PowerCorp/Martin/Oil for Food

[bbacon]

This is the biggest scandal in Canadian History or the history of the west. Question after you read this ask yourself why is this not in the main stream news. Are you happy with a system so corrupt that Desmarais picked and financed Trudeau/Mulroney/Chretein/Martin's private and political carreers in Canada. Does your vote matter. Is it right that Strong/Mulroney/Chretein/Bob Rae/ Clark/Desmarais are still on the Privy Council and privy to all Canada's National Secrets. Is it not time for a major Constitutional Reform and a new constitution of the people that will severly curtail the power of government and make individual rights paramount. We need an elected, effective, equal senate, new system of appointing judges. An end to party politics. A directly elected PM. A directly elected head of state. Read why here. This story broke today on the web at www.torontofreepress.com and in print in article by Mark Steyn for the Western Standard. Status Quo has to go. How Montreal's Power Corp. found itself caught up in the biggest fiasco in UN history

by Kevin Steel, The Western Standard

Saturday, March 5, 2005

Most Canadian companies look forward to the day they earn themselves a mention on the prime-time news. They hire PR firms and spend thousands to harass news

editors with press releases to tout their latest acquisition, invention or foreign venture in hopes of convincing someone to give them even a passing mention on the national news–never mind the nearly unimaginable publicity of being plugged on a U.S. newscast.

But when Montreal-based Power Corporation of Canada found itself, in late January, the topic of a news story on America’s top-rated Fox News Channel, which draws millions of U.S. and international viewers, executives there probably weren’t thrilled. Unlike most publicly traded firms looking to build their brand on Wall Street, Power Corp. is, at the best of times, a quiet, often obscured company (in the past year it’s issued a total of five news releases). That might seem strange, given the massive size and, well, power wielded by the holding company. Power controls some of Canada’s biggest blue-chip companies, including the Investors Group, the country’s largest mutual fund dealer, and investment firm Mackenzie Financial. It owns insurers Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life and London Life. Power owns several Quebec newspapers, including La Presse. It also holds substantial positions in Chinese airlines and telecom firms and has large stakes in the world’s leading entertainment company, Bertelsmann, as well as a big piece of one of Europe’s largest oil producers. In 2003, Power Corp. reported annual revenues of $16 billion.

But the Fox News story wasn’t prompted by an announcement from Power of some billion-dollar takeover or the appointment of a new senior executive. It was something altogether different: the revelation that the man handpicked by the UN secretary general last April to probe the UN’s scandalized Oil-for-Food program, Paul Volcker, had not disclosed to the UN that he was a paid adviser to Power Corp., a story which had originally been broken by a small, independent Toronto newspaper, the Canada Free Press. Why did the highest-rated cable channel in the U.S. care? Because the more that Americans came to know about Oil-for-Food, which has been called the largest corruption scandal in history, the more the name of this little-known Montreal firm kept popping up. And the more links that seemed to emerge between Power Corp. and individuals or organizations involved in the Oil-for-Food scandal, the more Fox News and other news outlets sniffing around this story began to ask questions about who, exactly, this Power Corp. is. And, they wanted to know, what, if anything, did Power have to do with a scandal in which companies around the world took bribes to help a murderous dictator scam billions of dollars in humanitarian aid out of the UN while his people suffered and starved?

Just a month before the Canada Free Press revealed that Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, is a member of Power Corp.’s international advisory board–and a close friend and personal adviser to Power’s owner, Paul Desmarais Sr.–a U.S. congressional investigation into the UN scandal discovered that Power Corp. had extensive connections to BNP Paribas, a French bank that had been handpicked by the UN in 1996 to broker the Oil-for-Food program. In fact, Power actually once owned a stake in Paribas through its subsidiary, Pargesa Holding SA. The bank also purchased a stake in Power Corp. in the mid-seventies and, as recently as 2003, BNP Paribas had a 14.7 per cent equity and 21.3 per cent voting stake in Pargesa, company records show. John Rae, a director and former executive at Power (brother of former Ontario premier Bob Rae), was president and a director of the Paribas Bank of Canada until 2000. And Power Corp. director Michel François-Poncet, who was, in 2001, the vice-chairman of Pargesa, also sat on Paribas’s board, though he died Feb. 10, at the age of 70. A former chair of Paribas’s management board, André Levy-Lang, is currently a member of Power’s international advisory council. And Amaury-Daniel de Seze, a member of BNP Paribas’s executive council, also sat on Pargesa’s administrative council in 2002.

In September, the U.S. Congress–conducting one of seven U.S. government investigations into Oil-for-Food, in addition to the UN probe–subpoenaed crates of documents from the bank, which earned $700 million for its work, ostensibly to investigate the companies that had been doing business through Paribas that may have ripped off Oil-for-Food. But Capitol Hill insiders say that Paribas itself is of interest to congressional investigators, in particular whether Paribas violated "know your client"—style banking regulations, which require banks to be vigilant in watching for money laundering and other criminal activities being conducted through their bank. In February, Congress subpoenaed more documents from the bank, looking for very specific information. "The international program was managed through the escrow accounts of BNP maintained in New York and we have pretty strict banking laws, pretty strict disclosure laws and have gotten even more so with the passage of the Patriot Act," says one aide to a senior Republican working for the House International Relations Committee, one of the bodies investigating the Oil-for-Food program. "There are some doubts as to the veracity of BNP’s compliance with the more stringent rules that are contained in the Patriot Act that were law by the end of ‘01."

The reason investigators are interested in Power’s possible links to the bank that acted as a clearing house for Oil-for-Food is because the firm also appears to have had a stake in an oil firm that had been working out lucrative contracts with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Subsidiary Pargesa owns the largest single stake in Total Group Inc. (a Belgian-French petroleum multi-national corporation formed from the merger of Total, Petrofina and Elf Aquitaine), which reportedly had been negotiating, prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003, rich contracts with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to develop and exploit the Majnoon and Nahr Umar oil fields in southern Iraq. Those regions are estimated to contain roughly a quarter of Iraq’s reserves. The contracts were on the verge of being signed in 1997, one year after the beginning of the UN’s Oil-for-Food program replaced U.S. sanctions on Iraq, when the French government intervened and stopped the deal. Paul Desmarais Jr., now chairman of Power Corp. (Paul Sr. retired in 1996, but is said to be active in the firm), sits on the board of Total, and Power director, François-Poncet, also sat on the board of Total’s predecessor firm, Totalfina Elf. Paribas also owned shares in Total as recently as 2000, records show.

Add up the facts that Power Corp. appears to be connected to an oil company that would benefit extensively if Saddam remained in power, with the bank appointed by the UN to help broker an Oil-for-Food program that appears to have been directly enriching Saddam, and which is being investigated for irregularities that may have abetted the wholesale corruption that eventually engulfed Oil-for-Food, and that Power’s owners have a professional and personal relationship with the man hired by the UN to investigate the corruption, and it’s no wonder that more and more questions are being asked about the firm.

