Sponsorship Scandal

Of course - of course! - it had to be called "Sponsorgate" on wikipedia. If there's any sign of government corruption, no matter how small or how local, heck even with non-governmental public figures, they'll call it something-gate. It's the go-to play on words for news readers lacking creativity. But anyways, I digress. Well, I'm not sure if you can "digress" in an introductory paragraph, but... regardless.

Here's Gomery himself. It's also the only picture,
as even wikipedia didn't have any. Apparently
no one had cameras at the time.

The Liberal party of Canada was sitting pretty. They had power for twelve long years with no end in sight, with Chretien stepping down and Paul Martin about to take his place - and likely to absolutely clean house in the election - they were rightfully pleased with their position. That being said, they still had a problem on their hands, and as usual with Canadian history, that problem came from frustrated French Canadians. The separatist movement was looking particularly dangerous, and the government decided they needed to step in and resolve the issue by gradually changing the minds of Quebec residents and their anti-Canada mentality.

So what they did was go out and sell themselves.

They started a program to advertise all the good the Canadian federal government does for the province for Quebec. This would change the minds of the public and counter the growing separatist movement. However, they... well, they made a few errors along the way. They gave out a large number of the advertising contracts to Liberal supporters - kind of scummy but not exactly illegal. What was illegal was a large number of the companies didn't actually do any work, and some of the money was donated back to the Liberal party, meaning taxpayer dollars were fuelled into the Liberals regardless of party allegiance or, you know, actually wanting to donate. Or knowing they're donating. It's pretty bad.

Naturally, when rumours of corruption and misuse of funds began to circulate, the big justice people of Canada were forced to look into it - thus, the Gomery Commission was founded. They found $2,00,000 was given to people without properly having bid for the role, $250,000 was added to a contract without them doing any additional work, and $1,500,000 was given for work that was never completed. It was a massive shock to the people of Canada. If there's one thing that's going to kill public opinion, it's going to be that you robbed them of their money.

Right when this whole thing began to surface, Chretien decided to slip out of office and pass it along to Paul Martin. Martin was the Minister of Finance as well as the senior Minister of Quebec during the time of the scandal before becoming P.M., which may be the two worst positions to be in considering the issues came down to issues of finance... in Quebec. Regardless, Martin pleaded ignorance, and whether or not that's true is not for me to decide. Personally, I find it a little hard to believe that he had no idea this was going on - but regardless, he either was telling the truth or covered his tracks well enough to avoid any issue.

The fallout was rough. The Liberals were forced to hold an election in which they lost to the Conservatives for the first time in twelve years. Liberal voting in Quebec never really recovered, and I believe many would say justly so. Adding insult to injury, it was the first time since John A. Macdonald himself that a Prime Minister has ever had to answer to a inquiry on charges of corruption...

Oh, and yeah, John A. Macdonald had corruption charges as well. Just a fun fact.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "This is outrageous... it's a blatant misuse of public funds." -Auditor General Sheila Fraser. This basically sums it up. If you didn't read the blog but want to know what happened, that's about it.
2. "Our national unity strategy was necessary and right. Were some mistakes made in everything we did? I am sure they were. After all, we are all human." This comes from Jean Chretien. He's right, you know. We're all human, so we're bound to be incredibly corrupt and scan the general populace when given a position of power. Oh, and that's not even touching on the 'were some mistakes made in everything we did?' line, which is hilarious in and of itself.
3. "Accountability is what ordinary Canadians, working Canadians, people who pay their bills, pay their taxes, expect from their political leaders. ...Justice Gomery did an admirable job, but I don't think we're going to drop the matter when fourty to fifty million are still missing." -Then Prime Minister-Designate Stephen Harper. I'm sure there's some sort of political commentary I can make here but I'm not well enough informed to do so. Dang.