In Canada, as the June 28 elections approach, the “sponsorship scandal” is being swept under the carpet by the Liberals and the media. And many don’t even know what it’s about. Here’s a guide.
The scandal is about a Liberal government program in which they set up a huge budget that was designed to help national unity in light of a Quebec separation referendum. The idea seemed to be the brilliant “plaster the huge ‘Canada’ logo over every god damned thing in the country” idea. The result is that now, everything looks like it was “brought to you by the government”. Oh goody. A socialist dream come true. We also have the Bloc Quebecois seemingly poised to become the major power-broker in Canada’s parliament, taking nearly every single seat in Quebec. Beauty! The plan worked out exactly as most government projects do!
The plan cost us a mere $250,000,000. That’s a quarter of a BILLION dollars. Plus another $500 MILLION (half a BILLION) later discovered after the Auditor General’s scathing report came out earlier this year. But it’s not really the amount of the money, believe it or not, that is at the core of the scandal. It’s a question of where the money ended up—which always tended to have the words “Liberal Party” attached to it.
As handy a guide as this is, we don’t know even a fraction of what has gone on in the “Sponsorship scandal”, or “Adscam”, or whatever you choose to call what I call “the most hellacious political corruption in the history of ‘our Canada’ “.
We merely have a few measly tidbits. Such as what follows. The only people who really know exactly what happened and where all the money went is the Liberals. Like Paul Martin, who was finance minister nearly the whole time. Oh well. Too bad so many people will vote for them anyway, endorsing their corruption, and likely pushing them back into power.
Molson Indy
Over 5 years the Sponsorship Fund doled out $1.2 million to the Toronto Molson Indy. But it wasn’t paid to the race organizers, it went to a Liberal Party-friendly ad agency. And of that money, $346,507 was kept by a Liberal Party ad agency to pay for “commissions and production fees”. The ad agency then forwarded a cheque for the rest to the race organizers. Why? Who knows!
But “commissions and production fees”? The Toronto Molson Indy wasn’t a production of “Canada”! Nearly 29 percent of the taxpayer contribution to the Toronto Molson Indy went to a Liberal ad firm—for what?
Not for anything reusable, apparently… The exact same thing happened at the Vancouver Molson Indy. The Sponsorship Fund laid $1.19 million onto that event and ad agencies kept $364,286 in commissions and handling fees.
Ice Hockey
In 2000-2001, the Sponsorship Fund handed out $905,000 to the NHL. As usual, for some weird reason, the money didn’t go to the NHL, it went to a Liberal-connected ad agency. Group Everest, received a commission of $108,600, and yet another agency, Media/I.D.A. Vision, got a commission of $27,150.
Plus the Liberal government paid out another $95,000 in “sub-contracting production” through this agency. So the total cost of the NHL deal was $1,135,750.
Then there was the official government sponsorship of a television series involving Maurice “Rocket” Richard (I personally never even heard of it, and certainly wouldn’t bother watching it, but then like 94.2 percent of Canada, I also don’t watch the billion-dollar-per-year state-run media giant, the CBC, and that never bothered the Liberals).
A private company, L’information essentialle, produced this series and got $4.75 MILLION Sponsorship Fund grant to do it. Out of that money FIVE ad agencies (Lafleur, Media/I.D.A. Vision, Gosselin, and Groupaction) received $437,532 in commissions without signing ANY CONTRACTS or even DOING ANY WORK.
Go for a pee—there’s lots more! The Liberal government also got government-owned Via Rail to advance nearly $1 MILLION to this TV series. Why would government-owned VIA Rail advance additional money to this project? Who knows! (Well, the Liberal Party no doubt knows, but not us lowly Canadians).
Canada’s Auditor General Sheila Fraser voiced her suspicion about this whole thing, but the Liberals didn’t care what she said:
“It appears that these transactions were part of an elaborate process used to obtain funds from current appropriations, in order to pay for a highly irregular and questionable expenditure incurred by VIA Rail…and also to facilitate the payment of a commission to the communications agency.”
