Kate, this is vile. I read someplace a couple of days ago that the gun registry had funnelled off about 254 million. Now we see where lots of it went.
It's obvious that the corruption goes so deep that EVERY government operation needs to be torn apart to find the true extent. Ms.Fraser, don't put down your calculator just yet. Show us the money.

OMG these people should be in jail. Kate, you are incredible.

Appalling...Appalling...

Thank you Kate for exposing all this disgusting abuse...

I forgot to mention how interesting that the OCOA was mentioned in the court docs...bet there's a pile of loot in there as well.

ACOA even

Holy Crap!

Has the rest of the country made these connections yet?

Keep it up Kate. We haven't yet pried open the gun registry, but anyone with live tissue between their ears has got to realize that $2 Billion buys you one hell of a database. Pry open the gun registry and my guess is that we'll find graft and corruption that makes Adscam look like lunch-money bullying.

I know one thing... if I were employed at the CBC I would be want to be seen to be doing everything I could to help the Canadian public get this completely exposed, lest they feel disappointed with the service they are receiving and start demanding for some drastic changes... might as well make it a thorough Spring cleaning once we have the broom out...

Speaking of the CBC?

Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2002-188

St. Joseph Printing Ltd., St. Joseph Corp., owned by 12 members of the Gagliano family.

Also, the name Marchi is mentioned. Former Cabinet Minister Marchi?

Inner Peace Television Network Inc.--- across Canada.

Scum?

Persian proverb: An egg thief becomes a camel thief.

URL for above:

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Decisions/2002/db2002-188.htm

I would also add this link:
http://contractscanada.gc.ca/en/partne3-e.htm

Specifically this part:

Printing services requirements between $5,000 and $10,000 are handled by the Materiel Management Section. Requests above $10,000 are either processed through St Joseph's Printing Inc. or are advertised on the MERX™.

For those not familiar with government procurement, routine competitive bids are solicited through MERX. It is a very interesting contract indeed that allows them to direct large print jobs to St Joseph's with no competitive tender.

So, the registry was just another slush fund.Would it have taken Oracle $2bil to setup a database and run it?

This is the kind of open corruption that got sniggers when we used to think about Mexico, or Brazil, or Argentina, or worse.

Get it now. The family(sic) got "The Queen's Printer" when it was privatized!!!!

Privatized... the word used by the Abominable Snowman, aka Mr. Dithers, in Parliament while accusing the Conservatives of planning to privatize so-called health care(sick-care).

Privatized? Right. Into the mitts of the Gagliano family(sic).

Look also for "Key Media". Scroll down to "Tony Gagliano". Accent on the gag.

http:/www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4088/is_200307/ai_n9245686.htm

I might've missed it, but does anyone know exactly how/if the "Gaetano" and "Tony" Gagliano referred to in the above links are related to Fonzie (something's rotten in Denmark) Gagliano?

Here's a link to Ottawa Citizen article posted on Pat Martin's Web site:

http://www.patmartin.ca/ndp.php/patinthenews/332

According to the article, , St.Joseph's Gaglianos are not related to Alfonso.

[List of Gang Members and their home addresses]

Here's the relevant fragment from the article:

Around the time the Liberals came to power in 1993, Mr. Guite was setting up the Ottawa office of St. Joseph's Printing as part of a federal exchange program giving bureaucrats work experience in the private sector. His wife went there to work with him, as office secretary. St. Joseph's, a recipient of federal printing contracts, would later buy the Queen's Printer when the Liberals privatized it in 1997.

Mr. Guite, who continued to be paid by the federal government while at St. Joseph's, stayed just three or four months. His wife was paid by the company, whose president, Frank Gagliano, said St. Joseph's decided against setting up shop in Ottawa at that time and cancelled the exchange.

"We saw that we didn't have a need and it wasn't a program that made any sense for us," said Mr. Gagliano, who is not related to the former public works minister. "So we terminated the program."

This begs the question "Is there ANY deal done by the current gov't that holds up under scrutiny?"

