Mr. Dithers may be out of ideas, out of luck, and out of time, but he is certainly not out of brass.
Today the Liberal Party's lawyers will ask the Gomery inquiry to find out whether some dastardly thieves stole the money that the party was planning to steal for itself:
From Campbell Clark of Canada's National Newspaper:
Ottawa — The Liberal Party will call on Mr. Justice John Gomery today to investigate whether large sums of money allegedly paid to well-connected members for government sponsorship contracts ever made it to the party coffers.
As part of a communications strategy to cope with the scandal and distance the party from any Liberals who allegedly took payoffs, officials will offer to help Judge Gomery delve through any party records he needs.
That move is being made as Prime Minister Paul Martin makes his first comments on the scandal since advertising executive Jean Brault's damning testimony last week. Mr. Martin is expected to "acknowledge the outrage" Canadians feel and promise tough action will be taken when the facts are known, Liberal insiders say.
The Liberals are not asking Mr. Justice Gomery to look at the evidence; they want him to find an overwhelming amount of no evidence. The books will be a veritable treasure trove of no evidence of fraud, theft and corruption. A more detailed and accurate compilation of no evidence will never be found anywhere else. Gomery will hopefully report that he has reviewed the no evidence and found that it is, indeed, highly credible no evidence. And those who have profited from the no evidence will be able to sleep at night on their no evidence of ill-gotten gains.
Now if he would just let us have a look at the no evidence to be found in the books of 55555 Inc.
Monday, April 11, 2005
EKOS Poll: I Love The Smell of Napalm in the Morning
The Toronto Star , the Liberal Party's ever-faithful newspaper, and EKOS Research, the Liberal Party's ever-faithful pollster, have lost the faith by reporting this poll:
EKOS surveyed Canadians immediately following the release of devastating testimony last Thursday by former Montreal ad executive Jean Brault at the inquiry looking into the federal government's sponsorship scandal. Brault alleged gross misconduct in the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal party.
The pollster found that only 25 per cent of respondents nationwide would vote today for the Liberals, compared to 36.2 per cent for the Conservatives. The Liberals won a minority government with about 37 per cent of the vote in June 2004.
This represents the first non-election period poll in nearly 12 years that has shown the Conservative Party, or its predecessors, leading the Liberals nationwide.
Fears that Ontario would, like their French counterparts, "vote for the crooks and not the fascists", now are being laid to rest:
In Ontario, the Conservatives now lead with 40 per cent of the vote. The Liberals are at 33 per cent. Prime Minister Paul Martin escaped the indignity of losing the government last year when the party won 74 of the 106 seats in Ontario.
It's not just the sponsorship revelations dragging the federal Liberals down in Canada's biggest province, but also the so-called "fair-share" campaign that has pitted Premier Dalton McGuinty's provincial government against Martin's Liberals.
According to Frank Graves, president of EKOS, last week's scandal revelations only "lit the fuse, igniting resentment over fair-share treatment and ultimately producing a Liberal implosion in Ontario."
When we think of regionalism in Canada, rarely do we think of Ontario regionalism, because Ontario has always acted as though what was good for Ontario was good for Canada.
No longer.
Ontario has been the milk cow for the rest of Canada long before Alberta struck oil. Its immigrant and urban social liberal blocs have dutifully sent back huge Liberal contingents to Ottawa in defence of the national (i.e., Liberal) interest for four straight elections. What few promises have been made to urban Ontario (the "new deal" for cities that has never, nor will ever, materialize) have been casually broken because the Grits have always been able to keep Ontario in line with dark hints of "Alberta rednecks" and "hidden agendas".
The cities continue to decay, the highways are full of potholes, the tax base keeps fleeing to suburbia even as more demands fall on it, and still the Liberals keep taking Ontario for granted.
This Toronto Star editorial explains it all for you in greater detail.
Adscam has also finally stuck to Paul Martin personally:
By a ratio of two-to-one, Canadians are more likely to see Martin as part of the problem than as part of the solution to the sponsorship mess, the EKOS/Star poll shows.
A full 60 per cent of respondents said they saw the Prime Minister as "an essential part of the Liberal government since 1993 and now, as leader of the Liberal party, should be held accountable for the sponsorship mess."
Less than half that amount — 29 per cent — said Martin "had little to do with the sponsorship mess and deserves credit for calling the inquiry."
How could Martin have expected otherwise? People who haven't been following Adscam's twists and turns can still follow this simple logic: The Liberals created Adscam. Adscam took our tax money and wasted it in Quebec. Paul Martin handled our tax money. Paul Martin is from Quebec. Therefore Paul Martin was part of Adscam. QED.
And now for the even bigger numbers:
Liberals are now trailing in every region of the country, especially in Quebec and British Columbia, where the poll shows the party under threat of obliteration.
In Quebec, the Liberals have just 15 per cent support; in Alberta, only 10 per cent.
These were the types of low, low numbers that former prime minister Brian Mulroney's Conservative government received in polls in the months before it was dumped from office in 1993 and reduced to just two seats in the Commons.
The Liberals were always good for 15 seats in the West Island and Outaouais, come what may, until now. 15% in Quebec can only mean that the francophone federalist vote outside those areas has fled to the BQ, and the federalist vote in that area is splitting.
There may not be 15 safe Liberal seats any more. There may be barely a half-dozen. Paul Martin's La Salle-Emard, with a francophone majority, probably is not one of them. Jean Lapierre's Outremont certainly isn't. Perhaps he should ask David Kilgour for pointers.
EKOS surveyed Canadians immediately following the release of devastating testimony last Thursday by former Montreal ad executive Jean Brault at the inquiry looking into the federal government's sponsorship scandal. Brault alleged gross misconduct in the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal party.
The pollster found that only 25 per cent of respondents nationwide would vote today for the Liberals, compared to 36.2 per cent for the Conservatives. The Liberals won a minority government with about 37 per cent of the vote in June 2004.
This represents the first non-election period poll in nearly 12 years that has shown the Conservative Party, or its predecessors, leading the Liberals nationwide.
Fears that Ontario would, like their French counterparts, "vote for the crooks and not the fascists", now are being laid to rest:
In Ontario, the Conservatives now lead with 40 per cent of the vote. The Liberals are at 33 per cent. Prime Minister Paul Martin escaped the indignity of losing the government last year when the party won 74 of the 106 seats in Ontario.
It's not just the sponsorship revelations dragging the federal Liberals down in Canada's biggest province, but also the so-called "fair-share" campaign that has pitted Premier Dalton McGuinty's provincial government against Martin's Liberals.