The United Nations has refused to co-operate with the U.S. Congress investigations into the US$67-billion Oil-for-Food program and Security Council members Russia and France have refused to give Volcker the right to subpoena witnesses in the internal UN probe. But the way the scam appears to have worked is that Saddam was permitted to sell oil to customers he selected himself (he favoured French and Russian companies) at below-market prices, by allocating them oil vouchers. The customers could resell the oil at market prices and make a large profit, provided they kicked back a portion of the money to Saddam, who used the money for everything but badly needed food and medicine (the program came to be known by critics as Oil-for-Palaces). It is estimated that Saddam may have skimmed as much as US$2 billion from the aid program. And the fact that Iraqis were suffering while Saddam built up weapons and enriched his own personal wealth, obviously makes this scandal not only bigger, but more heinous than any run-of-the-mill Wall Street book-cooking. Companies implicated in what effectively amounts to crimes against humanity may never recover. And, to be clear, Power Corp. has not been linked in any direct way to the con. As for the fact that Power’s name has come up several times in the investigation, Power’s vice-president, general counsel and secretary Ted Johnson believes the news reports to be inaccurate and irresponsible. Says Johnson: "The stories coming out of the United States are a bunch of misinformation based on innuendo and half-truths."

There’s a tale they used to tell on Parliament Hill about a president, a billionaire, an ambassador and a prime minister. The four of them got into an elevator one day at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, when Jim Blanchard, the U.S. ambassador to Canada, began ribbing the billionaire, Paul Desmarais’s son André, about his recent marriage to France Chrétien, the daughter of then prime minister Jean Chrétien, as then U.S. president Bill Clinton listened in. "France certainly married well," Blanchard reportedly said to the prime minister. To which Chrétien replied, smugly: "André married well."

In reality, the wedding of France and André, in 1981, had only formalized the marriage between the Canadian government to the Desmaraises. While the family, worth an estimated US$4 billion and ranked the sixth richest in Canada, has always kept a fairly low profile, they have been in the news for decades--even if most Canadians never really noticed. The fact that the family happens to be friendly with the man who once ran the U.S. federal reserve won’t surprise those who know them: the Desmaraises are as well connected politically as they are corporately. And it’s arguable, based on the circumstantial evidence anyway, that nothing happens on Parliament Hill that isn’t, in some way, a product of the Desmarais family’s design. Prime Minister Paul Martin and former PMs Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau have all been close, personal friends of Paul Desmarais Sr. The story on Parliament Hill was that Trudeau’s leadership bid was cooked up in Power headquarters in Victoria Square in Montreal. In the hiatus of his political career in the 1980s, Chrétien cooled his heels sitting on the board of a Power Corp. subsidiary, Consolidated Bathurst, and Power executive John Rae ran Chrétien’s leadership campaigns in 1984 and 1990, as well as the 1993 election campaign that brought Chrétien to office. Martin got his start in the business world in the early sixties, working for then Power Corp. president Maurice Strong, and was made a millionaire, thanks to an undisclosed 1981 deal in which Desmarais sold him Canada Steamship Lines. Strong continues to act as one of Martin’s senior advisors.

But the connections don’t end there. Ted Johnson, the Power vice-president, is a former assistant to Trudeau. Paul Desmarais Sr. has long been a mentor of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. Don Mazankowski, a former Mulroney cabinet minister, sits on Power Corp.’s board. Bill Davis, former premier of Ontario, is on Power Corp.’s international advisory council. Daniel Johnson Jr., Quebec Liberal leader and briefly premier, worked for Power from 1973 to 1981. In fact, the political connections really don’t stop at all. You could spend days trying to trace the connections that Paul Desmarais Sr. has not only with Canadian politicians, but in nearly every western capital in the world. Not bad for a guy from Sudbury, Ont., who started out fixing buses to save a nearly bankrupt transport company, inherited from his father. Desmarais’s friends have joked that he "collects politicians."

And he has been doing it for a long time. Thirty years ago, in his 1976 book,

The Canadian Establishment, Peter C. Newman wrote, "It seemed to those who knew him best that Desmarais sometimes treated politicians with the deference due to sleepwalkers: men who must be led, but ever so gently, lest they wake up to the fact."

If there’s one government in which Power has as much interest as it does in Canada, it’s the UN. Maurice Strong, president of Power from 1964 to 1966–who went on to run Ontario Hydro and Petro-Canada–is not only a member of the Privy Council for Canada and a direct adviser to Paul Martin, he’s also a senior adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Appointed by Annan in 1997, after he took over the general secretariat, Strong’s specific role was "to assist planning and executing a far-reaching reform of the world body." Since Annan’s son, Kojo, has been implicated in the Oil-for-Food scandal, having accepted money from a Swiss firm, Cotecna, which was in charge of overseeing the shipments of food and medicine to Iraqis, Strong’s presence at Annan’s side provides yet more ammunition to those looking to link Power to this terrible tale of corruption and mismanagement (no direct links have been established). In fact, Strong had been an undersecretary general of the United Nations since 1985. He once told Toronto journalist Elaine Dewar that he liked working for the UN specifically because of its undemocratic nature. "He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda," wrote Dewar in her 1995 book, Cloak of Green. "He told me he had more unfettered power than a cabinet minister in Ottawa. He was right: no voters had put him in office, he didn’t have to run for re-election, yet he could profoundly affect many lives."

How close Strong is with Power Corp. these days isn’t clear. But what is clear is that certain UN policies have been a boost to the value of the conglomerate. For one thing, the UN-created Kyoto Protocol–which was spearheaded by none other than Strong himself, born of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, which he chaired–could have significant potential benefits for Power’s holdings in China. Through their subsidiary, CITIC Pacific Ltd., the Desmaraises own power-generating facilities, automobile concerns and myriad other industrial interests throughout the Communist nation. The fact that Kyoto’s framers deliberately created regulations that will hamstring exactly those sorts of businesses in the West by imposing limits on greenhouse gas production, but exempt China from those same limits, gives Power a competitive international advantage. Meanwhile, under the protocol, Chinese power plants will be able to sell clean air "credits," or allowances, to Western producers for cash. Some economists have predicted that Ottawa will buy credits as a way of meeting their Kyoto emissions targets.

And few companies stood to benefit from the UN’s resistance to the invasion of Iraq to the same extent that Total might have, had Saddam made good on promised resource development deals with the oil giant. Since the early nineties, Total and Elf had been jointly negotiating with Hussein to develop the Majnoon oilfields north of Basra. In 2000, Total’s president of Middle East exploration and production, had publicly suggested, on several occasions, that the Oil-for-Food sanctions were hurting Iraqi oil development. Shortly afterward, the two companies merged, with Power Corp. owning the biggest stake. According to Power’s official history, "When . . . Totalfina proceeded to take over Elf Aquitaine, the Pargesa group emerged as the largest shareholder, with 3.4 per cent of the shares and three seats on the board of what was to become TotalFina Elf, the fourth largest integrated petroleum company in the world."

