Adscam Amateur Hour

One of the most egregious rationalizations of the sponsorship program's defenders was it even if millions of dollars were stolen from the taxpayers, they still got value for money.

By that reasoning, if my neighbour steals my hedge clippers to clean up the ratty old thornbush dividing our properties, I should be pleased with his theft:

Chuck Guite paid $1.5 million in federal funds for advertising work that resembled the shoddy project of a failing first-year marketing student, an expert testified Friday.

The Crown finished its case against Guite with the testimony of Jacques Nantel, a marketing and communications strategy expert who tore apart three reports that cost the federal sponsorship program about $500,000 each.

The reports were supposed to examine the effectiveness of sponsorships and explore new opportunities but were nearly useless with no criticism, no analysis, no sources and little evidence of research, he said.

"Such an approach in an introductory marketing class at the undergraduate level would deserve a failure," Nantel said, describing Groupaction Marketing Inc.'s so-called plan to boost the visibility of Canada in the Maritimes and Quebec.

Of course, that assumes that the reports were intended to be used as something other than a vehicle for money laundering.

If the money got laundered to the right pockets, and that was the point of Adscam, then surely Adscam was a success by its own lights, right?

Until they got caught.

Source: Canoe