INDEPTH: SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL
Gomery report: Highlights
CBC News Online | November 1, 2005
The following points are just a few of the more notable findings
made by Justice Gomery in his report entitled "Who is
Responsible?"
The Prime Minister's Office, via Jean
Pelletier, and then-minister of public works, Alfonso
Gagliano, directed the awarding of contracts through the
Sponsorship Program – bypassing normal departmental
oversight.
Pelletier essentially acted
as an un-elected "minister" in implementing the
Sponsorship Program.
Pelletier failed to take even "the most elementary
precautions against mismanagement" of the disbursement of
the millions of dollars in the Sponsorship Program.
Jean Chrétien
holds personal responsibility for the actions of Jean Pelletier,
his long-time chief of staff, because he was employed as a
political aide.
Jean Chrétien
ignored advice from the Privy Council Office that it would
be prudent to transfer the sponsorship program to a department
or let PCO run it.
Jean Chrétien
and Jean Pelletier are both to
blame for the mismanagement of taxpayer money resulting from
a program that was set up without proper oversight and had
no clearly articulated objectives.
Chuck Guité, the
former bureaucrat who administered the Sponsorship Program,
operated outside the normal structures of government accountability,
reporting directly to Pelletier
and Gagliano, and not to his immediate
superiors nor to the departmental deputy minister, Ranald
Quail.
Gomery called Guité
"untouchable," because of the direct involvement of Pelletier,
Chrétien's chief of staff.
Guité rewarded friends
and Liberal-friendly ad firms with lucrative contracts, in
some cases for little or no work.
Paul Martin, finance minister at the time, is exonerated "from any blame for carelessness or misconduct."
Gomery found that a kickback scheme existed. Jacques
Corriveau, a close friend of Chrétien
who owned a graphic design company, was "the central figure
in an elaborate kickback scheme by which he enriched himself
personally and provided funds and benefits to the [Quebec
wing of the Liberal Party of Canada]."
Gomery infers that Gagliano
must have known about the kickback scheme, but didn't find
any evidence directly proving that inference. Gomery doesn't
draw any connection between these kickbacks and the Prime
Minister's Office. However, although they didn't know about
the kickbacks, Gomery says that Chrétien
and Pelletier can be held responsible
because the program was not set up with the proper oversight.
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Gilles Duceppe's response (RealVideo runs 5:59)
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