $1.8-billion (aka the Airbus deal)

Canadians heard testimony today from Karlheinz Schreiber - the only man who would possibly prove the MTBC's allegations. Schreiber's testimony blew holes through the central thesis and founding principles of the Mulroney-Took-Bribes-Club:

Schreiber told a parliamentary committee that he never spoke with Brian Mulroney about money while the former prime minister was still in office, although the pair agreed to work together on future business. He explained that business included a light armoured vehicle plant for Mr. Schreiber's client, Thyssen AG.

Mr. Schreiber said the $300,000 he eventually paid Mr. Mulroney had absolutely nothing to do with the Airbus deal. Mulroney had no influence or dealings with the Airbus decision and consequently received no money for it. To be absolutely certain, Schreiber went on to say that the money he paid Mulroney had nothing to do with anything Mulroney did for him or others while he was in office.

Case closed. No Scandal (much to the disappointment of Andrew Coyne and his Name that Scandal contest). Unless the MTBC finds another conspiracy theory to latch onto -- i.e. Mulroney was hiding in the grassy knoll on that tragic day in Dallas - we can finally close this dark chapter of slanderous journalism, shoddy reporting and shameless political opportunism.

The Real Chretien Legacy

While we're debating the legacy of Jean Chretien, I found this little number over at Andrew Coyne's site:

National Post
Feb. 12, 2005
ac@andrewcoyne.com

Here is what we are asked to believe.We are asked to believe that Jean Chretien, having created the sponsorship program, having personally secured funding for the program out of the so-called "unity reserve," having personal authority over every ministerial request for funds from that allocation and having been warned in writing by the Clerk of the Privy Council that he would thus be personally responsible for every departmental grant made out of those funds, should accept no personal blame for anything that went wrong under the program.

We are asked to believe that, although the program was critical to achieving "the unity of Canada ... my number one priority," he had no knowledge of and indeed took no interest in the way the program was run because "I'm not a micro-manager"; that, in particular, he had no knowledge that a company controlled by Jacques Corriveau, a close friend and former vice-president of the Liberal Party, had received millions of dollars in sub-contracts under the program, nor that, prior to receiving these commissions, he had complained to Mr. Chretien's closest political advisers that he had not been paid for work carried out in the 1997 election campaign, nor even that he had contributed thousands of dollars to Mr. Chretien's personal election campaign.

We are asked to believe this, notwithstanding Mr. Chretien's demonstrated penchant for "micro-managing" on behalf of friends in search of federal funds. It was, after all, in those same post- referendum years when the sponsorship program was in its heyday that Mr. Chretien somehow found the time to make repeated phone calls to the president of the Business Development Bank of Canada on behalf of the proprietor of the Grand-Mere Inn, the serial fire-victim Yvon Duhaime, who was mysteriously granted a loan for which he was ineligible.And Mr. Duhaime was hardly the only friend of Mr. Chretien's to benefit from federal largesse. For example. there was Claude Gauthier, a long time friend and political contributor who was awarded a $6-million CIDA grant on which he was ineligible to bid, and who was later given a $1.2-million "job creation" grant for a company in bankruptcy proceedings, after Mr. Chretien's officials intervened.

We are asked to believe that Mr. Chretien was so insistent, when it came to federal advertising and sponsorships, that "all the rules, regulations and guidelines had to be followed," that he appointed Jean Carle, then his director of operations, to police it. That would be the Jean Carle who has admitted to having later participated, as vice-president of the Business Development Bank, in a scheme to launder $125,000 in sponsorship funding to a Montreal film producer through the Bank. But perhaps that was his only lapse.

We are asked to believe, likewise, that Mr. Chretien was so concerned to remove any partisan taint from federal advertising practices that he assigned the task to David Dingwall, his first Public Works minister; and that Mr. Dingwall and his executive assistant, Warren Kinsella, were so seized with non-partisan zeal that they went to unusual lengths to ensure Chuck Guite was put in charge of the program. Mr. Guite has testified that Mr. Dingwall explained his decision to keep him on, notwithstanding similar activities on behalf of the previous Conservative government, with the words: "You won't rat on them, you won't rat on us."