According to Frank Graves, president of EKOS, last week's scandal revelations only "lit the fuse, igniting resentment over fair-share treatment and ultimately producing a Liberal implosion in Ontario."
When we think of regionalism in Canada, rarely do we think of Ontario regionalism, because Ontario has always acted as though what was good for Ontario was good for Canada.
No longer.
Ontario has been the milk cow for the rest of Canada long before Alberta struck oil. Its immigrant and urban social liberal blocs have dutifully sent back huge Liberal contingents to Ottawa in defence of the national (i.e., Liberal) interest for four straight elections. What few promises have been made to urban Ontario (the "new deal" for cities that has never, nor will ever, materialize) have been casually broken because the Grits have always been able to keep Ontario in line with dark hints of "Alberta rednecks" and "hidden agendas".
The cities continue to decay, the highways are full of potholes, the tax base keeps fleeing to suburbia even as more demands fall on it, and still the Liberals keep taking Ontario for granted.
This Toronto Star editorial explains it all for you in greater detail.
Adscam has also finally stuck to Paul Martin personally:
By a ratio of two-to-one, Canadians are more likely to see Martin as part of the problem than as part of the solution to the sponsorship mess, the EKOS/Star poll shows.
A full 60 per cent of respondents said they saw the Prime Minister as "an essential part of the Liberal government since 1993 and now, as leader of the Liberal party, should be held accountable for the sponsorship mess."
Less than half that amount — 29 per cent — said Martin "had little to do with the sponsorship mess and deserves credit for calling the inquiry."
How could Martin have expected otherwise? People who haven't been following Adscam's twists and turns can still follow this simple logic: The Liberals created Adscam. Adscam took our tax money and wasted it in Quebec. Paul Martin handled our tax money. Paul Martin is from Quebec. Therefore Paul Martin was part of Adscam. QED.
And now for the even bigger numbers:
Liberals are now trailing in every region of the country, especially in Quebec and British Columbia, where the poll shows the party under threat of obliteration.
In Quebec, the Liberals have just 15 per cent support; in Alberta, only 10 per cent.
These were the types of low, low numbers that former prime minister Brian Mulroney's Conservative government received in polls in the months before it was dumped from office in 1993 and reduced to just two seats in the Commons.
The Liberals were always good for 15 seats in the West Island and Outaouais, come what may, until now. 15% in Quebec can only mean that the francophone federalist vote outside those areas has fled to the BQ, and the federalist vote in that area is splitting.
There may not be 15 safe Liberal seats any more. There may be barely a half-dozen. Paul Martin's La Salle-Emard, with a francophone majority, probably is not one of them. Jean Lapierre's Outremont certainly isn't. Perhaps he should ask David Kilgour for pointers.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
SSM DOA?
The ever-insightful Angry in the Great White North ponders whether the Liberals would dump the same-sex marriage bill just to stay in power a little longer:
(T)he Conservatives could make it known that the price to have the Conservatives defeat an early Bloc Quebecois attempt to bring down the government (the first such attempt could come as early as next Thursday) will be to pull the legislation immediately.
This puts the Liberals to a test. Are they in government in order to push a vision they believe in, or to just to have their hands on the levers of government? The ejection of the Kyoto legislation makes it clear that power was more important than this evironmental legislation. Now the test will be between power and same-sex marriage. Assuming that the Liberals leadership does not really care about this legislation (and I will cynically assume this to be true), they need to figure out if the damage they suffer from capitulating on this issue (loss of support from to social left-wing in this country, who will move their support to the NDP or the Greens) is more or less than the slow repair of the damage suffered from the Gomery Inquiry, that damage being repaired with the passage of time. The Liberal leadership may believe that if they can just hold on long enough, they will win back more votes from angry Liberals furious over Adscam than they will lose from stripping down their legislative agenda to merely governing.
As I see it, the Liberals will do anything to keep the SSM bill alive for two reasons:
1. Paul Martin needs a legacy.
He's spent 15 years campaigning for the job and reflecting on how history would judge his premiership. Addressing the democratic deficit within Parliament might have made future backbench MP's grateful, once freed from the power of the whips and PMO, but left the general public indifferent.
No one believes that he has fixed, or could fix, healthcare for a month, let alone a generation. Passing Kyoto would do nothing to clean the air, but would poison the party out West. Nor could he resolve the fiscal imbalance without destroying the Liberals' image as the only party that believes in a strong federal government that has the money to spend to make everyone equal (in prosperity or penury).
Same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is something he couldn't help but be remembered for. Whether as the great defender of the Charter of Rights and sexual equality, or as the great destroyer of the Canadian social fabric, he would at least be remembered.
2. The Liberals are running out of ammunition for the next election.
The latest Adscam revelations have destroyed whatever hopes Martin might have had of distancing his government from his predecessor. His policy promises have been sacrificed, one by one, to keep his minority alive. The Conservative Party he faces now is not the jury-rigged one he faced ten months ago, but one with a confident leader, well-defined policy agenda, and an election-ready machine.
The only effective tactics left to the Liberals are scare tactics--rather, scare tactic. The Grits must keep shouting about "subversion of the Charter", "taking rights away" and "bigotry" in order to deflect attention from their corruption and inaction.
Paul Martin may not prefer to fight on this hill. But he has retreated so far that SSM will be the hill he wins or dies on.
(T)he Conservatives could make it known that the price to have the Conservatives defeat an early Bloc Quebecois attempt to bring down the government (the first such attempt could come as early as next Thursday) will be to pull the legislation immediately.
This puts the Liberals to a test. Are they in government in order to push a vision they believe in, or to just to have their hands on the levers of government? The ejection of the Kyoto legislation makes it clear that power was more important than this evironmental legislation. Now the test will be between power and same-sex marriage. Assuming that the Liberals leadership does not really care about this legislation (and I will cynically assume this to be true), they need to figure out if the damage they suffer from capitulating on this issue (loss of support from to social left-wing in this country, who will move their support to the NDP or the Greens) is more or less than the slow repair of the damage suffered from the Gomery Inquiry, that damage being repaired with the passage of time. The Liberal leadership may believe that if they can just hold on long enough, they will win back more votes from angry Liberals furious over Adscam than they will lose from stripping down their legislative agenda to merely governing.
As I see it, the Liberals will do anything to keep the SSM bill alive for two reasons:
1. Paul Martin needs a legacy.
He's spent 15 years campaigning for the job and reflecting on how history would judge his premiership. Addressing the democratic deficit within Parliament might have made future backbench MP's grateful, once freed from the power of the whips and PMO, but left the general public indifferent.