Canada Post ALSO paid $1.6 million to sponsor the series, WITHOUT ANY DOCUMENTATION.
Another government-owned outfit feeding cash to this series? Why? Who knows! Oh yeah, the Liberals know.
RCMP
Yes, the Liberal government even got its RCMP involved. Of course the RCMP is currently investigating this whole sponsorship scandal. Interesting!
The Liberals decided to sponsor the RCMP’s 125th anniversary, through the Sponsorship Fund program, which laid out $3 MILLION. I never even knew the RCMP had a big celebration and if I had a vote on spending that cash I’d have laughed as I voted “not a chance in hell”, especially given the massive underfunding of the RCMP in this era of global terrorism.
But they didn’t give the money directly to them, as eerily usual. No, the Liberals funneled the money, for no apparent reason, to three ad agencies—Lafleur, Media/I.D.A. Vision, and Gosselin. They then sent the money to the RCMP.
Ad agencies doling out government money to a government agency? Why?! Who knows? The Liberals know!
Before passing the money on to the RCMP, they naturally kept $1.3 MILLION for “fees and commissions”. The RCMP only got $1.7 MILLION of the $3 MILLION handed out by the Liberals.
The transactions were recorded manually and some of the supporting documents WERE LATER DESTROYED.
The Auditor General also raised an eyebrow when she found that the RCMP spent a huge chunk of that money on six horses and two trailers. That oughta show Bin Laden who’s boss!
Canada Post
The Liberals handed out $600,000 to Canada Post so it could participate in an international stamp show. Again: international stamp show. Beware all you anthrax mailers! We’ve got cool stamps!
But wait! The Liberals, as you can now see, never give the money directly to the recipient—they laundered(?) the money through ad agencies like, in this case, Lafleur and I.D.A. Vision, who kept $78,261 of it for themselves as, you guessed it, a “commission”.
They “earned” this “commission” simply by transferring the money to Canada Post. As you and I know, Canada Post only charges 45 CENTS to mail a cheque.
BUT THERE’S MORE! Canada Post then took $516,000 of what was left over and PAID IT TO AN AD AGENCY to help “promote the project”. (What project?). What ad agency? Lafleur, of course. THAT WAS THE SAME AD AGENCY THAT GOT THE “COMMISSION” FOR TRANSFERRING THE MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE!
And again, THERE WAS NO SIGNED CONTRACT between the Post Office and Lafleur for any of this “work”.
Other Scams
- The Old Port of Montreal got $1.5 MILLION from the Spons
orship Fund so it could buy a new screen for its Science Center. Did they simply get a cheque? No! You could probably complete the next sentence! The money was funneled through Lafleur and Media/I.D.A. Vision, which kept $225,000 in “commissions”. - Ad agency Groupaction received a huge $330,000 contract from Public Works Canada to develop “a communications strategy” for the new firearms legislation. WHERE IS THE “STRATEGY”? NOWHERE! No strategy, no report, no nothing! According to the Auditor general, Groupaction took the money and that’s the end of it. Perhaps the Liberals and Paul Martin know where the money went. I’m not sure. I don’t know.