We are asked to believe that neither Jean Pelletier, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, nor Alfonso Gagliano, Mr. Guite's superior as minister of Public Works, though they met regularly with Mr. Guite, and though they admit to having offered "suggestions" as to which projects should receive funding, and though several witnesses and dozens of documents attest to their having closely directed the program in every respect, took any part in deciding how the funds should be allocated, i.e. through which advertising agencies.

We are asked to believe that the politicians responsible for a program that was conceived in secret, that appeared in no budget document, that was never divulged to Parliament and of which even cabinet ministers were unaware, should have been surprised to learn that bureaucrats answering to them were allocating millions of dollars in secret, without invoices or receipts.

We are asked to believe, last, that Paul Martin did not know about the existence of the unity reserve until 1996, three years after he had been named Finance Minister; that he did not know what it was used for, i.e. sponsorships, until some years after that; and that he did not know about the abuses that went on under the program until some years after that. And yet, ignorant as he was as to either the purpose or results of the program, he immediately signed off on the Prime Minister's request for funds, without question.

We are asked to believe that Messrs. Chretien, Pelletier, Gagliano, Carle, Dingwall, and Kinsella acted at all times throughout this affair out of an impartial devotion to the public good; or that if they did not, Mr. Martin had no clue that anything untoward was going on, and no reason to suspect it.

That is what we are asked to believe. Do you?

Waiting on Warren Kinsella...

Warren Kinsella has written an excellent article on questions that should be posed to Brian Mulroney when he appears in the parliamentary committee.

As I wrote to Warren, he would have a bit more credibility on the ethics issue if he were willing to demand the answers to his own questions and that they be posed to Jean Chretien - particularly over the BDC, Shawinigate and Sponsorship scandals.

Anyone who knows or reads Warren Kinsella knows that he can't get enough of 2 things: 1)Warren Kinsella; and 2)Jean Chretien.

Kinsella is forever defending Jean Chretien and claims he's the greatest Prime Minister ever. He also claims that Chretien's legacy is far more accomplished than Brian Mulroney's.

I took Warren to task on these issues in a recent email:

----------------------------------------------

Warren:

Excellent article in the post. Now, if you'd muster up the courage to ask the same questions to your boy Chretien in a parliamentary committee, you would certainly garner my respect. Just ask Chretien your own questions, but dealing with the Business Development Bank, Shawinigate and
Sponsorship scandals:

"No member of the House of Commons shall receive or agree to receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, for services rendered or to be rendered to any person, either by the member or another person..."

"No member of the House of Commons may, directly or indirectly, accept any benefit or income from a trust established by reason of his or her position as a member of the House of Commons."

That's the basis for the question. Nothing more, nothing less. And, like all good questions, it is quite simple. Did you accept money while still an MP? If yes, isn't that, um, wrong?"

If its wrong for Mulroney, it's equally wrong for Chretien. I also found it hilarious when you presumed that Mulroney cancelled his book signing because JC's was the same day, and somehow BM can't compete with JC or his legacy. Let's look at that legacy shall we:

- Clarity Act: as he famously said "he's a democrat" and was of the view that Quebecers could secede if they voted for seperation in the 95 referendum. Harper was the first MP to be on record as supporting the legal principles that were later endorsed in the Clarity Act. Only after we almost lost the country did Chretien fall in line with the view of Harper and later Dion.

- Opposed Meech: Dion himself says the biggest constitutional error in history was Trudeau's opposition to Meech and caused the referendum. We should put your boy JC in the same camp, as he also opposed Meech just not as publicly as Trudeau.

