INDEPTH: SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL
Guité: From bureaucrat to lobbyist
CBC News Online | May 4, 2005
 Chuck Guité leaves the Parliament building after testifing before the public accounts committee looking into the sponsorship program in Ottawa Thursday April 22, 2004. (CP PHOTO/Jonathan Hayward)
Advertising firms and film production companies “were standing in line” to get Guité’s advice and paid generously for his services, Mr. Justice John Gomery remarked.
“After you left in August, you became a busy man,” mused Gomery.
“I sure did,” Guité answered with a chuckle.
Guité set up his company, Oro Communications, in September 1999.
The jobs started rolling in almost immediately. The day after he left his government job, Guité billed Robert Scully, producer for L’Information essentielle, for his efforts to arrange an interview with Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Fowler. The interview never happened.
In the fall of 1999, Guité was promised $125,000 by Groupaction if he negotiated the purchase of Palmer Jarvis. The deal fell through in April 2002, but Guité kept $30,000. On October 1, 1999, Groupaction also hired him to negotiate the purchase of Compass, a Halifax ad firm. At the same time, Compass was looking to sell. Guité collected fees from both parties without their knowledge. Groupaction changed its mind about buying Compass and the deal faltered.
Guité also worked for a string of advertising agencies, which had received large contracts under the sponsorship program. His clients included Compass, Lafleur Communications Marketing, Palmer and Jarvis, Vickers and Benson, Coffin Communications, and Walding International, the firm of former Public Works minister David Dingwall.
Guité never registered as a paid lobbyist as required by law.
Firms sought his advice for his intimate knowledge of the sponsorship program and ties to the Prime Minister’s Office and Alfonso Gagliano, the then minister of Public Works, the inquiry was told.
Guité said he lobbied his successor at Public Works, Pierre Tremblay, and Gagliano, on behalf of Vickers and Benson. Havas, a French company, wanted to buy Vickers and Benson. Vickers’ CEO, John Hayter, was worried that the value of his company would fall, if he couldn’t guarantee that he would continue to get the same volume of business from the Canadian government.
Guité assured Hayter, that nothing would change. He arranged a meeting with Gagliano on March 22, 2000 at Mama Teresa’s, a favourite Liberal hang-out in Ottawa. Gagliano assured him Vickers and Benson would not lose any business, Guité recalled. Guité said he was told that competitions could be rigged.
“In other words, arrange for V and B to win the competition?” asked lead counsel Bernard Roy.
“Definitely,” answered Guité.
After the meeting with Gagliano, Guité told Hayter that if his revenue from government advertising contracts fell, Public Works could “boost it with sponsorship.” The deal between Havas and Vickers and Benson was sealed and announced in September. Guité was paid $100,000 for his lobbying efforts. He collected most of it before his contract with Vickers and Benson was cancelled in 2002 in the wake of the sponsorship scandal.
Guité’s lobbying efforts didn’t always produce results. But Guité said his clients mainly hired him to “influence sponsorship.” They paid him, he said, because they hoped his efforts would materialize down the road.
» Next: 'No phoney invoices'
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Gilles Duceppe's response (RealVideo runs 5:59)
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