Last year, the New York Post interviewed prominent Wall Street figure Gerald Hillman, managing partner of Trireme Investments in New York, who had seen and analyzed the contract. He called the deal "highly unusual" and "very one-sided," as it permitted Total to keep 75 per cent of total production, whereas most deals with foreign partners top out at 50 per cent. It seems that the longer Saddam stayed in power, the better it was for the Total Group and its shareholders in Montreal.

The fact that sustaining Saddam directly could have potentially benefitted a family connected to so many Canadian mandarins and politicians–and married into the family of the prime minister–led some Canadians to raise questions about the motivations behind the Liberal party’s decision to refuse to support the invasion of Iraq and Saddam’s ouster. When Chrétien announced that decision in early 2003, Opposition foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day asked in the House of Commons, "I do not fault the prime minister’s family ties with his nephew [Raymond Chrétien], our ambassador to France or with Paul Desmarais Sr., who is the largest individual shareholder of France’s largest corporation, TotalFina Elf, which has billions of dollars of contracts with Saddam’s former regime. With this valuable source of information and experience at his fingertips, has the prime minister ever discussed Iraq or France with his family or friends in the Desmarais empire?"

Chrétien responded by defending his nephew first and, with regard to Power, added: "I hope the attack against the people who have invested money in something, that he will repeat it outside and he will face the consequences." Power’s general counsel, Johnson, told reporters at the time that TotalFina Elf "had no contracts in Iraq . . . Hasn’t. Doesn’t. Nothing with Saddam." Just a few months earlier, The New York Times reported that "The French oil giant TotalFina Elf has the largest position in Iraq, with exclusive negotiating rights to develop Majnoon, a field on the Iranian border with estimated reserves of 10 billion barrels, and Bin Umar, with an estimated production potential of 440,000 barrels a day, according to oil industry executives."John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based security think-tank, says that Power Corp. directors were probably not thinking about foreign policy implications when they invested in TotalFina Elf. "They probably thought–and a lot of people thought like this–there would eventually be a reopened Iraq, probably under Saddam but not necessarily, and they would like to be in position when it did," Thompson says. "Part of this whole thing was the Europeans bidding to have control of Iraqi oil and afraid that the Americans would be there instead. For the Americans, it was all about not having weapons of mass destruction coming out of the area, but for the Europeans it was all about oil."

Jason Kenney, a Conservative MP, says the questions being raised about Power’s possible connection to Oil-for-Food are worth asking. But he’s quick to point out that if the Liberals guided the country’s foreign policy based on their connections to Power, then we should be asking questions about the Canadian government, too. "I am not the least bit critical of the Desmarais family for being rational actors in a free marketplace and pursuing their advantage," says Kenney. "I am, however, somewhat disquieted by the degree to which Power Corp.’s corporate interest seems to influence Canadian foreign policy. Obviously, every company seeks to influence government policy–regulatory, taxation or otherwise–but Power Corp. seems to have a particularly unique influence over Canadian foreign policy."

That’s something that hasn’t been proven. But in addition to Power’s connection to Total, there’s the connection to Paribas, the bank selected to be in charge of the Oil-for-Food money. According to Power Corp.’s official history, produced in 2000, in 1981 it "made a $20-million investment in Pargesa Holding SA, a Swiss corporation that owned a major interest in Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Suisse). The Swiss bank had been a subsidiary of Compagnie Financière de Paris et des Pays-Bas, the French banking organization commonly known as Paribas, with which Power had enjoyed a close association for several years."

Nadhmi Auchi, who has been identified as a cousin of Saddam Hussein, was a significant shareholder in BNP Paribas at least until 2001. Auchi, who resides in London and owns a company called General Mediterranean Holdings, was ranked by London’s Sunday Times in 2003 as England’s thirty-fourth richest person, with some estimates putting his net worth at US$3 billion. In its 2001 annual report, General Mediterranean Holdings described itself as the largest single shareholder in BNP Paribas.

Auchi is a former member of Saddam’s Baathist party. In 1959, he was tried, along with Saddam Hussein, in an attempted assassination plot. He eventually fled Iraq and publicly distanced himself from Saddam after the dictator murdered his two brothers. Time magazine reported in 2003 that Auchi maintained deep connections to Iraq and built much of his fortune selling them armaments. He has been fingered as a key figure in the Oil-for-Food scandal, with accusations that he acted as one of Saddam’s brokers. He certainly is no stranger to shady deals: in 2003, Auchi was convicted in France of bribery charges, along with a raft of Elf oil executives, in a scandal dating back to 1990 involving the sale of a Spanish oil refinery.

Power also has indirect connections to Iraq through one of its directors, Laurent Dassault, managing director of Dassault Investissements, the parent company of Dassault Aviation, a French-based weapons and aeronautics manufacturer that sells, among other things, the Mirage jet. During Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran in the eighties, Dassault Aviation was a major supplier of aircraft to the Hussein regime and it has been alleged that the firm continued illegal weapon sales to Iraq during the embargo period, using intermediaries and a complex system of money laundering set up by the Hussein regime.

Meanwhile, the UN had its own reasons for wanting to keep Oil-for-Food in business. For some strange reason, the aid program had been set up so that the UN would keep a portion of all oil sold through the program–compensation for the costs of overseeing the aid initiative–three per cent of every barrel sold. Aid programs usually use money from contributing members to finance their administration. Recipients of previous UN aid programs had not been forced to pay the overhead of the programs. And since the fee paid to the UN was variable, the longer Oil-for-Food went on and the more oil that was sold through it, the more money the world body would earn.

That was not enough, however, for Benon Sevan, the man appointed by Annan to oversee the Oil-for-Food program. An interim report issued by Volcker in February found that Sevan–who has since retired from the UN–had personally requested that Iraq allocate some of its oil vouchers (with which companies could resell Iraqi oil at a lucrative profit) to a company with which he was affiliated. Documents uncovered by investigators indicate that Sevan may have directly been the beneficiary of oil allocations. Volcker told reporters that Sevan’s conduct was "ethically improper" and that he had "created a grave and continuing conflict of interest."

Now, Volcker himself is the one facing allegations of conflict. In addition to his connections to Power Corp., which he did not disclose upon being appointed head of the UN probe, Volcker has also been linked to a pro-UN lobby group, the United Nations Association of the United States (which happens to receive generous support from BNP Paribas). Critics are suggesting that the final report, expected in June, could end up being a whitewash.