- Deficits: after promising to cancel the GST and Free Trade, he and Paul Martin didn't and the benefits speak for themselves. Martin is owed some credit for reigning in spending...Chretien deserves little. Mulroney deserves most.

- Iraq War: Although revisionist history may be fun, Chretien didn't oppose the war. Instead, he said we would go as long as the UN sanctioned it. In other words, he contracted out Canada's foreign policy to Russia, China and France. Some leadership.

- Kyoto: if we are to believe Eddie Goldenberg, Chretien knew that we'd never actually implement Kyoto and that he only signed it for the symbolic benefits. GHGs went up 30 percent under JC's tenure.

- Francois Beaudoin: As a Quebec judge later concluded, JC put his best strongmen on a mission to destroy his career. Beaudoins crime: not agreeing to grease JC's friends with taxpayer money.

- Shawinigate: if Mulroney dealt in cash, JC was professional enough to use napkins.

- Sponsorship: the biggest political scandal in the history of our country under his watch. Gomery finds him responsible. Still missing 40 million. Enough said.

- HRDC and Gun Control: A billion each. Gone into bureacratic thin air. Whoops.

- Statesman: proofy-proof, proof is a proof when its proven. Whats a proof, its a proof and when you have a good proof, its when its proven.

Lets face the facts Warren: Chretien's legacy is that he has none except scandal. His election successes are largely due to the right being split and had little to do with his own popularity. Don't just take my word on where JC's legacy measures up against Mulroneys:

"In 2000, the McGill University North American Studies Institute determined that Mulroney had the best economic record of any Prime Minister since the Second World War. In 2003, the Institute for Research on Public Policy rated Mr. Mulroney as the 2nd most accomplished Prime Minister of the previous 50 years (behind Pearson). In 2006, a panel of Canada’s leading environmental groups determined that BM was “The Greenest Prime Minister in history.”

These are hardly bastions of conservative thinkers or ideals. History has spoken Warren and its not kind to Jean Chretien or his legacy.

---------------------------------------------------

Andrew Coyne is at it again...

By which I mean, Andrew has written a gem of an article on the issue of public inquiries and their place in the public interest.

Readers will know that my loyalty to Mulroney doesn't trump the need for answers to legitimate questions. Nice work, Andrew.

Giving credit when it's due...

To Ujjal Dosanjh. You'd have to be a weasel/political hack if you weren't able to look past blind and petty partisanship and give credit when it's due. Ujjal Dosanjh, a man who was beaten within an inch of his life for standing up to Sikh extremism, continues to stand up as he testified this week at the Air India inquiry.

Of course, the easy route would be for Ujjal to keep quiet or even pander to ethnic voters and turn a blind eye to the problems in their backyard. Not Ujjal though - he takes the high road. And for that, we should all be proud. Bravo.

Reason #9482 the Globe is a Liberal rag..

Even the Toronto Star has a better grip on the current political situation than the Globe. Granted, its Chantal Hebert who is one of the nation's better columnists, but its the Star nonetheless.

Reason #9481 that the Globe is a Liberal rag...

Did it really take 3 writers from the Mop and Pail to come up with this analysis? I appreciate that any column featuring Jane Taber needs it's share of election speculation and gossip but c'mon. Jane is famous for having recently asked the ex-premier of Saskatchewan if he thought the Prime Minister liked the people from Nova Scotia better than people from Saskatchewan? on TV. In an interview. I am not making this up.

Brian Laghi spent a good portion of an interview with Mike Duffy yesterday explaining how Canadians are growing forever tired of the Sponsorship Scandal but are extreeeemely interested in the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. No polls or documentation to support this theory, just Brian's opinion. Thanks for that Brian. Personally, I wasn't tired of Sponsorship at all but now that you mention it, it is becoming quite the yawner.

And if pigs could fly...

Jim Travers makes a good but extremely naive point in his latest column. Jim's expert analysis is that a public inquiry is unnecessary and we could save ourselves a lot of time and money if we got to the bottom of the Mulroney-Schreiber affair through a parliamentary inquiry.

