Sing little birdy (cont'd)

The Globe banners the real story of the day: Benoit Corbeil's confirmation -- and extension -- of Jean Brault's testimony:

A high-ranking Liberal organizer says he received tens of thousands of dollars in sponsorship cash in 2000 from the president of Groupaction Marketing and funnelled the funds into the hands of "fake volunteers" working on the Liberal campaign. Benoît Corbeil, the former director-general of the Liberal Party's office in Montreal, said in an interview that he received approval from some of his superiors for the cash transactions that were part of a regular flouting of electoral law. At the time, Mr. Corbeil was at the top of the party's organization in Quebec, working under the direct supervision of then-minister Alfonso Gagliano. Mr. Corbeil is the first Liberal official to state that funds from the sponsorship program were illicitly funnelled back to the senior members of the party. The declaration corroborates explosive testimony from Jean Brault, president of Groupaction, that he gave money to Mr. Corbeil for the Liberal Party and is certain to rock the Martin government.

And:

He is scheduled to testify [before the Gomery inquiry] in early May, at which point he wants to highlight the level of control that was exercised upon him at the time by the Prime Minister's Office of Jean Chrétien and the Liberal hierarchy in Quebec.

And of course:

Mr. Corbeil said the people who received the cash payments were part of a larger group of party supporters who worked at the Liberal Party's headquarters in Montreal during the election campaign. He said most of that larger group were lawyers, engineers or accountants from major firms, which he said hoped to reap federal contracts after the election. "They don't want to get paid right away, they want to get paid later," he said, noting that many of the lawyers have since been named to the bench.

This is huge, huge, huge. See my previous post on the subject. Also see the Star (New Liberal bombshell drops):

Benoît Corbeil, who served as executive director of the Liberal Party of Canada's Quebec wing in the late 1990s, told Radio-Canada that of the 20 or so lawyers who volunteered for the party during the 2000 federal election, some "seven or eight" were appointed to the judicial bench. "Anyone who wanted to be a judge or win mandates needed to have friendly relations with those people," he told [Radio-Canada].

The Post folds the Corbeil revelations into the PM-to-address-nation screamer, but in a separate story adds this intriguing teaser:

Saying he recently heard about another scandal that made the hair on his head stand on end, Liberal Senator Jean Lapointe predicted it will take "a miracle" for the Liberals to cling to power in the upcoming election. Sen. Lapointe, who was appointed by former prime minister Jean Chretien, said in a recent interview he could not divulge details about the new scandal since he had heard about it at a closed-door Liberal caucus meeting, details of which members of Parliament are not supposed to divulge.

But now that you've brought it up, Jean...