Oil-for-Food has certainly put the UN’s credibility at stake in a way that no other incident has before. The world body has already demonstrated an inability to deal effectively with rogue dictators, such as Hussein and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, and has proven impotent to end genocides, like Rwanda in 1994 and Darfur today. But if the world discovers that the UN cannot even run a basic aid program, then there isn’t much left for it to do. "The liberals are having a harder time asserting that what the conservatives want is to get the U.S. out of the UN," says the Republican aide. "They can say that, but it’s not true. We need international mediating organizations like the UN. But you know what? We need them to work. And if they are not working, we are either going to make them work or we are going to find substitutes," he says. Increasingly, he reports, both Republicans and Democrats are open to finding alternatives to the UN for handling international affairs. "Maybe that model is NATO," says the aide. "If the UN is unreformable, then it will begin to shrink in its importance. Certainly in the United States it is already shrinking. That can be good or that can be bad. It is what it is. We do need these international mediating institutions and if the UN cannot step up to the plate and do it, then you are going to see a U.S. push in the next generation to get something else to do it," the aide says.

And certainly that has broad implications for Canada, whose government invested heavily in the UN when it stood by the world body’s plan to keep Oil-for-Food in place, rather than stand by the U.S. in putting an end to a containment program that wasn’t really containing Saddam at all. Whether Canada’s foreign policy–given the government’s connection to Power–was "all about the oil," as some have theorized, however, may never be determined. Or, it likely won’t be determined here: while there are six probes being conducted into the Oil-for-Food scandal in the U.S., and one through the UN, there is no investigation underway in this country into any involvement by Canadian companies. And, with few exceptions, the Canadian mainstream media seems to have largely ignored the story linking Volcker to Power Corp. The firm itself has issued no official statement on the accusations.

One press release did come across the wires on Jan. 27 with good news about Power Corp. Not from the normally quiet Power itself, mind you, but from KPMG, an accounting firm that works for Power (and, coincidentally, did audit work on the Oil-for-Food program). The news? A survey conducted in conjunction with pollsters Ipsos-Reid and the Globe and Mail found that Power Corp. is considered the most respected business in Quebec, as ranked by its peers. Hopefully, when all the smoke clears on Oil-for-Food, that will still be the case.

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Web canadafreepress.com torontofreepress.com

[kimmy]

Friendly advice: you're not allowed to post the whole article-- it's copyright violation. Post a small portion that makes the key point, and if possible provide a web-link or source where readers can read more.

-kimmy

[caesar]

This is the biggest scandal in Canadian History or the history of the west. Question after you read this ask yourself why is this not in the main stream news

Probably because it is mainly fiction. eh

[bbacon]

It is only copyright infringement if you don't acknowledge the source or author both the author and web source are there if you read the article and it is not fiction.

[bbacon]

Here is some more Liberal corruption for you to digest. all factual.

Jean Chretien and the Sidewinder Report

By Ann Jane Gray

In this WatchDog article, I will examine Prime minister Jean Chretien's connections to those companies and individuals mentioned in the Sidewinder Report. The Sidewinder Report, as readers recall, examined links of Chinese-triads and the Chinese government to Canadian-based corporations.

Jean Chretien's employment by Gordon Capital from 1986-1990 was his first public association with individuals identified by the Sidewinder Report as a threat to Canada's public security. Chretien's position as an advisor was a lucrative one and left him a wealthy man.

Chretien's ties to Gordon Capital continue to this day, in the person of Marc Fung, son of Gordon Capital's former vice-president during Chretien's tenure, Robert Fung. Marc Fung travelled with the federal Liberals on Team Canada trips to Asia and was, as of May 2002, an aide in the Prime Minister's Office.

Gordon Capital is one of the financial companies used in the Sidewinder Report as a case study on the links between China, Hong Kong billionaires and Canadian financial institutions that are "clearly worrying for Canada's national security". The RCMP's concern arose over Li Ka-Shing, the father of the owner of the company, Richard Li.

Li Ka-Shing is a Hong Kong billionaire who, during the 1970s, was recruited by the Communist Party of China to teach capitalism to the ruling class. American defence departments have long known that Li's business empire is a military and intelligence arm of China. Al Santoli, a national security" advisor to U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, has called Li a "stalker for the PRC (China) whose "close ties to the People's Liberation Army intelligence (arm) are well known".

Jean Chretien's ties to China have become more indirect, but no less troubling, since his ascendancy to the Prime Minister's Office. During the course of his reign, China's leadership has embraced his son-in-law, Andre Desmarais, and his company, Power Corporation. Andre is the son of Paul Desmarais senior, Director of Power Corporation and a close friend of Jean Chretien. Andre is married to Chretien's daughter France and serves as the President of Power Corporation's Executive Board.

China's welcoming of Andre Desmarais is evident in his appointment to two very prestigious boards, the Chief Executives Council of International Advisors to the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the International Advisory Council of the China International Trust Investment Company (CITIC). CITIC is China's largest conglomerate and is 42 percent owned by the government of China. The Communist government of China has given Power Corporation extensive access to the Chinese market and even formed a number of joint ventures with Desmarais.

Power Corporation, through its Hong Kong Subsidiary Power Pacific Corporation, has a growing portfolio of investments in China and Hong Kong, including a joint venture with Bombardier and China's Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works in Quingdao. Power Pacific has also joined CITIC and Shanghai Hi-Tech Park development Corporation to create CITIC-Power Zhangjiang Co. Ltd.

The Communists appointed Andre Desmarais, in 1999, as a director of CITIC Pacific, a subsidiary of CITIC. Mr Desmarais, upon becoming a director, was permitted to acquire 4.2 percent of CITIC Pacific--a rare privilege given the Communist Party's history of reserving company ownership for the children of its ruling elite. With the appointment to CITIC Pacific's board, Jean Chretien's son-in-law became associated with people and companies who have a history of abetting China's arms dealing and intelligence activities.

The three founders of CITIC Pacific's parent company CITIC--Li Ka-Shing, Henry Fok and Robert Kwok--are all suspected of ties to the Chinese army, Triad gangs and China's leader, Deng Xiaoping. Li has a lengthy history with the Communist Party of China that has already been discussed in previous WatchDog articles. Henry Fok has been labelled by the Hong Kong Police Department and British and American intelligence as a prominent member of the 14K Triad and a recipient of Chinese army patronage. Robert Kwok is reported to be a Triad member and has engaged in the Burmese heroin trade.

Congressman Rohrabacher has noted that other CITIC board members are also prominent members of the Chinese military industrial complex.

If China is conspiring to gain political and economic influence in Canada, as the Sidewinder report states, are Desmarais and Power Corporation's success in China the result of a calculated campaign by China to cultivate influence with the Prime Minister? Jean Chretien has already demonstrated, in the Shawinigate scandal, his willingness to breach conflict of interest regulations to preserve the value of his golf course. Would he do any less to preserve contracts with the government of China that are possibly worth millions of dollars to his son-in-law's company?

(Published in The WatchDog, April-June 2003 edition)

Canadian Legacy:

The familial and financial ins and outs of Canadian politics.

By Ann Jane Gray

Many puzzled Canadians have watched while Jean Chretien pursued an anti-American, pro-Saddam Hussein policy that is not in the best interests of Canada. If Hussein had managed to retain power, Jean Chretien's family stood to make millions. We believe that much can be explained by examining the political and familial connections of the Prime Minister.