Jim concedes that our parliamentarians would need to act responsibly in said inquiry and not for partisan gain. Therein lies the rub, Jim. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if the parliamentarians leading the charge had an ounce of dignity or class:



or perhaps more importantly, were interested in the truth rather than scripted political theater.

I suspect Jim Travers is less naive than I've made him out to be and knows full well that a parliamentary inquiry would be a partisan clusterf*ck. I also suspect Jimmy and the Toronto Star wouldn't be bothered by this at all, so long as its only a former conservative PM and the conservative party that's damaged or strung up in the process.

Somebody has to say it...

What the hell is Peter Van Loan doing publicly chastising the Premier of Ontario and calling him the "Small Man of Confederation"? Granted, McGuinty is partly to blame for issuing a press release that calls for more fairness in the lower house but maintaining the unfairness in the upper house.

If you don't have time to read the release in full, it basically says: We demand representation by population in the Commons where we are slightly under-represented but we adamantly oppose any change to the Senate that might bring some fairness to other regions in the country.

Instead of calling McGuinty out on this inconsistency, Peter Van Loan decides it would be best to personally label him the Small Man of Confederation. Even worse, PVL gives up the high ground by creating a false choice between the completely-unfair status quo and the somewhat-unfair proposal. He's positioned himself having to defend the indefensible.

What's more silly is that the Harper government is on excellent terms with Queens Park. If the Harper government wanted to pick a gunfight with the Premier of Ontario (which they don't) the last guy you send is Peter Van Loan holding a plastic fork.

WTF?

My thoughts on Stephane Dion..

Stephane Dion. Is he a weak leader? The conservative party would like you to think so. I happen to agree with most of the talking heads in that Dion's biggest problem is that he is incoherent; unable to communicate clearly to Canadians.

Rick Mercer put it best, when referring to a picture of Dion with his hands in the "prayer" position he said: "Stephane Dion tried to perform "This is the Church and this is the Steeple" but everyone thinks he said blurch and feeple."

I'd say that just about sums it up for Stephane Dion. Even if we liked his message, we aren't hearing it. The Conservatives campaign against Dion has been largely successful in defining Dion on their terms. He's not even in a position to defend himself let alone fight back: the Liberals have no money to counter the ads and even if they did, he can't string a sentence together. And all this says nothing about his problems in la belle province.

On the economic side, there isn't much I like about Dion. Complying with 15 year Kyoto targets in a span of 9 months would bankrupt the economy (which is exactly why Stephane didn't do it as Environment Minister). In fairness, his calls for corporate tax cuts were refreshing and personally I think he should stick to this theme. Rather than picking up the scraps from the NDP and Greens on the far-left, Dion should be moving to the right of Harper - at least on the key economic issues.

I happen to have a great deal of respect for Dion in his past efforts to keep the country together: his strong support of Meech and as chief architect of the Clarity Act. Although Chretien has taken much of the credit for the Clarity Act, history will show that he deserves little.

Before and all throughout the 1995 referendum, Chretien and the Liberals were of the opinion that Quebec could seperate with a small majority vote for secession. A little known fact is that PM Harper, as a Reform MP, tabled legislation eerily similar to the Clarity Act as a private member's bill - Bill C-341, "An Act to establish the terms and conditions that must apply to a referendum relating to the separation of Quebec from Canada before it may be recognized as a proper expression of the will of the people of Quebec." Of course, Dion was then instrumental in his tabling of the Clarity Act and the rest is history.

Best Dion quote of all-time: "After Meech we would have had stability for a very long time. And the worst constitutional error in the history of Canada is probably Mr. Trudeau's campaign against Meech. Mr. Trudeau was wrong in saying that Meech would destroy Canada. We'll never know for sure on this issue, but I'm confident that if Meech had passed, I would be a university professor today and we would not have had the second referendum."

