Anxiously Awaiting Gomery Report

Waiting for Gomery -- Political observers of all stripes are anxiously awaiting the two reports Justice Gomery will table this fall, reports that many hope will finally tell the 'real story' of why the program went so badly off the rails. The Hill Times, September 5th, 2005, Christopher Guly

[. . . . ] Conservative MP John Williams (Edmonton-St. Albert, Alta.), for one, is eager to see some light shed . . . .

[. . . . ] "He [Chuck Guite] seemed to be taking instructions from people higher up the food chain. But a middle-level bureaucrat could not walk around the corridors of power in Ottawa and drop in on the [Public Works] minister, the chief of staff of the Prime Minister and the president of Canada Post--it just doesn't happen unless there's some rationale for it. We also know that Guité was handing out all this money and I don't think it was for his own benefit."

[. . . . ] "A highly irregular relationship between a minister of the Crown and a lower-ranking public servant--one that bypassed the deputy minister without that deputy's knowledge--was allowed to continue undisturbed." [. . . . ]

Is there enough here to get you to read it?

Search: the RCMP , a whole slew of charges. , Paul Coffin , $1,556,625 , A joint trial involving Mr. Guité and former Groupaction Marketing Inc. president Jean Brault, the RCMP also charged Jacques Paradis, another person involved in the scandal and who took the stand at the Gomery inquiry , 29 recommendations the Public Accounts Committee included in its report , Ran Quail , Alfonso Gagliano say that he was only the minister and not supposed to be involved , Liberal MP Mark Holland (Ajax--Pickering, Ont.), vice-chair of the Public Accounts Committee, recommendations made by the committee , that deputy ministers be designated as "accounting officers , "We have to ensure that if a minister makes a demand that goes outside the rules , no clear responsibility , the federal government will resist the reform , Paul Martin's commitment to fixing the democratic deficit , "Policy Options editor Ian MacDonald--a speechwriter in the Prime Minister's Office during former prime minister Brian Mulroney's time in office--expects" , "Warren Kinsella, who served as special assistant to former prime minister Jean Chrétien and executive assistant to former public works minister David Dingwall" , Mr. Kinsella in an email sent via Blackberry from a beach in Maine , poll conducted by The Strategic Counsel for The Globe and Mail and CTV , "Globe columnist Norman Spector, who served as chief of staff to former prime minister Brian Mulroney and whose web site, (www.members.shaw.ca/nspector4)"

It is worth reading Spector's whole Globe colummn today.

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