Corriveau's disease

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be ad men: It seems to do terrible things to your health. Consider the string of medical emergencies that have befallen witnesses in the Adscam affair. There's Jean Brault, stricken with heart problems and given to sudden fits of sobbing. There's Eric Lafleur, scion of the agency that bears his name, unable to appear before the inquiry on the appointed day, his lawyer said, because he had been taken to hospital "in a condition I dare not describe." There's Gilles-Andre Gosselin, the ad exec who billed the government 11 hours a day every day of the year in 1997, who suffered a breakdown while testifying and had to be given two weeks' rest. (Should have seen it coming: After appearing before the Public Accounts committee last year, Gosselin was found "in an emotionally distraught state behind a hearing room.") And then there's Jacques Corriveau, who has Alzheimer's. Well, he didn't quite claim to have contracted the incurable brain disease. He said someone close to him does, and he knows what it's like. But certainly he gave every sign of suffering from some sort of rare memory disorder. Something of the same seems to have afflicted most of the former cabinet ministers, Liberal party flunkies and overcoiffed ad men to testify in this matter -- Jean Lafleur, Eric's father, declared himself unable to recall this or that no fewer than 22 times -- but Corriveau's is of an especially virulent strain. Perhaps in time it will be known as Corriveau's Disease, the way ALS is known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. The symptoms: * Corriveau said he has "concentration and memory problems," variously ascribed to old age, medication and the lingering effects of surgery six months ago. CP confirms he "sometimes couldn't give exact answers or had to be asked a question more than once" during testimony Friday. * He was unaware that lobbying the government without registering as a lobbyist was illegal, he said, because it wasn't his "milieu." * He submitted invoices bearing the name of several hitherto-unknown Olympic Stadiums, in places such as Rimouski and Trois-Rivieres, because of "a significant printing error." * He could not remember why records kept in Jean Chretien's office showed dozens of phone conversations between the two men, but theorized it was to discuss the work Chretien's son Michel was doing for him -- four years before. * "Asked about a notation in Groupaction president Jean Brault's agenda book indicating Corriveau was at a meeting of sponsorship high rollers at Montreal's posh Club St. Denis - a get-together that included Renaud and Charles Guité, who ran the program - Corriveau said he did not recall being there, although he did remember meeting Guité." * Although he knew as early as 1996 about the sponsorship program -- before many cabinet ministers -- "he could not say specifically how he learned that the federal spigot was being opened." Why not? Apparently, because it was his "milieu":

“I have to tell you, Mr. Commissioner, as a volunteer within the Liberal Party of Canada, I was involved in a very political milieu and an advertising environment,” he told Judge Gomery before his explanation trailed off.

* And much more besides:

Asked when he had first spent time with another person who has figured in the testimony he could offer no better than a four-year range a decade ago. He didn't remember whether he had recommended the man, Claude Boulay, to another key figure, Luc Lemay. And he could not be sure when asked how long he had been aware that the federal government was keen to spend sponsorship dollars in Quebec.

Of course, we might not have to depend quite so heavily on Corriveau's failing memory had he not made it a practice to shred his agenda books at the end of every month. Probably just as well: had he not done so, they might have perished in the same flood that destroyed all of Alain Renaud's records. It's all very alarming. The incidence of profound memory loss among elderly Liberal gentlemen is clearly at epidemic levels, and while I might otherwise attach no importance to the Prime Minister's inability to remember having lunch with Claude Boulay, under the circumstances I can only urge him to seek prompt medical attention at the private clinic of his choice.