Bottom line: is Dion a weak leader? We'll let the electorate decide. He's not doing much to help this image though. Is he a good Canadian? Without question. Does he have the skills to be Prime Minister? Personally, I think he'd make a better university professor.

UPDATE: As it happens, most Canadians happen to agree with this assessment.

Calling out Garth.ca

Garth Turner: maverick MP fighting for the little man or shameless opportunist? There has been commentary all over the blogosphere dedicated to resolving this question and so I won't bother.

What I will do is point out just how much of a sham Garth's website is. After commenting more than a dozen times on his site, I am unable to find a single comment of mine on his site today. Simply put, Garth and his webmaster are in the business of removing the majority of negative commentary from his site while maintaining all the positive comments. The net effect is to create the illusion that Garth is some kind of Canadian icon.

As Dwight Schrute from The Office would say: "False. He is not an icon." Andy Bernard from the same show might say "Oompa loompa, doompadee dawesome, Garth is now a liberal, which is totally awesome. Why did he switch, he was such a nice guy. No, he was not, he was a total douche. Doompadee doom."

Hey Garth: removing the negative comments from your website makes you the internet version of an East-German post office. Get a life.

The Jason Cherniak One-Tonne (of you know what) Challenge

For the record, I've got nothing against Jason Cherniak. Sure - he's a hyper-partisan liberal which is sort of an odd combination considering that, for the most part, the liberals don't stand for anything and so how one becomes so strongly in favor of nothing, is beyond me. But I digress...

In reviewing Jean Chretien's "My Life as Prime Minister" on his blog, we stumble on the sponsorship scandal. In this little gem, not only do we learn that Alfonso Gagliano should only be found guilty of "bad administration in his department", we also learn that "the only people actually charged with wrongdoing (in the Sponsorship Scandal) by the RCMP were Conservatives and separatists."

You heard that right. Chretien claims that the evil-doers of the sponsorship scandal were actually conservatives and separatists! Jason goes on to concede that many people would be enraged by Chretien's version of events but cleverly says "However, there was never any evidence to challenge his story on this."

That's a neat little trick. Rather than presenting any evidence to support the allegation, Cherniak says we don't have any evidence to the contrary. Umm ok. Jean Chretien killed Jimmy Hoffa and Paul Martin is secretly a transvestite. Prove me wrong, Jason.

As I said on the comments section of his blog "Jason asks us to prove him wrong but that's not the way it works. You and Chretien are the ones making these claims - you should prove them right. The only evidence we have to go on is millions being laundered from public coffers to "alleged conservatives and separatists" (Breault, Guite, Coffin) and somehow back to the Liberal party."

So, here in a nutshell is the Jason Cherniak One-Tonne (of you know what) Challenge: I challenge anyone to provide a shred of evidence that would support Chretien's central thesis that "only conservatives and separatists" were charged by the RCMP in the sponsorship fiasco.

Breaking News: The Toronto Star calls for full public inquiry into Chretien/BDC Scandal!

Or.....not. Wouldn't that be something though? I mean, surely the Star is interested in protecting the office of the Prime Minister against allegations of wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power.

Now, if only Francois Beaudoin would put forward his case in an affidavit linking the BDC affair to both Chretien and Harper, we could have an inquiry on our hands.

The BDC Scandal. What is that, you say? This from Lorrie Goldstein in the Sun - April 10, 2005:

And even AdScam, for which Chretien bears ultimate responsibility, doesn't reveal the former PM at his worst. For that, we must turn to another Grit scandal -- what Chretien and his lackeys did to Francois Beaudoin when he was president of the Business Development Bank of Canada.

Here, I'm indebted to the excellent reporting of Sun Media's Greg Weston. Beaudoin, was an honest public servant who had the courage to say "no" to Chretien, starting in 1996.