No one believes that he has fixed, or could fix, healthcare for a month, let alone a generation. Passing Kyoto would do nothing to clean the air, but would poison the party out West. Nor could he resolve the fiscal imbalance without destroying the Liberals' image as the only party that believes in a strong federal government that has the money to spend to make everyone equal (in prosperity or penury).
Same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is something he couldn't help but be remembered for. Whether as the great defender of the Charter of Rights and sexual equality, or as the great destroyer of the Canadian social fabric, he would at least be remembered.
2. The Liberals are running out of ammunition for the next election.
The latest Adscam revelations have destroyed whatever hopes Martin might have had of distancing his government from his predecessor. His policy promises have been sacrificed, one by one, to keep his minority alive. The Conservative Party he faces now is not the jury-rigged one he faced ten months ago, but one with a confident leader, well-defined policy agenda, and an election-ready machine.
The only effective tactics left to the Liberals are scare tactics--rather, scare tactic. The Grits must keep shouting about "subversion of the Charter", "taking rights away" and "bigotry" in order to deflect attention from their corruption and inaction.
Paul Martin may not prefer to fight on this hill. But he has retreated so far that SSM will be the hill he wins or dies on.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Ipsos Factos: Tories Rising, Grits Falling, Quebec Worrying
Ipsos-Reid's latest poll for CTV and the Globe and Mail, completed two days before the Gomery inquiry publication ban was lifted, shows the Tories within four points of the Grits nationwide and in Ontario:
In Ontario, the gap between the two main parties shrank from 15 percentage points in February to only 4 points this week. The Liberals led the Conservatives 38-34 in the province, with the NDP at 17 per cent.
Such results in an election would probably mean substantial gains of seats for the Conservatives in Ontario, where last year the Liberals won 45 per cent of the vote and 75 seats, the Conservatives took 31 per cent of the vote and 24 seats, and the NDP took 18 per cent and seven seats.
This should be good for another 20 seats out of Southern and Eastern Ontario and the 905 belt, perhaps a couple more to the NDP in Toronto. That alone would produce a minority Tory government, because many Ontario votes will be wasted on huge Toronto majorities that do nothing to help candidates in swing ridings.
The bad news is that Quebec federalists seem to switching allegiance, not to the Tories, but anywhere else but:
In Quebec, where the sponsorship scandal has already been particularly damaging to the Liberals, Mr. Martin's government fell five percentage points to 29 per cent — support that went to the Bloc Québécois (41 per cent) and the fifth-placed party in the province, the Greens, now at 7 per cent.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, remain mired at 8-per-cent support.
The unreported figure of decided voters for the NDP would be 15% in Quebec. Not all of that would be coming from disgruntled Liberals either, if we compare the 2004 vote to the Ipsos-Reid Poll.
2004 Election: BQ 48.9% LIB 33.9% CPC 8.8% NDP 4.6% OTH 3.9%
Ipsos-Reid: BQ 41% LIB 29% NDP 15% CPC 8% OTH 7%
This raises two questions: is the federalist vote in Quebec so inimically hostile to the Conservative Party that it will move to the NDP or Green Party instead? Might the NDP also be able to draw off some hard-core socialist Bloc votes, cancelling out seat gains it might otherwise have taken from the Liberals?
To answer the first question:
The federalist core remains the West Island and Outaouais, two regions the Tories would have found tough nuts to crack because they are heavily urban, and have either large allophone or civil service populations. In that case, they'll be even worse dead zones than Toronto.
To answer the second question:
Probably not, not even with a Quebec-born leader. Nationalism trumps economic and social policy, even in Quebec. Although Quebec nationalism is largely leftist today, it has been rightist in the past (Union Nationale/Creditiste), and could just as easily swing to the right again.
In Ontario, the gap between the two main parties shrank from 15 percentage points in February to only 4 points this week. The Liberals led the Conservatives 38-34 in the province, with the NDP at 17 per cent.
Such results in an election would probably mean substantial gains of seats for the Conservatives in Ontario, where last year the Liberals won 45 per cent of the vote and 75 seats, the Conservatives took 31 per cent of the vote and 24 seats, and the NDP took 18 per cent and seven seats.
This should be good for another 20 seats out of Southern and Eastern Ontario and the 905 belt, perhaps a couple more to the NDP in Toronto. That alone would produce a minority Tory government, because many Ontario votes will be wasted on huge Toronto majorities that do nothing to help candidates in swing ridings.
The bad news is that Quebec federalists seem to switching allegiance, not to the Tories, but anywhere else but:
In Quebec, where the sponsorship scandal has already been particularly damaging to the Liberals, Mr. Martin's government fell five percentage points to 29 per cent — support that went to the Bloc Québécois (41 per cent) and the fifth-placed party in the province, the Greens, now at 7 per cent.
The Conservatives, meanwhile, remain mired at 8-per-cent support.
The unreported figure of decided voters for the NDP would be 15% in Quebec. Not all of that would be coming from disgruntled Liberals either, if we compare the 2004 vote to the Ipsos-Reid Poll.
2004 Election: BQ 48.9% LIB 33.9% CPC 8.8% NDP 4.6% OTH 3.9%
Ipsos-Reid: BQ 41% LIB 29% NDP 15% CPC 8% OTH 7%
This raises two questions: is the federalist vote in Quebec so inimically hostile to the Conservative Party that it will move to the NDP or Green Party instead? Might the NDP also be able to draw off some hard-core socialist Bloc votes, cancelling out seat gains it might otherwise have taken from the Liberals?
To answer the first question:
The federalist core remains the West Island and Outaouais, two regions the Tories would have found tough nuts to crack because they are heavily urban, and have either large allophone or civil service populations. In that case, they'll be even worse dead zones than Toronto.
To answer the second question:
Probably not, not even with a Quebec-born leader. Nationalism trumps economic and social policy, even in Quebec. Although Quebec nationalism is largely leftist today, it has been rightist in the past (Union Nationale/Creditiste), and could just as easily swing to the right again.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Down the Money Trail
Today's Ottawa Citizen lays out every major bribe, kickback and under-the-table payment Jean Brault and Groupaction paid to the Liberal Party.
Read it and weep.
Groupaction wasn't an ad agency that raised funds for the Liberals on the side; it was a Liberal fundraiser that did advertising on the side.
Read it and weep.
Groupaction wasn't an ad agency that raised funds for the Liberals on the side; it was a Liberal fundraiser that did advertising on the side.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Gomery Inquiry Lid Blown Off
You know that thing we were all talking about but weren't supposed to talk about? Justice Gomery says it's OK to talk about it now.
