Gomery inquiry set to return to front pages.

[shoop]

From today's Globe and Mail.

http://tinyurl.com/ckmnp

The lead says it all.

"Ottawa — Mr. Justice John Gomery is concerned that federal officials may have corrupted the “non-partisan and professional character of the civil service” and tilted the sponsorship program in favour of “advertising agencies that donated to the Liberal Party of Canada,” inquiry documents show. In addition, Judge Gomery has indicated he may find that the sponsorship program was managed in a way that “lacked transparency and failed to optimize resources.” The information is contained in letters in which Judge Gomery has warned a number of bureaucrats and Liberal officials that he could slap them with a finding of misconduct in his final report, asking them to respond to his allegations."

So much for talk of the Liberals 'engineering' a defeat this fall. Gomery is going to be big news again.....

Thank you for the vindictiveness Chretien.

[mirror]

Dear shoop

Maybe somebody hasn't informed you Chretien has retired.

You seem to forget how things work in Canada. It was PM Martin who appointed Justice Gomery was it not? So Gomery will come out and say Chretien bad, Martin good, and life will continue along its merry way in Canada.

And the 2% of Canadians who care about this issue any more will thank you for commenting on it.

Cheers

[Montgomery Burns]

Mirror:

And the 2% of Canadians who care about this issue any more will thank you for commenting on it.

You sound proud of this.

I have seen many ideologues on the internet, but you take the cake.

[shoop]

Dearest Montgomery:

Please don't give our good friend Mirror's made up numbers creedence by not challenging him on them.

Where does this 2% number come from? It is still a big issue here in Quebec, which is a pretty populous province, not that I know how Canada works or anything here. Strange thing about public opinion, once a topic returns to the front pages of the newspapers people tend to become interested in it again.

Dearest Mirror:

Your naivete is shocking. True Martin appointed Gomery, but he surely must rue the day that he did. One would think that with a scandal as a large as Adscam has become that surely the blame will fall past the Pm of the day to the Finance Minister of the day, who happens to be our PM for the short-term, at lest.

[I Miss Trudeau]

If there is an exemplar of a Kangaroo court in contemporary Canadian law, the Gomery inquiry would be it.

We have a judge who has:

a. attempted to lead witnesses on the stand,

b. engaged in personal attacks on people involved in the inquiry, and

c. asked for public input into the inquiry, even though the public has been privy to only a tiny fraction of the evidence and testimony, evidence that was reported by the press on a ratings influenced agenda.

Apparently, people like Gomery seem to believe that trials and inquiries ought to be conducted, at least in part, by public opinion polls.

[Canuck E Stan]

When you have a democratic deficient government that is run by one individual , Gomery becomes a refreshing change.

[Argus]

If there is an exemplar of a Kangaroo court in contemporary Canadian law, the Gomery inquiry would be it.

We have a judge who has:

a. attempted to lead witnesses on the stand,

b. engaged in personal attacks on people involved in the inquiry, and

c. asked for public input into the inquiry, even though the public has been privy to only a tiny fraction of the evidence and testimony, evidence that was reported by the press on a ratings influenced agenda.

Apparently, people like Gomery seem to believe that trials and inquiries ought to be conducted, at least in part, by public opinion polls.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well then, I suppose this calls into question Paul Martin's reason for appointing him, eh? Is Paul Martin so stupid he can't figure out who is and who isn't competent, just as he apparently can't figure out that the governor general ought not have strong seperatist ties?

[Minimus Maximus]

I tend to think that a great deal more that 2% of Canadians care about this issue. It will be in the media spotlight again soon enough, and the Libs will again try to distance themselves from it by claiming that it was perpetrated by a few rouge elements within the rank and file.

As far as Martin being the one who called for the inquiry, he simply had no choice. With the 2004 election looming over his head and the media coverage of Adscam during that period of time, he did what any good Lib would. Call for an inquiry and then before any truly damaging information got out call for the election.

This became part of his running platform, "look I was the one that called for the inquiry, so if you(meaning us) want a change from those dirty Chretien Libs, vote for Martin"( after all Martin is a wire brush that will scrub clean all of the wrongs that Chretien perpetrated on our dirty little souls.)

[Argus]

Let us not forget the timeline of this scandal

1 the sponsorship program is a bubbling stewpot of rumours and innuendo with numerous accusations in the House of Commons.

2 access to information requests by journalists yield startling information about us paying for a useless report at least twice and possibly three times.

3 Auditor General announces investigation of sponsorship group, then cuts it short saying she has found massive evidence of mismanagement, fraud, and probable criminal corruption.

At this point what are Paul Martin's options? He has been portraying himself as Mr. Clean, a big break from the Jean Chretien years. Is he supposed to just shrug this off? He has no real option but to order an independant investigation. But he orders it to begin nearly 10 months in future - after, he believes, he'll have called and won an election with a majority, giving him 5 year to let the electorate forget.