No, he would not approve a $1.6- million loan, later cut to $615,000, to benefit Chretien's friend, Yvon Duhaime, owner of the Grand-Mere inn in Chretien's riding. Duhaime, he said, was a bad risk, with a criminal past and a poor fiscal track record.

The fact Chretien had even approached Beaudoin was wrong, especially considering that Chretien was a former part-owner of the inn and a neighbouring golf course. At the time, Chretien hadn't been paid for his shares in the golf course and was seeking a new buyer. Chretien's own actions indicated he knew what he was doing was wrong. Why? Because he lied about them.

Between January 1999 and November 2000, Chretien and his aides repeatedly insisted the BDC operated on its own, free from political interference. Finally, on Nov. 16, 2000, Chretien was forced to admit in the middle of an election that he had lobbied Beaudoin repeatedly.

By then, two Chretien cronies, Michel Vennat and Jean Carle, were making Beaudoin's life a living hell. Vennat, the BDC's chairman, had been appointed by Chretien. Carle, the bank's senior vice-president of public affairs, had previously been Chretien's director of operations. From 1999 to 2003, Vennat and Carle presided over a vicious smear campaign against Beaudoin for defying Chretien. Quebec Judge Andre Denis would later describe the two men's actions as "an unspeakable injustice" designed to "break him and ruin his career."

First, Beaudoin was effectively forced out of his post when the BDC loan to Duhaime was approved over his objections. Seeing the writing on the wall, he negotiated a severance and retirement package in the summer of 1999 and left the bank.

But Vennat and Carle weren't finished. Soon after, Beaudoin was accused of "irregularities" by the BDC and lost his pension. He was smeared in the media. His cottage and home were raided, not by police, but by BDC lawyers and accountants. Incredibly, a judge had authorized the search. Meanwhile, Carle was on the phone to Chretien's office, co-ordinating statements in the media and the Commons.

Judge Denis would later describe this as "incredible ... Carle was convinced the prime minister is the only shareholder of the BDC. They are no longer looking like a corporation should, to give the media just the facts ... but only to repeat the position of the Prime Minister's Office."

Vennat then wrote two letters to RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli asking the Mounties to investigate Beaudoin for "misappropriation" of bank property and as the source of a "forged" document related to Shawinigate that had been leaked.

Six months later, the Mounties showed up at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, claiming there were investigating the membership of Beaudoin's wife. At Christmas, they raided his Montreal home. Before Beaudoin could reach his lawyer, the attorney was contacted by a reporter who'd been tipped to the raid by the PMO. The RCMP found nothing. In April 2003, the Crown said no charges would be laid after concluding the case against him was absurd.

Finally, in September 2003, Beaudoin had his day in court. Judge Denis ordered that Beaudoin be paid his full severance and pension. He denounced the BDC, saying he didn't believe some of Vennat's testimony and that Carle had lied. The publicly owned bank had spent four years and $4.3 million hounding Beaudoin. That's what things were like when Chretien was "da boss."

Blowing the Whistle on the CBC's Credibility

a blast from the past from Colby Cosh. If ever there is a Canadian Journalism Hall of Fame, this piece should proudly be put on display:

Blowing the Whislte on the CBC's Credibility
Colby Cosh
National Post -- April 30,2004

A wise man once said that most political scandals aren't about applying traditional standards of behaviour to government; they're about increasingly rigorous standards catching up with officials who haven't yet adjusted to them. I think there is something to this. I bet Paul Martin does now, too. As a youth, I saw "patronage" become a dirty word whose force toppled governments; then I went to university, studied some Canadian history, and learned that our country was originally built on something very like what we call "patronage." In 19th-century democracies it was given that the spoils belonged to the electoral victor. The winds of progress blew, and standards changed.