Here's what we can talk about:
MONTREAL -- Top federal Liberal officials forced an ad executive to secretly divert more than $1 million to the party's Quebec wing in exchange for sponsorship contracts, the executive told the Gomery inquiry in politically explosive testimony that had been kept under wraps by a publication ban that was finally lifted Thursday.
Brault's Groupaction firm also defrayed party staffing costs through Liberal employees who were planted in his firm at the urging of party brass.
The scheme went on for nine years and involved at least $1.1 million involving top officials in the office of former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.
If true, the scam would be unprecedented in modern federal politics because tax dollars were funnelled from public coffers to the Liberal party while middlemen took huge commissions for little or no work.
Yeah, but we knew that already (unofficially, anyway), you might be saying.
There's more:
Brault last week portrayed Groupaction as a virtual financial arm of the Liberal party's Quebec wing - a wing that was $3.8-million in debt by late 2003.
''We were very heavily solicited,'' Brault recalled last Friday under questioning from lead inquiry counsel Bernard Roy.
''We didn't ask questions and we understood that all contributions were going to be taken into consideration and that we would be compensated (for it) one way or another.''
That first line explains why Paul Martin called in the RCMP and is suing Brault for $40 million: somebody in the Quebec wing swindled the party out of all that money they worked so hard to steal. If we can believe the party's financial statements. Since the whole racket was illegal to start, there was no fraud, since an illegal contract can't be enforced.
But Brault has shown an equal amount of chutzpah by claiming that he was the victim of a shakedown by the Quebec wing:
Brault provided several examples of a wide-ranging conspiracy to funnel cash to what Liberal brass called ''the cause'' which he understood was that of the Liberal party.
''I was told the party counted a lot on me and my financial aid,'' Brault recalled.
Brault claimed specific requests for money were usually made by one of three men:
_ Jacques Corriveau, whose Pluri Design graphic firm received $494,000 from Groupaction.
_ Benoit Corbeil, president of the Liberal party's Quebec wing in the 1990s.
_ And Alain Renaud, a Liberal fundraiser who worked at Groupaction for several years, earning more than $1.1 million.
Throughout his testimony, Brault portrayed himself as an unwitting Liberal donor who only forked over the cash to keep federal contracts that netted his firm $60 million, including $17 million in commissions and other fees.
He soon found himself facing a barrage of requests to pay party bills, telephone bills and web design costs - requests he said he usually refused.
What brass! Brault was quite happy to be shaken down as long as the contracts came in. He knows the price of doing political business in Quebec--everyone has, since the days of Duplessis.
Ah, damn it. I'm too pissed off to post anymore on this.
Here's what we can talk about:
MONTREAL -- Top federal Liberal officials forced an ad executive to secretly divert more than $1 million to the party's Quebec wing in exchange for sponsorship contracts, the executive told the Gomery inquiry in politically explosive testimony that had been kept under wraps by a publication ban that was finally lifted Thursday.
Brault's Groupaction firm also defrayed party staffing costs through Liberal employees who were planted in his firm at the urging of party brass.
The scheme went on for nine years and involved at least $1.1 million involving top officials in the office of former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.
If true, the scam would be unprecedented in modern federal politics because tax dollars were funnelled from public coffers to the Liberal party while middlemen took huge commissions for little or no work.
Yeah, but we knew that already (unofficially, anyway), you might be saying.
There's more:
Brault last week portrayed Groupaction as a virtual financial arm of the Liberal party's Quebec wing - a wing that was $3.8-million in debt by late 2003.
''We were very heavily solicited,'' Brault recalled last Friday under questioning from lead inquiry counsel Bernard Roy.
''We didn't ask questions and we understood that all contributions were going to be taken into consideration and that we would be compensated (for it) one way or another.''
That first line explains why Paul Martin called in the RCMP and is suing Brault for $40 million: somebody in the Quebec wing swindled the party out of all that money they worked so hard to steal. If we can believe the party's financial statements. Since the whole racket was illegal to start, there was no fraud, since an illegal contract can't be enforced.
But Brault has shown an equal amount of chutzpah by claiming that he was the victim of a shakedown by the Quebec wing:
Brault provided several examples of a wide-ranging conspiracy to funnel cash to what Liberal brass called ''the cause'' which he understood was that of the Liberal party.
''I was told the party counted a lot on me and my financial aid,'' Brault recalled.
Brault claimed specific requests for money were usually made by one of three men:
_ Jacques Corriveau, whose Pluri Design graphic firm received $494,000 from Groupaction.
_ Benoit Corbeil, president of the Liberal party's Quebec wing in the 1990s.
_ And Alain Renaud, a Liberal fundraiser who worked at Groupaction for several years, earning more than $1.1 million.
Throughout his testimony, Brault portrayed himself as an unwitting Liberal donor who only forked over the cash to keep federal contracts that netted his firm $60 million, including $17 million in commissions and other fees.
He soon found himself facing a barrage of requests to pay party bills, telephone bills and web design costs - requests he said he usually refused.
What brass! Brault was quite happy to be shaken down as long as the contracts came in. He knows the price of doing political business in Quebec--everyone has, since the days of Duplessis.
Ah, damn it. I'm too pissed off to post anymore on this.
Horse, Barn Door
Today we'll know if Mr. Justice John Gomery will accept a fait accompli and lift the publication ban. Part of it, anyway, according to CTV :
Watching developments in the capital, CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife said this morning he expects Gomery will only partially lift the publication ban.
"Certain evidence that Jean Brault gave, because it involves his criminal trial, will likely be kept under lock and key," he says.
"But a lot of allegations that he's made about the Liberal party or the people who ran the Liberal party machine in Quebec, we expect, will be released today," Fife told CTV's Canada AM, noting that public reaction to that news could still prove damaging.
I'd like to know how Justice Gomery can separate what concerns Brault and is merely damaging to Brault, as opposed to what concerns Brault and is merely damaging to others. Given the complexity of the Adscam scheme, and Brault's central role in it, almost anything coming out of the Gomery inquiry testimony can be said to fall under the ban, or not.
Watching developments in the capital, CTV Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife said this morning he expects Gomery will only partially lift the publication ban.
"Certain evidence that Jean Brault gave, because it involves his criminal trial, will likely be kept under lock and key," he says.
"But a lot of allegations that he's made about the Liberal party or the people who ran the Liberal party machine in Quebec, we expect, will be released today," Fife told CTV's Canada AM, noting that public reaction to that news could still prove damaging.
I'd like to know how Justice Gomery can separate what concerns Brault and is merely damaging to Brault, as opposed to what concerns Brault and is merely damaging to others. Given the complexity of the Adscam scheme, and Brault's central role in it, almost anything coming out of the Gomery inquiry testimony can be said to fall under the ban, or not.