4 during the parliamentary investigation of the House Public Accounts Commitee Liberals are obstructionists. They take up masses of time lobbing softball questions to those they have allowed to be called, oppose every attempt to subpoena documents, even recall trustworthy witnesses to use up more time, and then close down the committee before the any of the unreliable players can be called to testify.

5 Martin calls an election

This is where things went wrong for the Libeals. Instead of being safely returned with a majority they have a shaky minority. They can't close down the Gomery inquiry as they had intended. They start making noises about how much the inquiry is costing, and suggesting it has already heard all the evidence it needs - a clear effort at justifying a shut down, but the opposition isn't buying it (though some people on this site did). It is about a month after this that some of the most damning testimony is heard.

No one but a fanatical supporter of the Liberals can honestly take the position that Martin has been open and honest in trying to get to the bottom of this, or that he should be credited with being honest and trying to get to the bottom. He has clearly been doing everything within his limited power to make this go away.

[shoop]

No one but a fanatical supporter of the Liberals can honestly take the position that Martin has been open and honest in trying to get to the bottom of this, or that he should be credited with being honest and trying to get to the bottom. He has clearly been doing everything within his limited power to make this go away.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think there is a slightly larger group minimizing the value of Gomery. That's the fanatical Martinites plus the hardcore NDs. They see the writing on the wall that Canadians knowing the true facts about Gomery means a CPC government.

The CPC will not be buying ND votes in parliament with taxpayers money.

Therefore, the principled ND supporters would rather Martin get away with frittering hundreds of millions of taxpayers money in Adscam so he can buy the votes of ND Members of Parliament for a few billion here and there.

[August1991]

From the article above:

Judge Gomery's comments are contained in his letter to Jean-Marc Bard, who was the chief of staff to former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano from 1999 to 2002.

All we have is one letter leaked by the person it was addressed to.

Martin is clearly trying to pin this scandal on somebody - the public needs a guilty party - and Gagliano seems a likely fallguy. There may be others but I'll bet none of them are directly associated with Martin.

Let's wait for the report.

[Riverwind]

Martin is clearly trying to pin this scandal on somebody - the public needs a guilty party - and Gagliano seems a likely fallguy.  There may be others but I'll bet none of them are directly associated with Martin.

The possibility that, in fact, Gagliano _is_ the primary guilty party is irrelevant since partisans like you need Martin to be guilty and want him to be the fall guy. You seem to think that facts and evidence are not important as long as the politicians you support benefit and the politicians you dislike are hurt.

[Minimus Maximus]

We will never know how far up knowledge of Adscams workings went as documentation was not kept in order to be able to determine its origins. It may of went right into the PMO it may not have. Martin may have known or he may not have.

If I was the PM and considering such a scheme I would make sure it could not be traced beyond the beaurocratic level. We would be fooling ourselves if we did not believe this did not go further that Gagliano.

[Riverwind]

If I was the PM and considering such a scheme I would make sure it could not be traced beyond the beaurocratic level.

A more plausable explaination is Martin had nothing to do with the scheme because he wouldn't have wanted to damage his reputation. It is illogical to suggest that someone with such grand ambitions as PM PM would have even considered being party to a scheme that offered him no advantages but risked everything if it was found out.

We would be fooling ourselves if we did not believe this did not go further that Gagliano.

Why? You seem to be assuming that all Liberals must be guilty until proven innocent.

[I Miss Trudeau]

Why? You seem to be assuming that all Liberals must be guilty until proven innocent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The real issue is that the conservatives, and their supporters, need something like this to ever have a shot at forming the government. When your policies are so far out of whack with what Canadians want, over zealous mudslinging is your only kick at the can.

[Minimus Maximus]

Sparhawk, I agree that Martin may not of known about any of the inner workings of the scam itself, and I dont think that all Libs are guilty of having knowledge of what really happened. I am not quite that cynical.

However, the Liberals were the ones to benefit from the scam aspect of the sponsorship

affair. This to me implies that it must have gone further that Gagliano, my personal opinion.

Testimony did point to political connections and the fact that monies did end up in Liberal coffers(tracable or not). This is not to say that only the Liberals are capable of corruption, but that in this case there is a finger with thier stink on it pointing in thier general direction.

I may not like the Liberals, but I dont HAAAAATE them.

[mirror]

think there is a slightly larger group minimizing the value of Gomery. That's the fanatical Martinites plus the hardcore NDs. They see the writing on the wall that Canadians knowing the true facts about Gomery means a CPC government.

Fanatical Martinites and Hardcore NDs as opposed to the perfect Tories. Right. Maybe you might want to cut down on the hyperbole a wee bit.

The CPC will not be buying ND votes in parliament with taxpayers money.

No, the Tories will just get into bed with the separatists, and screw what Canadians want, like they did during the last session of Parliament.

Therefore, the principled ND supporters would rather Martin get away with frittering hundreds of millions of taxpayers money in Adscam so he can buy the votes of ND Members of Parliament for a few billion here and there.