So it went, too, with the concept that unbiased analysts should be available to ensure that Canadian governments received some definite benefit in exchange for taxpayers' dollars. In 1931, Parliament appointed a comptroller to guarantee that federal spending was disbursed lawfully. Gradually, over 20 or 30 years, this office -- controversially at first -- began to question technically legal but useless program spending. In the 1970s, the now-recognizable Auditor-General began to look beyond balance sheets at the broad details of policy implementation. Each holder of the job has, generally, been more activist than the last. The department is certain, in coming years, to grow into something like the U.S.'s powerful and effective Office of Management and Budget -- because standards change.

All this is by way of explaining the calamity that is descending upon the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. On the front page of Wednesday's Post, we read that the CBC is collectively indignant about being included in new "whistleblower-protection" legislation recently introduced by Privy Council President Denis Coderre. Why should the corporation be angry about being made accountable for its budget? Because it is supposed to be independent of Parliament, and therefore cannot possibly be accountable to Parliament, though Parliament pays for it.

Mother Corp. spokesman Jason MacDonald had an interesting way of phrasing the objection. He said, "If our employees, and particularly our journalists, are perceived as government employees or public servants, it diminishes their independence from government, which in turn undermines their journalistic credibility. Part of their job is reporting on government." Read that carefully. He didn't say that corporate accountability to a government paymaster would actually ever pervert the integrity of any CBC journalist, talking head, or producer. Perish the thought! What he said was that it was important for CBC personnel not to be "perceived" as government employees, because it would "undermine their ... credibility." In other words, his complaint is that the whistleblower law might actually remind people that the government owns the CBC! Gadzooks!

In recent years the CBC has spent millions rebranding itself and trying to make us forget that it is, in fact, a state broadcaster. But the fact remains in the world, placidly resistant to the spin. CBC employees are government employees. Collectively, their livelihoods depend on the willingness of the present government to continue propagandizing and entertaining the citizenry at the citizenry's own expense. There are people that the CBC does not want elected, assuming it possesses the same self-interest as any other tribe of primates, and others that it does want elected. It sometimes appears to decide on what we see and hear according to that hypothetical self-interest, and according to a self-reinforcing, clubby political ideology. To deny any of this is to engage in damnable lying.

There is a simple relaxant available for the mighty stress felt by any CBC journalist who feels his "credibility" is undermined by the foregoing paragraph. It is this: Quit. Hie thee to the private sector, and freely choose a congenial company to ally your credibility with. Or start a Web site or a magazine, and do your best to acquire a paying audience without the corporate or government help that might taint the perception of your integrity. There is really no other choice here. What the CBC is arguing for is an impossible freedom from the compromise that any economic participation in civilization requires. They want you, the viewer, to believe that theirs is the only human institution that behaves with the righteousness of the angels.

What is certain is that, in the long run, the CBC will lose the free lunch. The network cannot be both journalistically "independent" and financially dependent. Significantly, representatives from all three major Anglo-Canadian parties -- elected MPs, who know well which way the wind is blowing -- denounced the CBC's opposition to the whistleblower rules. Adscam has revealed the changed standards for 21st-century government. When the world was young, and the government took 20% of your paycheque and gave you services that worked, you might be willing to remain what economists call "rationally ignorant" about the details. Now maybe 40% of that cheque vanishes, your mother's coughing blood in the hallway of the nearest ER, and your country has no army. And here comes the guy from the CBC telling you that his expense account should be a state secret. No sale, comrade.

A Few Good Men....

and women of course. This footage of Canadian soldiers making peace in Afghanistan will blow you away.



I've always been skeptical when politicians say our soldiers are the bravest and finest in the world. Every country's politicians say that. After watching this clip, however, I find it hard to disagree.

Godspeed.