Lien On You?
The Toronto Star reports that the Law Society of Upper Canada is investigating 72 lawyers as part of an investigation into mortgage fraud involving the Teranet land registry system:
In the report presented at the society's recent convocation, the law society says fraudsters have been able to use the province's electronic land registry system, Teranet Land Information Services Inc., to alter records — including changing ownership of properties to themselves. The fraud artists then use the documents to obtain mortgages. They may even make a few mortgage payments before running off with the rest of the cash. The fraud isn't discovered until the homeowner receives a mortgage bill or tries to sell the property and finds that there's a lien on it.
The report says mortgage fraud has ballooned to about $300 million a year and become easier with the "depersonalization" of banking due to a move away from face-to-face contact between borrowers and lenders due to the growth of Internet and telephone banking.
Before people start screaming about an army of crooked lawyers ripping off the public, a note of caution:
The report says the lawyers may be "unwitting" participants in the fraud, having been called into the transaction too late to catch a fraud that took place early in the deal.
In one scenario outlined in the report, a fraudster gains access to the Teranet system using a lost or stolen diskette meant to give lawyers and other real estate industry professionals access to land registry records, and changes title on a property to his or her name — even paying the required fees and taxes.
"Now the fraudster has title to someone else's home," the report says.
From there, the fraudster can get a mortgage — using Teranet to fraudulently discharge any outstanding mortgages to make the loan approval go more smoothly, if necessary.
An explanatory note, as I understand it:
Before Teranet was set up, there were two land registry systems in Ontario: one known as land registry, primarily in southern Ontario, the other known as land titles (or Torrens), in northern Ontario.
The former was a registry of instruments (deeds, mortgages, liens, etc.) on lots in concessions and townships dating back from the time the original townships were created as far back as the late 1790's, and forward as they were subdivided
The latter was more simply a record of title to a particular piece of real property and history of its transfers and charges thereon.
As part of any standard real estate transaction, a lawyer has to do a title search confirming, in fact, that the seller actually has title to the property. The search usually goes back 40 years, bearing in mind any curative provisions of the Planning Act that remedy earlier defects that might otherwise have prevented good title from passing.
Under Teranet, all real property in Ontario will eventually be converted to the land titles system. Under land titles, the same in-depth title searches need not be run as land titles is itself good title. Nonetheless, searches for any charges on the property must be run.
Teranet allows real estate transactions to be closed entirely on-line, without having to go a county registry office. The PINs and passwords are effectively the lawyers' electronic signatures stating that good legal title can pass, all charges have been taken care of, taxes paid, etc. If anything goes wrong, title insurance might cover it, but the lawyer is open to liability for professional negligence.
If Teranet has been compromised this way, a fair number of real estate lawyers who were otherwise innocent might lose their practices once word gets out in the profession and to the public. As for those who might have been complicit, LSUC will have to hit them as hard as if they'd dipped into the trust accounts--the one sin LSUC will not forgive in this life, or the next.
In the report presented at the society's recent convocation, the law society says fraudsters have been able to use the province's electronic land registry system, Teranet Land Information Services Inc., to alter records — including changing ownership of properties to themselves. The fraud artists then use the documents to obtain mortgages. They may even make a few mortgage payments before running off with the rest of the cash. The fraud isn't discovered until the homeowner receives a mortgage bill or tries to sell the property and finds that there's a lien on it.
The report says mortgage fraud has ballooned to about $300 million a year and become easier with the "depersonalization" of banking due to a move away from face-to-face contact between borrowers and lenders due to the growth of Internet and telephone banking.
Before people start screaming about an army of crooked lawyers ripping off the public, a note of caution:
The report says the lawyers may be "unwitting" participants in the fraud, having been called into the transaction too late to catch a fraud that took place early in the deal.
In one scenario outlined in the report, a fraudster gains access to the Teranet system using a lost or stolen diskette meant to give lawyers and other real estate industry professionals access to land registry records, and changes title on a property to his or her name — even paying the required fees and taxes.
"Now the fraudster has title to someone else's home," the report says.
From there, the fraudster can get a mortgage — using Teranet to fraudulently discharge any outstanding mortgages to make the loan approval go more smoothly, if necessary.
An explanatory note, as I understand it:
Before Teranet was set up, there were two land registry systems in Ontario: one known as land registry, primarily in southern Ontario, the other known as land titles (or Torrens), in northern Ontario.
The former was a registry of instruments (deeds, mortgages, liens, etc.) on lots in concessions and townships dating back from the time the original townships were created as far back as the late 1790's, and forward as they were subdivided
The latter was more simply a record of title to a particular piece of real property and history of its transfers and charges thereon.
As part of any standard real estate transaction, a lawyer has to do a title search confirming, in fact, that the seller actually has title to the property. The search usually goes back 40 years, bearing in mind any curative provisions of the Planning Act that remedy earlier defects that might otherwise have prevented good title from passing.
Under Teranet, all real property in Ontario will eventually be converted to the land titles system. Under land titles, the same in-depth title searches need not be run as land titles is itself good title. Nonetheless, searches for any charges on the property must be run.
Teranet allows real estate transactions to be closed entirely on-line, without having to go a county registry office. The PINs and passwords are effectively the lawyers' electronic signatures stating that good legal title can pass, all charges have been taken care of, taxes paid, etc. If anything goes wrong, title insurance might cover it, but the lawyer is open to liability for professional negligence.
If Teranet has been compromised this way, a fair number of real estate lawyers who were otherwise innocent might lose their practices once word gets out in the profession and to the public. As for those who might have been complicit, LSUC will have to hit them as hard as if they'd dipped into the trust accounts--the one sin LSUC will not forgive in this life, or the next.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Tu Quoque
Strong World reports that some of the Adscam kickback money wound up in the Parti Quebecois' pockets, according to former Groupaction executive Alain Renaud:
But another former Groupaction executive, Alain Renaud, said that while the firm was getting millions of dollars in federal sponsorship money, it was secretly cutting cheques to the separatist Parti Quebecois.
Renaud said that in one transaction, a total of about $90,000 was given to the PQ as part of Groupaction's getting a $4.5-million advertising contract for the Quebec liquor board, called the SAQ.
Groupaction apparently won the contract in a competition when a bagman for the Parti Quebecois had a meeting with the firm's top executives.
One of those executives told Sun Media: "The bagman came by and said: 'Well, you won the bid, and all that's needed now is a signature, and the documents are on the minister's desk to be signed, and it's going to cost you fifty grand.' "
Renaud recalled about $45,000 a year in donations were to be paid to the PQ for two years.