First it is necessary to understand that some federal (and provincial) politicians of all stripes belong to an exclusive club. Below you will read about the cast of characters and some of the known leading roles:

John Rae was the leading strategist for Jean Chretien's election campaign. He was formerly the Executive vice-president of Power Corp. He is the brother of Bob Rae, the former NDP premier of Ontario.

Bob Rae, while Premier of Ontario, appointed Maurice Strong as chairman of Ontario Hydro. The past CEO of Paul Desmarais' Power Corporation, Strong was appointed to the UN as a senior environmental adviser to the UN secretary-general and Chairman of the Earth Council. His area of responsibility was the Kyoto Accord.

Paul Martin, formerly the Finance Minister under the current regime is considered a shoo in for Prime Minister as Jean Chretien exits the scene in February of 2004. Martin was previously on the board of Power Corp and formerly on the board of Connaught Laboratories. Allegations have been made of Connaught's implication in the tainted blood scandal. Martin and a partner purchased Canada Steamship Lines from Paul Desmarais of Power Corp at extremely favorable terms. Martin later bought the partner out. What obligations does Martin owe to Power Corporation interests once he becomes Prime Minister? Martin registered many of his vessels out of the country in third world registries, thus evading Canadian income taxes. Third world crews working in third world conditions crew his third world registry ships. Canadians must question whether the morality of Martin's evading Canadian income taxes while Finance Minister is a matter of concern.

Jean Chretien's daughter France is married to Andre Desmarais, the son of Paul Desmarais, of Power Corporation. Andre is on the board of multinational communications conglomerate Vivendi. He runs Power Corporation. (estimated annual revenues $18-billion)

According to Paul Jackson of the Calgary Sun, in Le Monde, December 1, 1994, Jean Chretien, while in France talked about how French-Canadians had been "humiliated" by the English and how today they see themselves as "martyrs." He boasted he was getting his own revenge and we quote: "For example, I have just appointed an Acadian to the office of governor general. So the governor general is a francophone. The same is true, among others, of the prime minister, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Speaker of the Senate, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Minister of Finance."

Many Canadians will remember Jean Chretien's frequent trips to China. Andre Desmarais sits on the board of Peoples' Republic of China's China International Trust and Investment Corporation. This is considered to be the investment arm of the Chinese military. Through Project Sidewinder, the RCMP tried to investigate the links between the Prime Minister of Canada, Desmarais and China. and potential undue influence on Canadian politicians. For more information on the China connection read the WatchDog article "Jean Chretien and the Sidewinder Report."

Jean Chretien supported the powerful third world bloc of the UN. He supported France, Germany and Russia whose oil and debt interests in Iraq apparently override any human rights violation or concerns. He could have another more immediate reason. According to Diane Francis of the National Post, Paris-based TotalFinaElf's biggest shareholder is Paul Desmarais Sr. She also states in a recent article, "Canada's stance is all the more unacceptable because it aligns us with such soiled nations as France, Germany and Russia which made billions of dollars with Saddam Hussein, ran interference for him diplomatically and signed huge future oil contracts with his deposed regime." --End of quote. Paul Desmarais Jr. sits on the board of TotalFinaElf.

Totalfinael apparently now has a large share of the major oilsands project in Alberta. The Alberta Oilsands could be one of the two largest relatively untapped oil reserves in the world. It will not be in France's interests to have Alberta secede to become a new independent nation or to join with the United States.

So it seems apparent the the financial oil interests of Jean Chretien's family had a direct bearing on the stance Canada took in the recent liberation of Iraq.

Mitchell Sharp, while Finance Minister introduced Jean Chretien to politics. When Chretien became Prime Minister, Mitchell Sharpe was appointed as the famous dollar a year advisor to Chretien. Since 1981, Sharpe has been vice-Chairman of North American of the Trilateral Commission.

Daniel Johnson formerly Liberal leader in Quebec is credited for having delivered much federal spending to the Quebec based Power Corporation.

Brian Mulroney, the Conservative ex-Prime Minister is now on a dozen boards in corporate offices including some Power Corporation and Quebecor World. He is a lawyer and lobbyist for Power Corporation. Power Corp and Ontario Hydro and Hydro Quebec formed a Hong Kong-based Asia Power Corp to assist China in developing its energy potential.

Sources claim Power Corp's legal interests in Asia are reportedly handled by a Hong Kong branch of Mulroney's Montreal law firm, Olgilvy, Renault.

While in office, Pierre Trudeau's government (Prime Minister and a former Power Corp. lawyer) signed over millions to Power Corporation under federal grant programs. Desmarais was credited with funding his election campaign.

Power Corporation began as a broken down bus line in Ontario. He moved his company to Quebec where he purchased another bus line in Quebec City. Able to get the ear of government, Desmarais went from success to success. Today Power Corporation is a multi-national company with many subsidiaries, over-extended not surprisingly as government bailouts have always been there. Since the first of the year Bombardier has received $1.5 billion in loans for its planes. These low-interest loans made to countries such as Spain have allowed them to buy airplanes, thus enabling this troubled industry to stay afloat.

So we now have an elite club of Conservatives, (Mulroney) Liberals (Trudeau and Chretien) and the NDP (Bob Rae) all connected to Paul Desmarais and Power Corporation.

Does the Kyoto Accord benefit Power Corporation?

Reports that cross our desk would lead us to believe that Maurice Strong has now joined Brian Mulroney and Paul Desmarais in investing in the Asia Power Group's $100-million venture capital in 'small coal-fired power plants being built in the south of China.

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau named Strong as CEO of the newly created crown corporation, Petro Canada. Petro Fina of Belgium was the sacrificial lamb that became Petro Canada. Petro Fina is a major holding in Desmarais European empire.

Larger projects in northern China, Malaysia, the Philippines and India expect to be undertaken. The Asian economies are expected to spend $1-trillion US on essential infrastructure, of which an estimated $400-billion US will be on power generation. Asian labor costs are low so potential profits are enormous.

A publication in November of 1993 by the Council on Foreign Relations' contains an article, The Rise of China where they state that China will begin to use more energy than the United States within a few decades. This will massively drain the world's energy supplies.

China will become the world's dominant manufacturing power. In a few years the technology sector under the realm of China will flood the world with TV's, radios, computers and hi-tech equipment costing pennies on the dollars at today's prices.

Most of China's energy comes from the burning of soft, high-sulphur, highly polluting coal. In 1991 alone 11-trillion cubic meters of waste gas and sixteen million tons of soot were emitted into the atmosphere over China. The sulphur in the coal causes acid rain. The burning of the coal releases carbon dioxide--the culprit in greenhouse gas. Today, ten years after the report was released, a dense smog continually covering much of Asia will not be affected by the Kyoto Accord.

There has been a rash of buying of low grade coal mines in depressed nations. The question must be asked; who would invest heavily in low grade coal, when it is a targeted Kyoto commodity?

