Blind trust

The Bloc has picked up another angle:

Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, Parliament reformed political party financing in the fall of 2003. One of the measures imposed by the government concerned the blind transfer of funds from personal trusts to the riding associations before midnight on December 31, 2003. That is the reality.     Will the government admit that this was a huge money laundering operation, which probably wiped out all traces of sponsorship money in the trust funds?     Hon. Mauril Bélanger (Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Minister responsible for Official Languages, Minister responsible for Democratic Reform and Associate Minister of National Defence, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, if the member opposite or anyone else in the House wants to obtain a report by any riding association representing any party, they need only go to the Elections Canada web site, which has all the information on all the riding associations for all the registered parties.     Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, we are hearing about cash payments, phoney invoices, salaries paid by agencies, and now about the laundering of trust money on December 31, 2003.     Will the government admit that the audit done by Deloitte & Touche involved only the books of the Liberal Party, and did not in any way include the books of the riding associations, on which there were millions of dollars, some of it transferred from MPs' and ministers' personal trust funds?     The Speaker: Once again, the hon. member has asked a question relating to a party's business. Another firm is involved, but again it concerns a party's finances. The hon. member has not made a connection with the government's responsibilities. Perhaps she would like to remedy this with a second question.     Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, on December 31, 2003, the government used the political party funding legislation to organize the blind transfer of sums of money from trust accounts.     Will the government admit that part of the dirty money is with the riding associations, because millions of dollars were transferred to them on December 31, 2003, without any control by the chief electoral officer?

For more on those trusts, see here.