Very interesting to see this bit of information come out just as the Bloc is considering bringing the government down over Jean Brault's testimony.
Given the close relationship between the BQ and PQ, might this not be a veiled threat to the Bloc: vote us down and all your dirt, and the PQ's, comes out during the campaign!
This sounds like a real desperation ploy, if anything. The Liberals are dead in the water in Quebec. But perhaps they can throw mud at the PQ in hopes that enough will spatter over the Bloc to make voters think, "They're both crooks! Let's stay at home and not vote!"
Maybe they think they can save at least their current seat totals this way.
Your thoughts?
But another former Groupaction executive, Alain Renaud, said that while the firm was getting millions of dollars in federal sponsorship money, it was secretly cutting cheques to the separatist Parti Quebecois.
Renaud said that in one transaction, a total of about $90,000 was given to the PQ as part of Groupaction's getting a $4.5-million advertising contract for the Quebec liquor board, called the SAQ.
Groupaction apparently won the contract in a competition when a bagman for the Parti Quebecois had a meeting with the firm's top executives.
One of those executives told Sun Media: "The bagman came by and said: 'Well, you won the bid, and all that's needed now is a signature, and the documents are on the minister's desk to be signed, and it's going to cost you fifty grand.' "
Renaud recalled about $45,000 a year in donations were to be paid to the PQ for two years.
Very interesting to see this bit of information come out just as the Bloc is considering bringing the government down over Jean Brault's testimony.
Given the close relationship between the BQ and PQ, might this not be a veiled threat to the Bloc: vote us down and all your dirt, and the PQ's, comes out during the campaign!
This sounds like a real desperation ploy, if anything. The Liberals are dead in the water in Quebec. But perhaps they can throw mud at the PQ in hopes that enough will spatter over the Bloc to make voters think, "They're both crooks! Let's stay at home and not vote!"
Maybe they think they can save at least their current seat totals this way.
Your thoughts?
Election Talk
The city has been abuzz with rumours of an upcoming election. One had to be held sooner or later, and recent events assure that it will be sooner.
The media has been making all manner of speculations, much of it ill-informed or wishful thinking, coming from secondhand rumours from unnamed sources.
Who's running? Where do they stand on the issues? How do they plan to govern? Will they make great sweeping changes or will they stay the course? Whom will they appoint to the top jobs?
As with every election before it, there will be plenty of polling projections and pundit predictions, but everything rests in the hands of the voters.
Everyone's plans have been depending on the date, and now we have one: April 18.
The media has been making all manner of speculations, much of it ill-informed or wishful thinking, coming from secondhand rumours from unnamed sources.
Who's running? Where do they stand on the issues? How do they plan to govern? Will they make great sweeping changes or will they stay the course? Whom will they appoint to the top jobs?
As with every election before it, there will be plenty of polling projections and pundit predictions, but everything rests in the hands of the voters.
Everyone's plans have been depending on the date, and now we have one: April 18.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Mugged
CTV reports Scott Brison giving Canadians the mugger's threat in Question Period: hand over your money or get the crap kicked out of you.
Public Works Minister Scott Brison repeated the Liberals' new "dangerous game" mantra after a sponsorship-related attack on the government by the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
"This is an attempt to destroy Canada and the reputation of the government," he said Tuesday in question period.
....
Prior to that, Brison said: "If it's good for the separatists, it's not good for Canada."
In perspective, $100 million in lost sponsorship money is small change compared to the billions of dollars pumped into Quebec by the rest of Canada each year, for forty years, through equalization, grants and programs, with the ultimate aim of appeasing separatist sentiment.
Yet although Quebec separatism periodically waxes and wanes, the threat never goes away, and never will go away, as long as Quebec remains a French-speaking island in a sea of English.
And to think about it, the federal Liberal party doesn't really want it to go away, either. As long as the threat exists, and the Liberals enjoy some measure of support in Quebec, they can always claim at election time that only they can save the country, and they (that is, we) will pay any price, bear any burden, to keep Canada united.
Now it appears that Quebeckers will not be bought off any longer, and the rest of Canada is sick of paying out and getting nothing in return.
In hindsight, the means by which the sponsorship program was supposed to instill love and pride of Canada in the hearts of Quebeckers seem quite pathetic.
To think that 250 years of grievances against les anglais , from the Plains of Abraham and the rebellions of 1837 through to Louis Riel's hanging, conscription and Meech Lake could be reduced to a marketing problem, to be solved by sticking up a few maple leaf logos on billboards!
To think that mere advertising agencies could solve today what statesmen over the years could not!
To think that love of country could be bought with taxpayers money!
Public Works Minister Scott Brison repeated the Liberals' new "dangerous game" mantra after a sponsorship-related attack on the government by the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
"This is an attempt to destroy Canada and the reputation of the government," he said Tuesday in question period.
....
Prior to that, Brison said: "If it's good for the separatists, it's not good for Canada."
In perspective, $100 million in lost sponsorship money is small change compared to the billions of dollars pumped into Quebec by the rest of Canada each year, for forty years, through equalization, grants and programs, with the ultimate aim of appeasing separatist sentiment.
Yet although Quebec separatism periodically waxes and wanes, the threat never goes away, and never will go away, as long as Quebec remains a French-speaking island in a sea of English.
And to think about it, the federal Liberal party doesn't really want it to go away, either. As long as the threat exists, and the Liberals enjoy some measure of support in Quebec, they can always claim at election time that only they can save the country, and they (that is, we) will pay any price, bear any burden, to keep Canada united.
Now it appears that Quebeckers will not be bought off any longer, and the rest of Canada is sick of paying out and getting nothing in return.
In hindsight, the means by which the sponsorship program was supposed to instill love and pride of Canada in the hearts of Quebeckers seem quite pathetic.
To think that 250 years of grievances against les anglais , from the Plains of Abraham and the rebellions of 1837 through to Louis Riel's hanging, conscription and Meech Lake could be reduced to a marketing problem, to be solved by sticking up a few maple leaf logos on billboards!
To think that mere advertising agencies could solve today what statesmen over the years could not!
To think that love of country could be bought with taxpayers money!
Papal Poll
As reported on Yahoo:
According to an opinion poll at the weekend by the National Post newspaper, 60 percent of the country's Roman Catholics described the pontiff as conservative. Only 21 percent endorsed his positions.
Pontius Pilate governed based on opinion polls too; that's why he released Barabbas.
According to an opinion poll at the weekend by the National Post newspaper, 60 percent of the country's Roman Catholics described the pontiff as conservative. Only 21 percent endorsed his positions.
Pontius Pilate governed based on opinion polls too; that's why he released Barabbas.