While rumours say Strong, Desmarais among others are involved it has not been substantiated. Whomever it was it would have to be someone who thought they could burn it without Kyoto regulations. China's coal burning power generation is unregulated by Kyoto.

Paul Desmarais in September 1993, joined the Trilateral Commission. He spearheaded the Trilateral initiative promoting a Kyoto-like conference over concerns for the planet from carbon emissions produced by the developed nations.

Jean Charest, the newly elected Premier of Quebec was persuaded by Jean Chretien to step down from federal politics. After the leadership debacle when Kim Campbell took the fall, and lost the election she was appointed Canadian Envoy in California. Charest headed the badly tarnished Conservatives, where they limped through the election in 1997.

Jean Chretien persuaded Charest to step down and become the leader of the Liberal party in Quebec. Canadians can expect more of the carrot and stick politics that Quebec is so expert at dishing out. Charest billed as the savior of Canadian nationalism will receive rich payoffs in the coming years for Quebec and for his own personal ambitions.

Chretien has until February to favor the Quebec political scene for the next 20-years. Charest has promised to lower taxes by $1-billion each year for five years. This is certain to raise the balance of transfer payments this rich province already receives at the expense of the rest of Canada.

Charest is also positioned to run for Prime Minister after Paul Martin's retirement from that position. This will place another Quebecer in the driver's seat and so on infinite ad nauseum. The status quo will be maintained at great cost, quite possibly the eventual breakup of Canada.

So what is Chretien's legacy?

Kyoto.

Deterioration and increasing alienation of Western Canada.

Control by the Franophones over federal jobs.

Increased provincial spending on the forced francophonyization of the rest of Canada. (ROC)

Increased federal spending fruitlessly ramming French down the throat of the ROC.

Chretien has never been concerned with Canada, other than how its interests can best be used to serve Quebec. Chretien first interest is his riding of Shawinigan, which keeps him elected. His second interest is serving Quebec. Chretien gave more money to his riding in Shawinigan, as the Shawinigate scandals showed than he did to the entire province of Alberta.

The hiring of the Quebecer Stephane Dion, and giving him an non-elected seat in the House of Commons. Dion has managed to pursue the alienation out West, whose separation instincts are seen as a danger to the continued favoritism of Quebec and strengthening of European (France) ties to Canada. Instead of attacking Western Canadian interests, led by the desperation to survive as a culture Dion should be confronting the racial French language bigotry and preferred treatment pursued under the name of 'Quebec first' politics that has all but destroyed Canada.

Why did the lame duck refuse to get involved in the war on Iraq?

Why does he affect ignorance on Syria?

Tales in the media report that during the run up to the Iraqi war, Jean Chretien had almost daily conversations with his nephew, Raymond. Raymond Chretien, was formerly the Ambassador to the US--a key posting plum. Raymond dirtied his drawers in the Bush/Gore election campaign when he stated that the Canadian government would prefer Gore. He was recalled in the ensuing uproar and posted to France. Another top plum! There it is reported that he has the ear of Chirac. The question must be asked: Who is running the country? Jean? Raymond? or Chirac?

A couple of months ago we wrote that we believed Jean Chretien wished to be the next Secretary-General of the UN. His death grip on to the Prime Ministership until February of 2004, when this position comes open, rein forces that opinion.

Lester Pearson was the prime minister that received the Nobel Peace Prize--but that's another story!

Jean Chretien wants to be the prime minister that became the secretary general of the fast-deteriorating irrelevant UN. He has pursued votes vigorously in his frequent trips to Africa. Wouldn't it be surprising if he was found to be not good enough!

Two years ago 2000 names of triad and gang members of Chinese nationals were erased from a computer in the Canadian Hong Kong Embassy.

(Chinese nationals are hired by Immigration Canada to work at our embassy in Hong Kong.)

The suspected culprit now lives in North Vancouver and works as a consultant for Immigration Canada.

The first RCMP officer investigating the case was pulled off the case and detailed to other duties.

The second RCMP officer investigating the case was not permitted to lay charges.

He went public and was suspended and placed under close arrest in Ottawa.

Close arrest means that you have to check in (in person) once a day.

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Prime Time Crime current headlines

[The Terrible Sweal]

Here is some more Liberal corruption for you to digest.

Word to the wise: If you want notice taken of something, I suggest that you digest it first. Very few people have sufficient interest to wade through these endless reams of insinuation looking for something (ANYTHING) approaching a point.

[bbacon]

I think the point would be documented Liberal Corruption. This story has been on 630 ched radio, ckny radio, www.newsmax.com, Foxnewsonline, now on www.freepresstoronto.com and in Print by Mark Steyn for the Western Standard, one of the only free press's in Canada. I think the point would be that Liberals starting with Trudeau then PC with Mulroney then Chretein for the Liberals then Martin for the Liberals were all handpicked for dumb Liberal voters and owned by one man Paul Desmarais of Powercorp. He has owned the PM's of Canada for almost 35 years. It would be the biggest scandal in history in any free country in the world. But oh yah this is Canada. And this is Liberal Canadian Value Stupid.

[The Terrible Sweal]

I think the point would be documented Liberal Corruption. This story has been on 630 ched radio, ckny radio, www.newsmax.com, Foxnewsonline, now on www.freepresstoronto.com and in Print by Mark Steyn for the Western Standard, one of the only free press's in Canada.

Those particular sources, and the stories you have quoted so extensively fall far short of 'documenting' anything.

BTW you're mistaken about copyright as well-- it's not plagiarism if you cite the source, but unauthorized use will still violate copyright.

[bbacon]

My goodness Terrible Squeal can all these sources dared to to go public and risk the wroth of one of the most powerful Family Compact's in the history of Canada without a shred of truth. I think not, I think maybe before these stories were published their lawyers looked at all the facts. I realize that many Liberals such as yourself are whistling past the graveyard, but I think that as Canadian voters start to get the facts of this issue and from more than one source such as the co-opted CBC they will start to get very very angry. When they think back to the Principalled stand of the crook Chretein rising in the commons and saying we will not be going into Iraq all the while his daughter is married to the son of Paul Desmarais his in-law, who has 12B us invested in the oil fields of southern Iraq through his oil company totalfinaelf, oh yes Liberal Canadian Values. Dirty filthy theives all the while the average middle class family in Canada pays more in taxes than they do for food shelter clothing and transportation. Disgusting Liberal Canadian Values. We will steal from Iraqi children and you the taxpayer will pay extortionate taxes. Liberal Canadian Values Stupid.

[bbacon]

My goodness Terrible Squeal a CBC article on the Powercorp scandal. Perhaps you would not refute anything from the Mothercorp Pravda herself. More Desmarais. This is the Godfather the man who really runs Canada. Desmarais most powerful?

Peter Black, Press Republican

Few people on this planet and perhaps only one in Canada, could have a guest list for a party at their remote country home that includes the king of Spain, Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Leo DiCaprio and Sarah Ferguson.

