It's much, much worse than we realized

The documents are starting to come to the surface, as scores are settled, warnings are conveyed, and officials scramble to save their careers. ITEM: Chantal Hebert reports ('I got 50k from Liberal 'slush fund') that the sponsorship program, far from a well-intentioned program that was exploited by a few unscrupulous individuals, "was basically run as a political slush fund for the Jean Chr�tien Liberals."

Ministers and political aides rather than civil servants had the real run of the program. Contrary to the impression conveyed by Prime Minister Paul Martin since the release of Auditor-General Sheila Fraser's damning indictment of the program, the ministerial levels of the government were familiar with the special features of the program. Cabinet members as well as their staffers were aware of the very political status of the program, starting with the fact that it was exempt from normal government operating procedures.

Indeed, it wasn't even restricted to Quebec. "While it was primarily aimed at post-referendum Quebec, other ministers from outside the province also occasionally dipped into it to reward Liberal friends whose pet projects needed extra government funding." Among them: David Anderson, Environment Minister and � oh dear � "key ally of Paul Martin." ITEM: Bob Fife reports (Ottawa was warned in '96 of ad abuses):

The Liberal government was warned as early as 1996 of serious ethical and management abuses in the awarding of advertising contracts at Public Works and an independent internal audit in June, 1997, drew similar conclusions that were ignored at the highest levels, senior officials say. A senior Public Works official rang the alarm bells in 1996 that Liberal-friendly advertising firms in Quebec were billing for work that was not done and had won lucrative contracts without competition and that documents were backdated to hide the abuses. The Chretien government did commission an internal audit, but its findings were largely disregarded and the official who complained about the abuses was later threatened and almost fired, senior government sources say.

Networks of party officials doling out public cash? Threats against civil servants who know too much? That doesn't sound like the Chretien modus operandi.... THEN THERE'S THIS extraordinary outburst from the CTV's Mike Duffy, transcribed by Don of All Things Canadian and posted here:

The allegation is that senior political figures used the ad agencies to launder money and so, for example, the wife of a senior politician goes shopping in downtown Montreal, buying very expensive clothes, and a person from the ad agency goes along with a Visa card and goes 'click' 'click' and it gets charged back to the advertising agency and gets charged back to the Government of Canada..... As more and more of this comes out it's not just about some esoteric plan to buy sponsorships in Quebec. Its about senior people using these ad agencies as what they say is a 'dry cleaning' operation so that, for example, if a senior official, very close to the top of the previous administration, wanted to have a condo in Montreal so he could go down and meet his 'lady friends,' the ad agencies would provide that � bill it back to the government as if it's advertising. This is the most corrupt thing I've ever heard of in all my years on Parliament Hill and it's getting worse by the day... It is so serious and so sickening, and goes so high and involves so much money that it makes anything that was ever said about Brian Mulroney and his administration pale by comparison. This is very serious stuff. The royal commission will bring out the hearsay because that's a lower standard of proof than you need for criminal charges but the police are on this in a very big way. Trust me, store clerks who saw the little person with the Visa card buying it for the wife of famous people and those who went on trips simply to pick up gifts on behalf of senior politicians and put them on the ad agency card and get back on the plane to bring them back home where they were given as a gift to these senior politicians - this will all come out. It may take a while but it will all come out and it's going to blow this town wide open.

Then again, Bill Thorsell says it's time to move on.