- Groupaction got another contract worth $465,000 to sponsor something called “SÃ
Writer and Executive Editor for ProudToBeCanadian.ca.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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I was looking for information on the sponsership scandel.. Im 30yr old female who spent my 20s partying & being totally obliviously to anything political. But I’ve changed my ways and trying to back peddle on important issues that have occured,so this is the reason for my not having heard of this scandel until coming across it while googling today.. After going threw acouple pages on google, reading every article about the sponsorship scandle,from wikipidias explanation to medias and blogs,I still didnt have a clear understanding of what this scandle entailed.. I was thankful i ended up coming across your blog,as i now fully understand and can move on from having to research it any further. Of everything i read,yours was by far the best written, explained very well, and didnt leave anything out (unlike other articles i read on this topic) Thank you for taking the time to put that together and putting that out there. Ive never been pro liberal,im very anti-liberal,but i had No idea they had done something like this!! Im left feeling mind boggled that Anyone would be jumping aboard the Justin Trudeau ship! Could canadians have forgotten or like me, arent aware of how the liberals robbed us out of millions and millions, and illegally launder money like a political mafia.. Or are canadians just wayyyyy too forgiving?! Maybe its just because its fresh in my head that i find this unforgivable,especially in the
Course of only a few years,maybe 20-30yrs from now we can considering forgiving them,but to have stold that much of our money,& a few years later we act like liberals are a party to consider? And its even worst the one running for leadership of this country is the Son of the son of a B who robbed our country blind! Come on we cant be that stupid,we’re not americans! Did we learn nothing from the Bushes? Like father like son?.. If i robbed u of millions,a few years goes by, are you going to let me back in your life? Back in your home? Hoping you can trust me not to rob you of millions again? Of course not, you’d be an idiot to do that. How and why is this Any different? Im not the smartest person,im blonde,i make my living working at Hooters, if i can see the idiotness in giving the liberals a shot at running our country, so soon after a scandle that had millions of our tax dollars launder by our leader, and possibly giving that leadership to the son of the man who was at the top of this disgusting raping of our trust and taxes, then its embarassing for everyone to not see it… Thank you for this article,I will be reminding Everyone about this scandle and awarding leadership of our country to a Trudeau liberal would lead to a horrific out come for our country. We’re not in the economic shambles the states is in but we’re not rich enough that we can allow our government to steal millions upon millions of our tax dollars,we shell out for schools, hospitals, how about fixing our pot hole ridden,lumpy bumpy roads in my city, that have cost me alot of money fixing my broken suspension from driving on these roads,that were rated in the top 10 worst roads in all of Canada!! That money could have gone to schools, theyve closed 12 schools in my city including my old highschool because they lacked the money to keep them open.Ok understandable.. Except its not understandable if they have millions and millions to give ad agencies commission for money laundering and shelling back millions to themselves. All while teachers have to purchase out of their pocket, pencils, paper, books, classroom decor, everything and anything needed to have a functional classroom because our tax dollars arent good enough to go to them. The ad agencies are farrrr more deserving…That money could have made a decent difference had it gone to fund job creation, my city alone is hugely under employed with more people living below poverty then above. Maybe just maybe then I could actually find a job in my field, so the thousands i spent on college and the years I put into my degree could actually be benefital, instead of slinging orders at Hooters.. Dont judge,I have to pay my rent, bills and government loans back somehow, and finding a job in my field has been impossible,not just for me,for everyone from my class and almost everyone who’s graduated from college/university the past 10yrs or so…Sooooo BIG thanks to you liberals for caring about us more than yourselves. For taking money that Did Not belong to u. For not spending Our money on Us but instead on yourselves, who already have cushy secure government jobs,but still feel your entitled to that money over us… And thank you to anyone who actually took the time to read my enormous novel rant lol… PLEASE let us not forget how the liberals stold massive amounts of our money,what that money could have done for us had it been in the hands of even a decent political party. Im not saying vote conservative,not saying for NDP, or green party..Im just saying dont vote liberal. Dont let them think all is forgotten so soon. Can you really allow a party who did that to us run our country, put our trust into them to be the dictators of our money,just a few year after they unappologetically, sneakly robbed us blind, all while hoping not to get caught. And obviously continued doing it as they realised it was working for them to launder our money to themselves threw a 3rd party. If you still think trudeau’s are capable of running our country then go ahead and vote for them,but Im sure us canadians have a good deal of common sense, so let them know stealing from us is not ok and is not awarded with leadership first chance they get to run again following the scandle… Ok, thats all i have to say about that :p