Dennis Coderre is currently sitting in Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s benches.
But there are lots of Liberals sitting in Paul Martin’s benches. This is just one of them, do you understand?
Former Liberal exec says $5,000 in cash went to Coderre
MONTREAL (CP) – A former Liberal executive told the sponsorship inquiry Monday he handed over a $5,000 secret cash payment in 1997 to the riding of Denis Coderre, who went on to become a cabinet minister under Jean Chretien.
Benoit Corbeil, who once headed the party’s Quebec wing, said the payment was one of two cash contributions totalling $9,000 that he made to Quebec ridings during the 1997 election campaign when he was assistant director of the wing.
Corbeil said he funnelled the cash during a time of “panic” when the Liberals were facing a stiff threat from the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
His claims corroborate allegations by another party official, as well as ad man Jean Brault, who both testified to underground Liberal fundraising activities in the 1990s.
Corbeil said Monday he received $5,000 in cash that he gave to organizers in Coderre’s Montreal riding of Bourassa after receiving the money in a sealed envelope from Michel Beliveau, then director of the Quebec wing.
He said Beliveau also gave him a second envelope of $4,000 for an east-end Montreal riding won by Liberal Yvon Charbonneau, a former labour leader.
“Who gave you these envelopes?” asked inquiry counsel Guy Cournoyer.
“Mr. Beliveau,” answered Corbeil.
“Where did he give them to you?” asked Cournoyer.
“In his office,” was the reply.
“He said ‘Benoit, listen, we have to lend a hand to Bourassa riding. Given that you’re a good friend of Denis Coderre, could you give this to someone?’ “
But the amounts of cash Corbeil claimed to have handled were much smaller than the sums Beliveau told the inquiry he gave Corbeil in 1997.
Beliveau, who Corbeil succeeded as head of the Quebec wing, told the inquiry last week he gave his then-assistant as much as $100,000 in an envelope for several ridings held by opposition parties.
Beliveau said the money came from Chretien ally Jacques Corriveau, who earned $7 million from sponsorship subcontracts.
Coderre, who won the 1997 election and currently sits as a Liberal backbencher, went on to become very active in the Chretien cabinet.
Here’s the alleged money trail:
- You and you family struggle and earn income from work.
- A huge percentage of it goes to the Liberal gov’t to spend for you because they think you’re too stupid to spend it properly yourself.
- Liberals take that money and spend it like drunk monkeys and try to bribe you with your own money—or buy you off like you’re a cheap hooker—whatever analogy you prefer—they’re both equally valid.
- Liberals take most of it and spend it on Fabian socialist endeavors like state-run this and that, designed to get you hooked on the benevolent liberal-left government—or “Dear Leader” as they call him in North Korea.
- Liberals take some of that money and keep it for themselves—their party—and deny that they did that.
- Liberals take a few tens or hundreds of millions of your family’s money to spend on getting Liberals re-elected, sort of like in a banana republic, or like they’re a political party that is literally trying to take over the country, with your cash.
- Prime Minister, who was the senior Liberal cabinet minister from Quebec and Finance Minister all this time, says he doesn’t know anything about any of this.
- That exact same party and nearly all of the exact same people are still in power today.
- That exact same party is ahead in the polls, so we have every reason to believe we won’t get to the bottom of it, and that it will keep happening.
Go team. Vote liberal.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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