"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country." General George S. Patton

Beefs and Bouquets

One of the weekly features of this blog will be the Beefs and Bouquets section. It's pretty self-explanatory:

Beefs:

• The media and opposition parties - for their unrelenting quest for a public inquiry into the affairs of Brian Mulroney. This in and of itself wouldn't qualify them for a "beef" were it not for the fact that they haven't paid any attention to the public inquiry going on right now: the Air India Inquiry. Yeah - that one. The one about the biggest mass murder in Canadian history. Nothing to see here...
• The RCMP - this one is obvious. The tasering incident was shameful as was their attempt to hide the truth. Macleans latest issue lends some real estate to the many other serious problems with the force. To be fair, there is far too much inflammatory language being levelled against the mounties right now; some even calling them murderers. Should they have used other means to restrain Dziekanski? Absolutely. Did they intend to kill him? Absolutely not. Labelling them murderers is beyond the pale.
• My own lack of blogging abilities - although I'm relatively new to the blogging world, my lack of blogging skills is both embarrassing and frustrating. I am unable to properly use hyperlinks and post videos. Hopefully I will have this figured out before next week's edition of Beefs and Bouquets but until then - shame on me.

Bouquets:

• The Calgary Grit - for being able to look beyond petty partisanship. Unlike many conservative and (mostly) liberal bloggers, the Calgary Grit is funny and capable of taking a few jabs at his own party. If mine could follow in the footsteps of any blog, it would be his.
• Pat Martin and committee shenanigans - the opposition parties in the HOC Ethics committee couldn't agree on a strategy to tar and feather the Conservatives over the Mulroney-Schreiber affair. Pat Martin wanted the committee to subpoena Schreiber and Mulroney immediately but the Liberals disagreed and went on to filibuster Martin's motion. Martin snaps. " You're a son of a bitch!" Pat said to liberal committee chair Paul Szabo as he violently whipped his pencil across the room. "You're a disgrace....That's it! You're done." Here is the video

Big Ups to Rick Mercer..

From time to time, this blog will point out obvious bias in the Canadian media. This is not one of those time to times. Instead, I'm sending the millions and millions of dedicated fans of this site (read: 3- hi mom!) to check out the Rick Mercer Report.

He's Canada's funny version of Jon Stewart and he's a huge supporter of the Canadian Armed Forces and their mission in Afghanistan. Regardless of one's political leanings, you can't deny the hilarity of Rick Mercer.

Jean Poutine and Mulroney

Jean Chretien is now publicly claiming that he would not have settled the libel suit with Mulroney had he known about Schreiber's business dealings with the former pime minister.

Of course, Jean and the media don't mention these facts:

a) Mulroney was suing for libel. Allan Rock and the Justice Department sent a letter to Swiss banking officials that made several allegations against Mulroney, namely that Mulroney had undertaken illegal activities related to Airbus. The letter entered into the public domain through its publication in the National Post. Suppose, in discovery, the government had somehow learned about the $300,000 and Mulroney's closer business relationship with Schreiber. The government would still need to prove the funds were obtained illegally, and not for some future business undertakings. Even Schrieber maintains that the money was not linked to Airbus but for setting up pasta and armaments businesses. Hard to see how then or now, the government could prove its original allegation that the money was linked to Airbus.

b) As L. Ian Macdonald points out, the $2.1 million dollar settlement was a direct bill for Mulroney's legal and PR fees in fighting the government's allegations. Despite the rhetoric from Part Martin and the liberals, Mulroney never seen one cent of it. Its hard to see how the government could recover $2.1 million from law firms and Quebec PR firms given its track record in recovering the $40 million from Adscam.

Not that we shouldn't take old Jean at his word. The burden of proof ultimately rests with the state and we all know how seriously Jean takes that responsibility:

Greetings

and welcome to the brooaaadcast. I'm Don Newman and today we'll be taking a deeper look into why Prime Minister Stephen Harper likes to kick puppies. We'll spend some time with Danny Williams for his insight aaaaaand, finally, we'll ask our press gallery pundits for their thoughts on who is the greatest Prime Minister of all-time in a showdown between Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrètien and Paul Martin.

Thanks for tuning in. The spin stops here.