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There are two things that regulars to this blog know very well:
One of them is how much I detest what I have come to call the “Liberal Party’s state sponsorship logo”. I loathe that thing. It’s a symbol of socialism to me. A symbol of much of what is wrong with this country. It’s a symbol of the Liberal Party of Canada to me. They started using it heavily during the sponsorship scandal, before we found out about the scandal.
I’ve referred to it so many times here that I have three sizes on this site’s server for my ready use.
I’ve said that you can’t be awake for more than three hours in this country without seeing that thing plastered all over the place. You could even play a game like our Paul Martin Fact YOU! game, only say “Fact YOU!” whenever you see that creepy logo.
It’s at the end of every made-in-Canada TV show because they’ve all been “sponsored” by the benevolent Liberals in their effort to make every single Canadian, every company, and every institution totally reliant upon them—the benevolent Liberals—so you will eventually HAVE to vote for them just to remain alive. You see it at every festival, at the end of every made-in Canada movie, and, well, everywhere. It’s “Canadian culture”, brought to you not by Canadians just being Canadians, but brought to you by your Liberal government. It’s so very Soviet Unionesque.
It reminds me of seeing giant posters or pictures of Stalin or Kim Jung Il all over the streets and in every book and magazine and all over the TV and in films in their respective countries. Only it’s done here in that meek Canadian way instead.
Another thing everybody knows is that I like Licia Corbella’s column in the Calgary Sun, because I’ve pointed to it approximately 6.7 million times.
And now it’s better because she has substantiated my sneaking suspicions and corroborated my ill-feeling toward that damned symbol. She has today helped expose to the nation the outright lie and deceit and corruption behind what I suspected about that damned little thing.
Read her column:
The federal Liberal government allowed the word Canada and the Canadian flag to be used to launder money.
In March of 2004, Canadians learned that they paid almost $1 million for the development of the “Canada” logo—that simply consists of the word: Canada with a small Canadian flag above the last letter “a”.
The logo—also called the Canada wordmark—can be found on most government websites, on all federal government buildings and also at special events sponsored by the feds.
In previously secret Liberal cabinet documents, made public as a result of the inquiry by Justice John Gomery into the federal Liberal government’s sponsorship scandal, it was revealed eight Liberal-friendly advertising firms charged taxpayers $989,000 for “development and consulting” of the Canada logo.
But now, it turns out, the wordmark was developed long ago.
Michelle Laliberte, a spokesperson with the federal government’s Treasury Board Secretariat, said the wordmark was first developed in 1965 by a now defunct government agency called the Canadian Government Travel Bureau.
“It was developed for a newspaper advertisement and it kind of took off from there. It’s become an official symbol of the government and has been legally protected and trademarked,” said Laliberte yesterday.
In other words, Canadians paid $1 million for the development of something they already owned.
This discovery was made quite by accident.
David Chrumka stumbled upon a March 1977 National Geographic magazine earlier this week when he came across a two-page federal government travel ad containing the logo.
Seeing the logo in a 29-year-old magazine baffled Chrumka since he recalled—verbatim—the front page of the March 26, 2004 Calgary Sun.
The front-page headline said: “YOU SPENT $1M FOR THIS” and showed the Canada wordmark.
“It was scandalous enough when we learned that we paid $1 million for the Canada logo but it’s even more scandalous to learn we paid $1 million for the development of something that the government already owned for decades,” said Chrumka, 46, who is currently working two jobs, as a bicycle courier and Pengrowth Saddledome maintenance worker, to make ends meet.
“This corrupt government actually used our country’s name and flag in a devious scheme to launder money. It’s disgusting.”
During the inquiry into the sponsorship scandal, Justice John Gomery released thousands of pages of previously secret cabinet documents to the media.
The Sun’s Greg Weston reported that out of the secret $50-million annual National Unity Reserve, administered directly out of the Prime Minister’s Office throughout the mid-1990s until it was scrapped on budget day, March 23, 2004 , $989,000 was spent on “development and consulting” of the Canada logo.
One of the eight Liberal-friendly advertising firms that received money for “logo development and consulting fees” was Groupe Everest, which pulled in $200,000 from the secret slush fund on this file alone.
Groupe Everest, which no longer exists, was owned by Claude Boulay, a friend of Prime Minister Paul Martin.
Boulay, who could not be reached, and his firm worked on Martin’s 1990 leadership campaign.
Documents show Boulay’s firms donated more than $173,000 to the federal Liberals between 1996 and 2003. Boulay’s firms received $55 million in federal government advertising contracts for little or no work as found by Gomery and federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser.
When the existence of the National Unity Reserve first became public on budget day, March 23, 2004, the federal Liberals admitted the $500-million fund was a state secret that was never revealed in any budget documents and “its name was never spoken to Paul Martin in his years as finance minister,” reported The Canadian Press and CTV news.
But just one year later, on Feb. 10, 2005, during sworn testimony before Justice Gomery, Martin admitted he found out about the National Unity Reserve in 1996—some eight years earlier than previously claimed.
The reserve was due to expire in 1996 but when a decision was made to continue with the reserve fund, Martin admitted he had to approve it before it could be extended.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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