While testifying at the historic Chretien/Martin Liberal Party Corruption and Future Crime Drama Rehearsal (and clown convention!), a liberal said that he didn’t do anything to earn his taxpayer cash. Again: didn’t do anything to earn taxpayer cash.
Liberals are launching an investigation not to put and end to this practice, but to find out how he almost got away with it without the dumb taxpayers finding out.
Jean Chretien’s good friend Jacques Corriveau did almost nothing to earn a $6.7 million cut from a Montreal promoter’s sponsorship deals, an inquiry heard Tuesday.
Promoter and publisher Luc Lemay said he simply rubber-stamped Corriveau’s bills, which in some cases appeared to be duplicates with the names of various events pasted in.
Lead inquiry counsel Bernard Roy ran down a list of $36 million in federal sponsorship contracts handled from 1996 to 2002 by Lemay’s firms, mainly for hunting and fishing shows in rural Quebec.
Corriveau, a Liberal organizer and graphic designer, had cut himself in on the lucrative deals to the tune of 17.5 per cent. But Lemay acknowledged the former prime minister’s friend did little more than eyeball mockups for most of the contracts.
Roy asked: “The bills that you received at the time were for honorariums for services that were not really performed as described in the bills.”
Lemay confirmed: “I never verified these bills.”
The “shrug” is the official Liberal Party symbol. Well that and “handcuffs”.
The judge then gave Lemay a quick lesson on ethics.
“One is not supposed to use their influence, their contacts with the government to secure contracts, right?” said the judge.
He added: “You’ve never heard about what we call influence peddling that’s forbidden in the public service?”
Lemay simply shrugged.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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