I’m really fastidious when it comes to spelling, grammar and punctuation and it drives me a little nuts when people type without regard to the rules (—but I get over it!) Despite my noble intentions, I know I make spelling mistakes and typos here—sometimes I leave out entire words. I don’t have a professional editor looking over my posts! (It always blows me away how almost nobody points out my mistakes except my wife who proof-reads everything from her place of work miles away, and a reader/supporter named MikeR from Calgary). I try my hardest but I’m multi-tasking and have way too much work to do.
Anyway it’s not very often you find this many mistakes in one story in big fat national newspapers. This is a story in the National Post today—it’s about the Gomery inquiry testimony into Liberal Party corruption so maybe that accounts for the lack of importance attached to the “rules” to which us normal non-Liberal citizen-folk have to abide.
This article is informative in any case but I’ll highlight all the mistakes—all capitalization-related—in the article headlined “Grit lugged suitcase of cash to campaign”, by Graeme Hamilton (sorry Graeme—let’s blame your editor!). This is how it actually appeared in their online version of the paper (I don’t get the paper version so I can’t verify that):
MONTREAL – A senior Liberal organizer told the Gomery inquiry yesterday that he asked no questions when a top Liberal official gave him $120,000 in cash to finance the 1997 federal election campaign.
Marc-Yvan Cote, the chief Liberal organizer for eastern Quebec for the 1997 and 2000 elections, described carrying $60,000 of the cash in a suitcase to shawinigan, where jean chretien launched the 1997 campaign in the presence of all the Quebec liberal candidates. Mr. Cote said he divided the money among nine candidates who needed help covering expenses, giving them between $5,000 and $10,000 each. The remaining $60,000 was given a few weeks later to another nine candidates.
Asked whether he had placed the money in the bank before distributing it, he said no.
“I have a hard time seeing how I could arrive at the bank with $60,000 and say, ‘I’m coming from the casino,’” he said.
Mr. Cote, who served as a provincial cabinet minister from 1985-1994, corroborated large parts of the testimony last week by Michel Beliveau, a close Chretien supporter who broke down in tears after testifying that he had solicited between $250,000 and $300,000 in cash that never showed up in the Liberal books.
Mr. Beliveau said the money came from Jacques Corriveau, a friend of Mr. Chretien who made nearly $8-million from the sponsorship program. He said he personally received between $75,000 and $100,000 from Mr. Corriveau, which he passed on to Benoit Corbeil, who at the time was in charge of organizing the western half of Quebec.
He testified that he was led to believe by Mr. Cote that he had received from Mr. Corriveau the $175,000 to $200,000 he needed for eastern Quebec. Mr. Cote testified that in fact he received only $120,000, of which half was given to him directly by Mr. Beliveau at the liberal headquarters in montreal.
Commission counsel guy cournoyer asked Mr. Cote whether he was surprised to receive two large envelopes bulging with $100 bills.
“I would have preferred another form [of payment],” he said, “But under the circumstances, it did not surprise me. Eight years later, I can say it was definitely a mistake.”
He said he never asked Mr. Beliveau where the money came from. “I should have asked questions but I didn’t because of the whirlwind we were in,” he said.
The latest evidence that liberal campaigns were fuelled with illicit cash came right after a liberal party lawyer attempted to discredit testimony on monday by former party official Mr. Corbeil. Producing photos of Mr. Corbeil’s renovated cottage and implying he was living beyond his means, doug mitchell, the liberals’ lawyer, suggested that Mr. Corbeil pocketed cash that he said he had used to pay party workers in 2000.
Mr. Corbeil told the inquiry, headed by justice john gomery, that immediately before the 2000 election he was given $50,000 in cash by Jean Brault, whose company groupaction was a major beneficiary of the federal sponsorship program. Mr. Corbeil said he needed the money to pay nine people working on the campaign, mainly ministerial aides on leave from Ottawa.
Mr. Mitchell filed with the inquiry photos the Liberals had taken two weeks ago of Mr. Corbeil’s cottage, in the Laurentians. He also asked Mr. Corbeil about a high-powered boat he purchased and a $16,000 contribution he made to his rrsp in 2000. Questioned on the relevance of the photos, Mr. Mitchell told Justice Gomery: “It is possible … that I will ask you to conclude that Mr. Corbeil, rather than giving the money from Mr. Brault to the party, pocketed it.”
Mr. Corbeil vigorously denied the accusation. Under questioning from his own lawyer, Guy Bertrand, he described his personal financial situation as far from rosy. He said he has $182,000 outstanding on a mortgage covering his house and boat and owes a combined $31,000 on two credit cards.
Under cross-examination, Mr. Corbeil changed his story on some points, including elements of his claim on monday that alfonso Gagliano, the former public works minister, had called urging him not to come clean during his testimony. Under questioning by Mr. Gagliano’s lawyer, pierre fournier, Mr. Corbeil acknowledged he had remained close to Mr. Gagliano after leaving the liberal party in 2001, and called the former minister in distress in early april after losing his job at the universite du Quebec a Montreal. He had said on monday that Mr. Gagliano called out of the blue and that he had not spoken to him since Christmas.
Mr. Corbeil also testified that in federal election campaigns, dozens of professionals, whom he calls “Fake volunteers,” would arrive at party headquarters in montreal and work out of a separate office that was not accounted for in the official books. He said these people, from law firms, engineering firms and communications agencies, would work for nothing in the expectation that they would reap contracts and appointments if the liberals formed the next government.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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