Where did all the money go?

Thanks to Jean Brault, a great many things have become clearer. It is now clear, for example -- assuming his testimony is to be believed -- that we have been governed for more than a decade by a criminal organization. Or at any rate, by a political party that was willing to use criminal means to sustain itself in power. Some other points of clarity: It was not a rogue operation. The former executive director of the Liberal Party of Canada’s Quebec wing. Another former executive director. The former vice-president of finance for Quebec. The former Prime Minister’s director of operations. The former vice-president of the party. These are not fringe players or a parallel group within the Liberal party. They are the Liberal party. Or at any rate they were. Neither did they come to Mr. Brault with simple requests for funds, as ordinary bagmen do. Somehow they felt empowered to make promises and issue threats with regard to Mr. Brault’s eligibility for government business. Of particular note, as Don Martin has pointed out, was the promise on the part of Joe Morselli, the VP finance mentioned above and a close associate of Alfonso Gagliano, that Mr. Brault could have the contract to promote the gun registry to himself in exchange for $100,000 in cash. How was a mere fundraiser in a position to make such a promise, in effect to rig the bidding on a competitive tender? The Martin government is not untouched. The attempt to present Mr. Martin’s government as something separate and distinct from that of his predecessor was always rather tenuous -- Mr. Martin’s cabinet contains more than a dozen former Chretien ministers -- and the list of those maintained on Mr. Brault’s publicly-funded taxi squad is no exception. In addition to various Chretien-era hangers-on and Gagliano family members, it allegedly includes John Welch, lately chief of staff to Liza Frulla, the Communications minister, whom Mr. Brault says was placed on his payroll at the urging of Denis Paradis, formerly minister of state for financial institutions; Claire Brouillet, a Liberal campaign worker, sometime candidate and former aide to Lucienne Robillard, the Intergovernmental Affairs minister [NOTE: Apparently she never worked for Robillard: a correction was entered into the record at the Gomery inquiry. See http://gomery.irri.net/Apr%2005,%2005%20PB/gomery92apr0505PB.pdf, pages 16273-4.]; and Jacques Roy, a top organizer for Mr. Martin in Quebec and until very recently a paid fundraiser for the party. None of this proves anything. But it does suggest that Mr. Brault’s usefulness as a means of paying Liberal staff on the sly was widely understood within the party’s Quebec wing, including among those who were, shall we say, closer to Mr. Martin than Mr. Chretien. It had nothing to do with saving the country. Mr. Brault testified that the trading of money for contracts began well before the 1995 referendum -- in fact, shortly after the Liberals took office in 1993 -- and continued as late as 2002, well after the separatist scare had passed. As the gun registry episode makes clear, moreover, the practice ranged far afield from showing the flag at Quebec car races. At the same time, Mr. Brault’s testimony raises a good many questions as well. Among them: Where did all the money go? The Liberal Party of Canada has been in power for more than a decade, with all the perqs that go with it: ministerial use of government aircraft, franking privileges and the like. Elections Canada figures show it has raised far more money than any other party in that time, even by lawful means, let alone the millions of dollars that are alleged to have been siphoned from the public purse or other illicit sources. On top of which it has received millions more in perfectly legal public funding. Yet it still says its finances are precarious. The Quebec wing alone claims to be $3-million in debt. How is this possible? How common is the custom? Mr. Brault says that when it was first suggested to him by a Parti Quebecois official that he should round up several employees to make contributions to the party, then reimburse them out of company (which is to say, federal) funds -- in violation of provincial campaign laws banning corporate donations -- he was told that this was a “common” way of doing things. Is it? Ms. Brouillet, similarly, told the Globe and Mail it was “the custom” for political parties to pay their staff through a company. It is? Couldn’t they have driven a harder bargain? Mr. Brault’s company won business worth a total of $172-million over the years. He says only $60-million of this was tainted, which you can choose to believe if you like, and that he cleared about $6-million. All of this, in return for what is reckoned to be (no one knows for sure) a mere $2-million in cash and in-kind contributions to the Liberal party. Isn’t this a little lopsided? If the integrity of public office, not to say the taxpayer’s interests, are going to be sold down the river, they might at least fetch a decent price.