The logic here boggles the mind. Those dirty rotten NDPers. Imagine the gall of them listening and supporting what 75% of Canadians wanted.

[mirror]

Why? You seem to be assuming that all Liberals must be guilty until proven innocent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The real issue is that the conservatives, and their supporters, need something like this to ever have a shot at forming the government. When your policies are so far out of whack with what Canadians want, over zealous mudslinging is your only kick at the can.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Only a Liberal supporter's logic could infer that the Tories are the real issue concerning the Adsacm culprits.

[Minimus Maximus]

Why? You seem to be assuming that all Liberals must be guilty until proven innocent.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The real issue is that the conservatives, and their supporters, need something like this to ever have a shot at forming the government. When your policies are so far out of whack with what Canadians want, over zealous mudslinging is your only kick at the can.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never said I was a Conservative, and your statement about the real issue being the cons needing something like this in order to form a gov't is just what Liberal apologists come up with in order to deflect critisism from the fact that they may have had something to do with this.

Also dont forget, some people dont agree with you. How the hell can you speak for what Canadians want. Some Canadians are right leaning, some left(even some right down the middle), so to say any parties policies are out of whack with what Canadians want is just BS. This is a learned behavior from too many years of the same party in power. Remember, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutlly.

So before you respond to a snipit of a larger post, read the entire post. If you want to have a big boy discussion on this topic with me based on mutual understanding and freedom of expression, by all means let me know after you reach puberty.

[mirror]

Political self-destruction is not on the Liberal agenda, but sometimes things don't always work out the way the Liberals planned.

Time for a little history about the Liberal Adscam game plan:

1 Liberals set up Gomery prior to last election, to get through the election, on the assumption that they would get a majority.

2 We all remember. Martin was going to lead the Liberals to the promised land with a massive majority of 250 seats.

3 With their majority government the Liberals would shut down and bury Gomery after the election, if and when it became a problem for the Liberals.

What actually happened:

1 Liberals did not get their much bellyhooed majority

2 Liberals no longer completely control the Gomery agenda

3 Liberals are currently freaking out about the potential Liberal damage when Gomery releases his findings

4 Liberals are desperate to get another majority government in order to control and bury the damage that Gomery is going inflict on them.

5 To suggest that anyone actually knows precisely what or who Gomery is going to report on is full of it. It may well be that Martin is exonerated but so what. There are a slew of other ministers that could be implicated.

The Liberals receiving a majority government is just about the worst possible result, within the realm of realistic election possibilities, that could happen to Canada, and could ultimately cummulate in Quebec's separation.

Liberals have been milking this fear of Quebec separation issue for a long time now. Trudeau brought forward some good ideas to help Quebecers become more accepting of their role within the Canadian mosiac, but all we have seen is steady support, around 35-40%, for it in Quebec. Aren't Canadians ready for some new people with some new ideas so we can finally put this baby to bed?

[shoop]

Only a Liberal supporter's logic could infer that the Tories are the real issue concerning the Adsacm culprits. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Am I actually agreeing with Mirror? OMFG

[I Miss Trudeau]

Only a Liberal supporter's logic could infer that the Tories are the real issue concerning the Adsacm culprits. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Tories ARE the real issue concerning the wholesale labelling of Liberals as crooks. The fact is that the Tories need adscam to be bigger and farther reaching than it appears to be, and truth or accuracy be damned, its going to get that big!

[shoop]

The Tories ARE the real issue concerning the wholesale labelling of Liberals as crooks. The fact is that the Tories need adscam to be bigger and farther reaching than it appears to be, and truth or accuracy be damned, its going to get that big!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you have any actual examples of untruthful or inaccurate Tory statements regarding adscam?

Note to Paul Martin. Heads gotta roll big time over this. You are going to have zero luck trying to use Adscam against the CPC in any respect. You were finance minister when over $100 million of our tax dollars were thrown away.

[mirror]

Only a Liberal supporter's logic could infer that the Tories are the real issue concerning the Adsacm culprits. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Tories ARE the real issue concerning the wholesale labelling of Liberals as crooks. The fact is that the Tories need adscam to be bigger and farther reaching than it appears to be, and truth or accuracy be damned, its going to get that big!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And I suppose only the Liberals have a handle on the truth.

Nobody outside of Gomery know what's coming, so spare us your Liberal interpretation of what's about to come down. Please give us a break!

[mirror]

The Tories ARE the real issue concerning the wholesale labelling of Liberals as crooks. The fact is that the Tories need adscam to be bigger and farther reaching than it appears to be, and truth or accuracy be damned, its going to get that big!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Do you have any actual examples of untruthful or inaccurate Tory statements regarding adscam?

Note to Paul Martin. Heads gotta roll big time over this. You are going to have zero luck trying to use Adscam against the CPC in any respect. You were finance minister when over $100 million of our tax dollars were thrown away.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Please provide an accurate and appropriate link for that $100 million figure otherwise some Liberal folks might think you were making it up, eh! Tories are their own worst enemy it seems