Brand New Name, Same Old Management
CBC reports that the Alberta Liberal Party fears that the sponsorship scandal has so completely damaged the Liberal brand that they're thinking of changing their name.
Says leader Kevin Taft:
Until now he has resisted suggestions the Alberta Liberal Party change its name. "But my resistance on that is down right now, to be honest with you. ... As the leader, I have to ask myself how long do we hang on that? I wouldn't have said that even a week ago, but my resistance to people who raise that is down right now."
I don't know how much more damage the feds could do to the Liberal name in Alberta, short of nuking the tar sands, slaying all the cattle and turning the grain elevators into bathhouses.
A change is as good as a rest, and changing a few names and faces might help the Liberals immensely.
The same strategy worked wonders for many of the post-Cold War Communist parties in Eastern Europe. One day they were Communist, the next day they were Social Democratic or Progressive Socialist. And after disillusionment and economic decline set in, a few years later they were voted back in office.
Any suggestions for a new name for the Liberal Party?
Says leader Kevin Taft:
Until now he has resisted suggestions the Alberta Liberal Party change its name. "But my resistance on that is down right now, to be honest with you. ... As the leader, I have to ask myself how long do we hang on that? I wouldn't have said that even a week ago, but my resistance to people who raise that is down right now."
I don't know how much more damage the feds could do to the Liberal name in Alberta, short of nuking the tar sands, slaying all the cattle and turning the grain elevators into bathhouses.
A change is as good as a rest, and changing a few names and faces might help the Liberals immensely.
The same strategy worked wonders for many of the post-Cold War Communist parties in Eastern Europe. One day they were Communist, the next day they were Social Democratic or Progressive Socialist. And after disillusionment and economic decline set in, a few years later they were voted back in office.
Any suggestions for a new name for the Liberal Party?
Adscam, Part Deux
Captain's Quarters neatly sums up Jean Brault's second day of testimony with an account that not only reveals the depths of corruption within the federal Quebec liberal organization, but also gives the lie to Paul Martin's repeated claims of innocence in the whole affair.
Quoth the Captain:
Brault was invited to join a consultative committee for Rogers Cantel – a Canadian mobile phone company, chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister and key Martin ally Francis Fox. (Fox later served as Martin’s Principal Secretary when Martin became Prime Minister). At one of the Cantel lunches, another former Liberal minister and Martin organizer Jacques Olivier told Brault that he should “Stick to Corriveau. He will open doors for you.” (Olivier was referring to key Chrétien ally Jacques Corriveau, who Brault brought in as a subcontractor on advertising contracts.) This shows that two of Martin’s key Quebec organizers knew what was happening with government contracting and sponsorships.
And all the while, Paul Martin has been running around performing his best Captain Renault imitation, claiming to be shocked, SHOCKED, to find bribery and fraud going on in here!
But wait! There's more!
Another connection is through Liberal organizer – and former assistant to Fox – Yvon Desrochers. When Brault was asked about direct political interference in the awarding of sponsorships, he mentioned that Desrochers and Corriveau pushed hard for approval of federal money for the renovation of the Corona Theatre in the riding of Liberal cabinet minister Lucienne Robillard (who still sits in Paul Martin’s cabinet as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs), even though there were indications of construction problems. The person responsible for transferring the funds was told to “cut the check and don’t ask questions.”
Close ties link Fox, Olivier, Desrochers, Martin fundraiser and former hockey star Serge Savard, and another one of the Adscam firms – Claude Boulay’s Groupe Everest – and all are connected with the Martin, not Chrétien, wing of the Liberal Party in Quebec. (Desrochers later committed suicide after the discovery of another corruption scandal, the Montreal International Aquatic Games, in which millions of dollars went missing.)
Throughout all of this, Martin has been able to make at least a barely plausible claim that the Adscam corruption had nothing to do with him and his machine, but with Chretien and Gagliano.
But really, how could he not have known?
Paul Martin spent nearly 15 years building a party within the party, taking over ridings and provincial party machines from Chretien's people, until, like an anaconda, he squeezed the life out of his opposition. He knew all of the players in Quebec, some of them since the 1960's.
He couldn't have been elected dogcatcher, let alone prime minister, without encountering the shady characters and schemes who populate the Quebec wing of the Liberal party.
He knows, as well as anyone, how political business is done in Quebec. It's been done the same way since the glory days of Maurice Duplessis, and it will always be done this way--backdoor deals, under-the-table kickbacks, secret commissions, padded payrolls, tollgating.
Martin doesn't want to get to the bottom of this, because he's been lying right down there all along.
Quoth the Captain:
Brault was invited to join a consultative committee for Rogers Cantel – a Canadian mobile phone company, chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister and key Martin ally Francis Fox. (Fox later served as Martin’s Principal Secretary when Martin became Prime Minister). At one of the Cantel lunches, another former Liberal minister and Martin organizer Jacques Olivier told Brault that he should “Stick to Corriveau. He will open doors for you.” (Olivier was referring to key Chrétien ally Jacques Corriveau, who Brault brought in as a subcontractor on advertising contracts.) This shows that two of Martin’s key Quebec organizers knew what was happening with government contracting and sponsorships.
And all the while, Paul Martin has been running around performing his best Captain Renault imitation, claiming to be shocked, SHOCKED, to find bribery and fraud going on in here!
But wait! There's more!
Another connection is through Liberal organizer – and former assistant to Fox – Yvon Desrochers. When Brault was asked about direct political interference in the awarding of sponsorships, he mentioned that Desrochers and Corriveau pushed hard for approval of federal money for the renovation of the Corona Theatre in the riding of Liberal cabinet minister Lucienne Robillard (who still sits in Paul Martin’s cabinet as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs), even though there were indications of construction problems. The person responsible for transferring the funds was told to “cut the check and don’t ask questions.”
Close ties link Fox, Olivier, Desrochers, Martin fundraiser and former hockey star Serge Savard, and another one of the Adscam firms – Claude Boulay’s Groupe Everest – and all are connected with the Martin, not Chrétien, wing of the Liberal Party in Quebec. (Desrochers later committed suicide after the discovery of another corruption scandal, the Montreal International Aquatic Games, in which millions of dollars went missing.)
Throughout all of this, Martin has been able to make at least a barely plausible claim that the Adscam corruption had nothing to do with him and his machine, but with Chretien and Gagliano.
But really, how could he not have known?
Paul Martin spent nearly 15 years building a party within the party, taking over ridings and provincial party machines from Chretien's people, until, like an anaconda, he squeezed the life out of his opposition. He knew all of the players in Quebec, some of them since the 1960's.