That Canadian is Paul Desmarais, arguably the most powerful man in Canada. Desmarais is powerful not just because he is unimaginably rich thanks to the $100 billion Power Corp. empire he built from scratch; he’s a giant because he has used his power to gain unprecedented political influence, not for any demonstrable financial gain, mind you, but simply because he enjoys playing politics as much as he likes making money.

This past weekend, in a supreme display of the influence he has accumulated in his 52 years as an operator in the business world, Desmarais summoned dozens of notables from business, politics and entertainment to his newly completed $40-million (estimated) spread in Quebec’s spectacular Charlevoix region. The guest list was kept extremely hush-hush — another testament to Desmarais’s power. The above-mentioned names were only rumored, but no matter, any one of them would fit comfortably into Desmarais’ wide circle of friends from around the world.

That circle includes the three longest-serving prime ministers of the last 35 years, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien. Chretien’s daughter France married Andre, one of Desmarais’s two sons, making that circle a little tighter than others. Desmarais’s right-hand man at Power Corp. is John Rae, a long-time Chretien advisor and the man who ran two of the three election campaigns that brought Liberals majority governments since 1993.

Desmarais is also on pretty close terms with the prime minister-in-waiting, Paul Martin, who, after all, employed him at Power Corp. for many years. In 1981 he sold to Martin Power’s shipping line, Canada Steamship Lines, which Martin grew into the largest shipper of its kind in the world before entering politics. (Martin last month transferred ownership of CSL to his three sons to free himself for the Liberal leadership campaign which ends in November.)

A roomful of politicians have worked for Desmarais, either on their way up or down the political ladder. Daniel Johnson Jr., for example, Quebec Liberal leader and briefly premier, was Power’s corporate secretary for a time. Daniel’s dad, Daniel Sr., another Quebec premier, was a close crony of Desmarais’s.

The story is told of how Desmarais flew to Hawaii to convince the vacationing Johnson to drop a five-year plan for Quebec independence.

He was also tight with Robert Bourassa despite the premier’s efforts to block his attempt to buy a Quebec City newspaper, which he eventually acquired anyway, giving him control of most major newspapers in Quebec. He spoke to Bourassa days before he died of cancer in 1996. Bourassa, always considered a wavering federalist, told Desmarais Quebec needed to move on from the debate over sovereingty.

Desmarais’s wealth and power are enough to assure him superstar status among Canadian and global entrepreneurs. But what puts Desmarais in a category by himself is how he, a French-Canadian from the Northern Ontario mining town of Sudbury, has earned a place in a Canadian business establishment populated entirely by English-Canadians. For years he was the only French-Canadian on the boards of major Canadian companies, invited there not out of tokenism, but because of his ever-increasing financial clout.

Desmarais represents the triumph of French-Canadians within a country dominated by English-speakers, a role the 76-year-old tycoon takes seriously. While embraced by the new generations of francophone business leaders of Quebec Inc., he is no darling of Quebec nationalists. Desmarais, in fact, all but froze Montreal-based Power’s activities in Quebec after the separatist Parti Quebecois was elected in 1976.

It is only in recent years that Power has again become a major player in the domestic corporate world. Desmarais used the hiatus to put together a corporate colossus in Europe, one that includes the largest broadcasting network on the continent, one of the world’s largest oil companies, a Swiss salami company and a 12-percent share of the company that owns the Suez canal.

Paul Desmarais officially retired as president of Power Corp. in 1996, although he remains chairman of the executive committee and is majority owner. His sons, Paul Jr. and Andre, now manage the company day-to-day. Though slowed by several heart operations and normal aging, Desmarais is reported to still be the master of the empire he built.

In his semi-retirement he has overseen the construction of his estate near the Saguenay River. The project turned a hunting lodge, set on 10,000 acres of forest with five lakes, once owned by one of Desmarais’s paper companies, into a dream compound.

And that’s where Desmarais hosted his exclusive set of friends for a country-style barbecue few of them are likely to forget. Much like history is not likely to forget a giant like Desmarais.

Some of the facts and anecdotes about Desmarais in this column come from the Canadian Establishment series by author Peter C. Newman. Desmarais, Newman notes, is the only Canadian business leader to be featured in all three volumes, spanning more than 25 years.

Peter Black is a syndicated columnist writing about Quebec and the producer of a daily current-affairs program for Canada’s public radio broadcaster (CBC), based in Quebec City. His column appears every Friday. He can be reached by e-mail: [email protected]

• • •

_________________

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776--"If You Haven't Suffered Enough It Is Your God Given Right To Suffer Some More" Wm. Aberhart Alberta Premier

[Slavik44]

Could you please edit your posts, to stubs of the article with a link, so then maybe I can read them.

[Guest eureka]

Terrible Sweal is being gentle with you and, although tolerance is my middle name, I will not tolerate these slanders.

Why don't you ask Paul Desmarais to lend you some money to get an education. Or, to pay for a psychiatrist.

[Stoker]

Here's another good one bbacon:

The Power behind the thrones

During the Iraq war, for example, I mentioned en passant that Power Corp. is the biggest shareholder in TotalFinaElf, the western corporation closest to Saddam Hussein (it has since changed its name to the Total Group). Total had secured development rights to 25 per cent of Iraq’s oil reserves, a transformative deal that would catapult the company from a second-rank player into the big leagues with Exxon and British Petroleum. For a year, the antiwar crowd had told us it was “all about oil”--that the only reason Iraq was being “liberated” was so Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the rest of the gang could annex in perpetuity the second biggest oil reserves in the world. But, if it was all about oil, then the fact--fact--is that the only Western leader with a direct stake in the issue was not the Texas oilpatch stooge in Washington, but Jean Chrétien: his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren stood to be massively enriched by the Total-Saddam agreement. It depended on two factors: Saddam remaining in power, and the feeble UN sanctions being either weakened into meaninglessness or quietly dropped. M. Chrétien may have refused to join the Iraq war on “principle,” but fortunately his principles happened to coincide with the business interests of both TotalFinaElf and the Baath party.

As I said, I mentioned this curious footnote at the time. Stockwell Day picked up on it. The CBC, CTV, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s and all the rest steered clear. A bland perfunctory 200-word CP story reporting M. Desmarais’s denial--“Power Financial Head Refutes Saddam Link”--was carried by far more media outlets than had bothered going anywhere near Day’s original remarks.

I wonder if we had of had Fox up here at the time if it would have made a difference?

Well, okay. Let’s take M. Desmarais’s word for it. But, getting on for two years later, we’re in the middle of the UN Oil-for-Fraud investigation, the all-time biggest scam, bigger than Enron and Worldcom and all the rest added together. And whaddaya know? The bank that handled all the money from the program turns out to be BNP Paribas, which tends to get designated by Associated Press and co. as a “French bank” but is, as it happens, controlled by one of M. Desmarais’s holding companies. That alone should cause even the droopiest bloodhound to pick up a scent: the UN’s banker for its Iraqi “humanitarian” program turns out to be (to all intents) Saddam’s favourite oilman.

