sponsorship scandal

Here is some of Pat Martin’s opening statement to reporters this afternoon on the subject of fraudulent calls made during the last federal campaign.

Apparently invoking the sponsorship scandal as a comparison, the Liberals are pressing the Conservatives to allow a committee investigation into the G8 Legacy Fund to proceed. Despite holding a majority of seats at the time, Liberal members did allow the public accounts committee to investigate Adscam in 2004: 47 meetings were held over a period of four months and 44 witnesses testified. Alas, the Liberal members brought a halt to the proceedings in May of that year, shortly before an election was called. This greatly disappointed a young idealist by the name of Jason Kenney.

Few taxpayers will quibble with Sheila Fraser’s effectiveness

The point seems to be that whatever’s going on with Rahim Jaffer, it’s not as bad as what the Liberals did

MacKay questions the credibility of Afghan torture whistleblower, Richard Colvin

The Tories look for support in the unlikeliest of places

Wajsman returns to the Liberals after being ‘banned for life’

I actually agree with the government’s decision to appeal the Teitelbaum ruling, which found “a reasonable apprehension of bias” on the part of Justice John Gomery — although it really should have happened immediately following the ruling, not three months later  — and definitely not in the middle of an election campaign. I said so at the time — to a card-carrying Conservative, no less — the very day the ruling came out. “You have to appeal this thing” were my exact words, I believe. There may even have been a thumping of the table for emphasis.

Jean Lafleur, the Quebec ad man who pleaded guilty last year to 28 charges of fraud in connection with his role in the sponsorship scandal, claims he’s flat broke. Lafleur has filed for bankruptcy, citing his criminal conviction as the reason for his recent economic hardship.

Must-reads: Don Martin on Gomery’s comeuppance; Susan Riley on the cabinet shuffle; Richard Gwyn on the Green Shift.

Or perhaps a tour of the Gomerytham sewer system in a glass-bottomed boat. Let’s just hope he leaves a trail of breadcrumbs so he can find his way back to the present day:

I’m not quite sure what set off my friend Paul Wells today, but the ruling of Federal Court Judge Max Teitelbaum has not “utterly discredited” the Gomery inquiry, nor is it the “total vindication” that Jean Chretien’s acolytes are predictably claiming.