Ottawa's Pork Barrel

[maplesyrup]

Last week, the first week back in the House of Commons saw PM Martin under relentless attack over his CSL interests.

Although the Martin Liberals tried to bury the CSL news with a flury of other announcements, it looks like this story is far from over.

Martin firm more foreign than Canadian

More than half of ships fly foreign flags, despite PM's claim company pays taxes here and is 'fundamentally' Canadian

http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen...4d-5c7c7e6390fd

This week, on Tuesday, Sheila Fraser, Auditor General is rumoured to be going to drope a bombshell about government corruption.

What will the Martin Liberals do this week to try and deflect all this unwanted attention?

Martin government braces for bad news in auditor's report coming Tuesday

By JIM BROWN

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/02.../340827-cp.html

At the heart of the controversy is a $40-million sponsorship program put together by Ottawa in the wake of the 1995 referendum. Although it was ostensibly a national program, it concentrated primarily on Quebec, plastering flags and banners at a wide range of sports and cultural events.

Critics say the program was a thinly veiled way to funnel federal dollars to Liberal-friendly advertising and consulting firms.

Fraser, in a scathing report in 2002, concluded that bureaucrats at Public Works broke nearly "every rule in the book" in awarding contracts worth $1.5 million to Groupaction Marketing of Montreal.

and

Big federal contracts

By LOUISE ELLIOTT

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/02.../340786-cp.html

A lobbying and consulting firm with close ties to Prime Minister Paul Martin received more than $800,000 in government contracts during the struggle for the Liberal party's leadership, according to documents obtained under the Access to Information Act.