He couldn't have been elected dogcatcher, let alone prime minister, without encountering the shady characters and schemes who populate the Quebec wing of the Liberal party.
He knows, as well as anyone, how political business is done in Quebec. It's been done the same way since the glory days of Maurice Duplessis, and it will always be done this way--backdoor deals, under-the-table kickbacks, secret commissions, padded payrolls, tollgating.
Martin doesn't want to get to the bottom of this, because he's been lying right down there all along.
Monday, April 04, 2005
A Cancer on the Body Politic
The Liberal party is fighting to maintain a publication ban at the Gomery inquiry, not to protect a man's right to a fair trial, but to prevent the full extent of its corruption in the sponsorship scandal from becoming known.
However sponsorship scandal is merely a symptom of a cancer that has grown on the Canadian body politic.
That cancer is the belief that the Liberal party alone is entitled to rule because it reflects the values and interests of our elites.
We see that belief reflected in the arrogant statements made by politicians that Canadian values are Liberal values. By definition, that makes political dissent un-Canadian. Such is the credo of dictatorships, not democracies.
It is reflected again in the media's unrelenting hostility towards opposition politicians and political beliefs of any stripe, especially those of a more conservative bent.
And again, we see it in the civil service, which has shown its readiness to abandon the long-standing principle of political neutrality.
We have reached a point in this country where one party not only believes that it alone has the right to govern, but also that the government itself is merely an extension of the party.
Such was the case with the Christian Democratic Party in Italy and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico. Such attitudes led to the corruption of both party and government, and then finally to the collapse of both when the people had had enough.
I have had enough of the idea that our national unity can only be maintained through sharp practice and dirty money.
I have had enough of the idea that one party has the right to bribe and intimidate the public, at all costs, to keep itself in power.
I have had enough of the idea that the country exists to serve the party.
I have had enough.
UPDATE: Angry in the Great White North hasn't just broken the ban, he's beaten it into a gelatinous pulpy mass. It's up to you whether you want to click on the Terrifying Links of Death.
However sponsorship scandal is merely a symptom of a cancer that has grown on the Canadian body politic.
That cancer is the belief that the Liberal party alone is entitled to rule because it reflects the values and interests of our elites.
We see that belief reflected in the arrogant statements made by politicians that Canadian values are Liberal values. By definition, that makes political dissent un-Canadian. Such is the credo of dictatorships, not democracies.
It is reflected again in the media's unrelenting hostility towards opposition politicians and political beliefs of any stripe, especially those of a more conservative bent.
And again, we see it in the civil service, which has shown its readiness to abandon the long-standing principle of political neutrality.
We have reached a point in this country where one party not only believes that it alone has the right to govern, but also that the government itself is merely an extension of the party.
Such was the case with the Christian Democratic Party in Italy and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico. Such attitudes led to the corruption of both party and government, and then finally to the collapse of both when the people had had enough.
I have had enough of the idea that our national unity can only be maintained through sharp practice and dirty money.
I have had enough of the idea that one party has the right to bribe and intimidate the public, at all costs, to keep itself in power.
I have had enough of the idea that the country exists to serve the party.
I have had enough.
UPDATE: Angry in the Great White North hasn't just broken the ban, he's beaten it into a gelatinous pulpy mass. It's up to you whether you want to click on the Terrifying Links of Death.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Rotten to the Core
If a certain American blogger is to be believed, former Groupaction boss Jean Brault just fired the smoking gun in his testimony at the Gomery inquiry.
The sponsorship program wasn't corrupted by the Quebec Liberal machine;it was already corrupt from the start.
UPDATE: Discretion being the better part of valour, and cowardice being the better part of discretion, I have valiantly removed the link to the blogger who may have broken the publication ban.
The sponsorship program wasn't corrupted by the Quebec Liberal machine;it was already corrupt from the start.
UPDATE: Discretion being the better part of valour, and cowardice being the better part of discretion, I have valiantly removed the link to the blogger who may have broken the publication ban.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Joannes Paulus P.P. II, 1920-2005
Subvenite, Sancti Dei, occurite, Angeli Domini: Suscipientes animan ejus, offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi.
Suscipiat te Christus qui vocavit te, et in sinum Abrahae Angeli deducant te.
Suscipientes animam ejus, offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat ei.
Offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi.
Come to his assistance, ye saints of God, come forth to meet him, ye angels of the Lord, receiving his soul and offering it in the sight of the Most High.
May Christ receive thee, who hath called thee, and may the angels bear thee into Abraham's bosom.
Receiving his soul, offering it in the sight of the Most High.
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.
Offering it in the sight of the Most High.
The Last Hours
People were surprised and saddened when they heard the news, but not entirely shocked, because the situation had been obviously deteriorating for a long time.
The faithful are gathering to keep solemn vigil, hoping against hope for a miraculous recovery, but resigned to the inevitable fate.
Although the exact details have not been reported, it is clear that all hope has passed, marking the end of a long and eventful reign.
Preparations are underway now for an election of what may prove to be a quite different successor.
But that's enough about the Gomery inquiry rumours.
The faithful are gathering to keep solemn vigil, hoping against hope for a miraculous recovery, but resigned to the inevitable fate.
Although the exact details have not been reported, it is clear that all hope has passed, marking the end of a long and eventful reign.
Preparations are underway now for an election of what may prove to be a quite different successor.
But that's enough about the Gomery inquiry rumours.
Friday, April 01, 2005
Zimbabwe Votes
Dictator Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has won a majority government in Zimbabwe, CBC reports.
Mugabe's party has won 46 seats, which combined with the 30 seats appointed directly by Mugabe, gives him a majority.
Pikers. Our friendly dictator gets to appoint an entire house of Parliament.
Although there was little bloodshed in this election campaign, opposition leaders and independent observers said intimidation was rife, and that the electoral roll had been tampered with. They believe the list was inflated by the inclusion of up to a million dead people.
Our natural governing party prefers to carry out its intimidation more gently.
Fortunately, it is not so corrupt that it adds millions of dead to the electoral rolls to cast reliable Liberal votes.
Yet.
Mugabe's party has won 46 seats, which combined with the 30 seats appointed directly by Mugabe, gives him a majority.
Pikers. Our friendly dictator gets to appoint an entire house of Parliament.
Although there was little bloodshed in this election campaign, opposition leaders and independent observers said intimidation was rife, and that the electoral roll had been tampered with. They believe the list was inflated by the inclusion of up to a million dead people.
Our natural governing party prefers to carry out its intimidation more gently.
Fortunately, it is not so corrupt that it adds millions of dead to the electoral rolls to cast reliable Liberal votes.
Yet.
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