Andrew Coyne of the National Post, as he frequently does, grasps this Liberal Party corruption scandal with a firm hand. He suggests at the end of his piece that the people who are equally to blame for all of this corruption are all the people who voted for these people—the people who chose to look the other way. The Liberals, after all, had a reason to believe they could get away with all of this.
But I liked this part:
Indeed, it would be truer to say that Mr. Brault’s firm, Groupaction, was not really in the business of advertising at all. He was in the money-laundering business, but for his best customers was willing to throw in an advertising campaign or sponsorship event in the bargain. Some of the money he received was allegedly kicked back directly into Liberal party coffers, some went to maintain Liberal party operatives and members of ministers’ families on his payroll, some to provide lavish meals and entertainment for senior Liberals and their associates. And some went to well-connected middlemen to keep the whole circular flow of funds in motion.
Of course, we only have Mr. Brault’s word for it: his word, supported by the testimony of several previous witnesses and and [sic] reams and reams of incriminating documents. Perhaps we will find it was not high-level Liberal thugs who leaned on Mr. Brault to pay up or lose the federal contracts that had made him such a wealthy man.
Mr. Brault has testified in meticulous detail that the operation was directed by senior members of the Liberal Party, including close associates of Jean Chretien; that it was known of and used by a wide cross-section of the party’s Quebec wing; and that this included aides to members of Paul Martin’s cabinet.
This last revelation is particularly damning. Mr. Martin and his government scraped through the last election, barely, on the strength of the claim that they were not just Mr. Chretien’s government plus a cabinet shuffle, but rather a wholly new government, who would clean up the mess left by the last. But now the cordon sanitaire has been broken, and there are more witnesses to come.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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