April 15, 2005
Corriveau's convenient memory loss
Jacques Corriveau, a graphic designer and acquaintance of Jean Chretien who pocketed millions from the sponsorship fund (and the Liberal Party of Canada), hasn't been able to remember much of anything at the Gomery Inquiry, except that the Liberals were anxious to spend some money:
Jacques Corriveau said Friday that he heard through contacts that the federal government was keen to spend money in Quebec after the close referendum in 1995, making him privy to an initiative that even cabinet ministers later claimed ignorance of.
He could not say specifically how he learned that the federal spigot was being opened, showing in his second day of testimony at the Gomery inquiry the same spotty memory on display Thursday.
“I have to tell you, Mr. Commissioner, as a volunteer within the Liberal Party of Canada, I was involved in a very political milieu and an advertising environment,” he told Judge Gomery before his explanation trailed off.
“... to say exactly when it happened, no, it was too far away and too close, if you will, to be able to identify who really made me aware of it. No, I'm sorry, I can't answer that.”
Mr. Corriveau, who the inquiry has heard received millions of dollars through sponsorship funding, on Thursday blamed age and recent surgery for his memory lapses. A day later, his inability to be precise continued.
Yesterday, Corriveau attibuted his memory loss to a recent operation - although, curiously enough, he was able to recall relatively detailed information about things that happened long before 1995:
Having made $8-million from the sponsorship program, a key figure in the scandal said yesterday that the effects of age, medication and anesthesia from a recent operation mean he can no longer remember pivotal events in the controversy.
In his long-awaited testimony at the Gomery inquiry, Jacques Corriveau, 72, also tried to play down his friendship with Jean Chrétien, prime minister at the time of the sponsorship program, despite being shown phone logs listing dozens of calls between the two.
He said he could not document past meetings because he throws away his agenda book every month.
“Because of the medications I am taking I have trouble focusing and remembering,” he told the inquiry.
Inquiry counsel Bernard Roy asked why Mr. Corriveau's recollections “seemed sharper” when he reminisced about his career and trips to Italy in the 1960s. “I was curious why your memory fails you on more recent events.”
“I can explain,” Mr. Corriveau replied.
“I know a person very close to me who suffers from Alzheimer's and I am conscious of that problem. I am 72, I had an important operation, four hours and a half of anesthesia. It can have an impact. In my entourage people realize that problem.”
A reporter who later buttonholed him in a hallway asked Mr. Corriveau whether he had Alzheimer's. “No,” he said.
Corriveau may not remember much, but other witnesses remember what we got for our money:
close friend of Jean Chrétien did no work for the nearly $6-million he raked in through sponsorship deals, thanks to bogus, unverified invoices, the Gomery inquiry heard yesterday.
The inquiry was told that graphics designer Jacques Corriveau claimed professional fees with invoices for work to "rearrange" exhibit spaces at Olympic stadiums. In fact, the inquiry heard he contributed nothing and the events actually took place in the shopping malls and hockey rinks of the Quebec hinterland.
Similar wording on several of the invoices suggested they were cut-and-paste creations from a 1997 bill for a trade show at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
[...]
Businessman Luc Lemay told the inquiry yesterday that Mr. Corriveau did little or no work for the millions he invoiced Mr. Lemay's companies.
In a comical moment, inquiry counsel Bernard Roy noted that Mr. Corriveau billed thousands of dollars for working at the Olympic stadium in Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Rimouski, Chicoutimi and Ste-Foy, a suburb of Quebec City.
"To your knowledge, is there an Olympic stadium in Rimouski?" Mr. Roy asked. "These details escaped you because you did not examine the bills." Mr. Lemay replied: "Essentially."
Mr. Lemay's firms, Le Groupe Polygone Éditeurs Inc. and Expour, got $35-million from Ottawa to sponsor a series of hunting-and-fishing shows and farm fairs. Mr. Corriveau's design firm pretended to be subcontracted on those sponsorships, Mr. Lemay said.
In fact, he testified, he paid Mr. Corriveau because he had an agreement to give him a 17.5-per-cent cut of the government contracts that Mr. Corriveau's lobbying had clinched for him.
Christie Blatchford's latest column on this mess, which you can access through Google News, is a must-read. (Of course, she is a woman, and therefore incorruptible - according to the Toronto Star's Susan Delacourt, anyway.)
Posted by damian at April 15, 2005 12:47 PM | TrackBack