I wonder were the Fifth Esate and Micheal Moore are when you need them

M. Desmarais’s spectacular rise from an obscure Quebec bus company operator to an obscure global colossus is an amazing story. Instead of struggling to find a local angle on the international scene, why doesn’t the CBC just start from the basic premise that whatever the subject--Iraq, oil-for-food, the European Union--somewhere at the heart of it will be the world’s least famous Canadian.

Instead, not a whisper. The good news is it’s not because Robert Rabinovitch, president of the CBC, is another discreet Power Corp. alumnus. He’s not. Rabinovitch’s close buddy, John Rae, who ran Chrétien’s campaigns, is. And so’s Rabinovitch’s old colleague Joel Bell, who was Trudeau’s chief economic adviser. And so’s Rabinovitch’s old boss, Senator Michael Pitfield. And so’s . . .

So thats why the state run media is not reporting the story..........

[Digby]

Oh I guess I was Wrong !

I had it figured out that the Hells Angels was running the liberal party .

The power corp . Got any ties with the Hells Angels I wonder?

[Guest eureka]

Stoker, I thouhgt you were a right winger from conviction. Was I wring? Is it just a sickness like these newcomers are suffering from?

You should know that all that about Power Corp. has been shown to be false long ago.

Power Corp. is a big powerful entity by Canadian standards, but it is a piddler on the world scene.

[Argus]

Stoker, I thouhgt you were a right winger from conviction. Was I wring? Is it just a sickness like these newcomers are suffering from?

You should know that all that about Power Corp. has been shown to be false long ago.

Power Corp. is a big powerful entity by Canadian standards, but it is a piddler on the world scene.

I find it interesting you continue to hurl personal insults while dealing with _nothing_ of what the original poster has said or quoted.

It's all been shown to be false a long time ago? What, precisely? Is it false that Power Corp ultimately controls FinaElf? Is it false that Power Corp owns the bank which was chiefly responsible for handling the finances in the oil for food program? Are the close ties noted between Power Corp and succesive Liberal Prime Ministers false? Why don't you enlighten us as to exactly which of the claims made above are untrue and why?

[Guest eureka]

Because I am simply not interested in dealing with scandal mongers and libelers. This comes close to libel and is saved from it by being all suggestion and innuendo. They do not say Desmarais controls all these things but let the implication fall.

Power Corp does not control Elf Fina. Desmarais is the largest Single shareholder which does not mean much. There is one set on Elf's board - his son.

Power Corp is not the banker for the oil-for-food program. Its interests are one partner in a group of much larger banking concerns. Unlees you can believe that Desmarais also controls the Rockefellers and like names.

I am making no insulting statements: merely giving this scurrilous allegation the contempt it deserves.

It should be known by now. This libel resurfaces every once in a while and has been thoroughly discredited each time.

[The Terrible Sweal]

My goodness Terrible Squeal a CBC article on the Powercorp scandal. Perhaps you would not refute anything from the Mothercorp Pravda herself. More Desmarais. This is the Godfather the man who really runs Canada. Desmarais most powerful?

Don't make the mistake of thinking I am arguing with you. I'm not (yet, anyway). I'm telling you that your posts and sources not yet merit any argument since they don't amount to anything.

Power Corp and the Demarais family are influential. Yes. Politics is corrupt. Yes. What of it?

[Stoker]

Stoker, I thouhgt you were a right winger from conviction. Was I wring? Is it just a sickness like these newcomers are suffering from?

You should know that all that about Power Corp. has been shown to be false long ago.

Power Corp. is a big powerful entity by Canadian standards, but it is a piddler on the world scene.

I normally try and stay away from the tabloid garbage, tin-foil hat wearing, consipracy theories. I find them annoying, insulting to my intelligence and quite frankly cheap!

But based on the success the Canadian left has had with using them in demonizing the Canadian right, I truely feel it is time that the right start throwing some mud around......and not stupid stuff like the Kim Campbell Conservatives did when they called Jean a retard.......(He was far from a retard, I say modern Machiavellian)....Let's get into the nitty gritty......

Bring on the "stories" about Bill Graham and his male hookers, bring the Anne Mcallen sexual harassment alligations, bring on the ties with organized crime with the Gordon Campbell government and for christ sakes, get a hold on Power Corp and don't let go!!!

It's all been shown to be false a long time ago? What, precisely? Is it false that Power Corp ultimately controls FinaElf? Is it false that Power Corp owns the bank which was chiefly responsible for handling the finances in the oil for food program? Are the close ties noted between Power Corp and succesive Liberal Prime Ministers false? Why don't you enlighten us as to exactly which of the claims made above are untrue and why?

It doesn't mater if they disprove our claims Argus........did it mater when we disproved their? I'd bet Halliburton is one of the most googled words ever.......soon, if you look into a thesaurus, halliburton will be another term for evil

[bbacon]

So you are denying that Trudeau worked for Desmarais, and was his gollum, Mulroney worked for Desmarais and was his gollum, Chretein worked for Desmarais and is his gollum, his daughter is even married into the Family Compact. Martin worked for Desmarais and is his gollum, heck Desmarais even made him a rich man by basically giving him CSL. In fact Strong, Martin, Chretein, Mulroney, and Rae as well Desmarais are all still members of the Privy Council to this day. The Family Compact is alive and well in Canada. One man Desmarais has basically hand groomed and hand picked all 4 of these Liberal Swine for the dumb Liberal voters of Quebec and Ontario. http://www.powercorporation.com/index.php?lang=eng

[Guest eureka]

So you are denying that I never said those things: not that I am interested. How do you know that I don't work for Power too and am somebody's "gollum." Perhaps I am miffed that you do not think I am important enough to be named to your list of the devil's angels.

Frankly, I am not at all interested in your petty hatreds and will neither confirm or dny anything. The Liberals may (as some think) be pigs but they are not swine and you should be a little more careful in your choice of words. That may not be possible, though, since you post nothing but your guru's words and probably do not have too many of your own to choose from.

[The Terrible Sweal]

"gollum"??

[kimmy]

"gollum"??

You know, like in the movie. A spineless, simpering, obsequious servant, treacherous and immoral yet bound to service of power through its own lust for gain.

Kind of like Howard Wilson was for Jean Chretien.

-kimmy

[The Terrible Sweal]

"gollum"?? 

You know, like in the movie. A spineless, simpering, obsequious servant, treacherous and immoral yet bound to service of power through its own lust for gain.

Kind of like Howard Wilson was for Jean Chretien.

-kimmy

[bbacon]

Canada has become one of the least democratic countries in the West. I think the above reports show some of the corruption. What would you suggest to correct the democratic deficits and corruption that have come to symbolise the maple leaf and Ottawa politics.