In addition to the info I posted above, St. Joseph Group is MANY separate entities all apparently controlled by the same people. One of these companies is GROUPE D'IMPRIMERIE ST-JOSEPH INC. RCMP (MTL) whose address is listed in the Quebec Corporate Registry as 4225, BOUL DORCHESTER WESTMOUNT QC (This is the RCMP Headquarters Building in Quebec)
Also, all of these companies apparently came into existance subsequent to the creation of the very first company GROUPE COMMUNICATION CANADA INC which is the reincarnation of a Canadian Crown Corporation, Canada Communication Group, which was privatized and ownership transferred (to guess who) on March 7, 1997. (I wonder whether the Crown Corporation was sold at fair market value.)

Gun Registry & Other Audits
Gagliano
Media IDA Vision
Lawrence MacAulay (P.E.I.)
Canada Post & Liberal Buddies
Jean Carle (Chretien's unadopted son)
The Phantom Report (Gagliano, again)
And More, more ,more.....

http:/www3.sympatico.ca/d.senni/2002.htm#Alfonso

Way to go maz2, now I gotta take Quaker Oats of my list of edible foods:

"Liberal fundraiser, after retirement as CEO of Quaker Oats"

rob, you read that wrong, I think. Grant, the ex-CEO of Quaker, was actually the whistle-blower. This is such a tangled web, I had to keep scrolling to the top to remember which one was the good guy.

Give your bowels a break & keep up with the Quaker Oats ;-)

Kudus to maz2!?! Such a treat- where on earth did you find that? Wowser!

You might want to poke around into all the wonderful fake work programs that the Gun Registry created on Indian Reserves.

On our reserve in Cowichan alone, a few individuals got paid full-time work to sit in their offices and wait for people to come sign up for the program.

Of course there wasn't a single gun-owner (hunter) on the reserve that bothered to comply and in fact most of the hunters told anybody who would ask that it wasn't the Federal Government's goddamn business about how many guns were in anybody's home on the reserve. (Stupid Indians arguing on principle that the very idea of a gun registry violated their rights)

Nontheless - this was yet another do-nothing job that the Chief was able to use to shore up political support for himself during the upcoming election. 2-3 employees = about 40-50 family member votes.

If you are even more keen on this kind of investigative journalism -- there are a number of Bands that were put into 3rd Party Management by John Watson, the regional director of the DIA for Western Canada. (currently serving as the Aboriginal Affairs Secretariat out of the PMO)

We found out that in at least 3 instances, these 3rd party managers, hired by the DIA, were accounting companies that were all owned by a holding company in Vancouver. This holding company was owned in part by John Watson's wife.

Why does the DIA do nothing about corruption on reserves? Because they and their family members, friends and business associates actively profit from it.

But then -- I'm just a fucking parasite and what would I know about all of this? Knock yerself out.

Oh -- some more juicy stuff about the Treaty Industry in BC. The Nanaimo Indian band, gone several million dollars into debt to "negotiate a treaty" - actually reached the stage of negotiations where the band members were to then be given the Agreement in Principle and asked to vote on it.

Copper Canoe Consulting company was then hired by the Treaty Group for the Band to "educate" the community about the treaty or "sell them" on the idea.

Turned out that the main player of Copper Canoe Consulting, which recieved a HUGE kickback/fee for their consulting on this "project" was none other than a former "Special Ministerial Aid" to Robert Nault.

When the Nanaimo people realized that their band was spending over $150,000 of their money to hire the Minister of Indian Affairs "special aid" to "sell them" on Treaty - they threatened to start blockading the Ferry Terminals in Nanaimo, in their territory, until the whole "Treaty Negotiations" process was completely halted.

The Nanaimo Band however has not been able to halt said negotiations because if they do - then the debts racked up by the Treaty process become immediatley due.

The BC Treaty Industry has gobbled up over 1/2 a BILLION dollars in the last 10 years -- just from the Federal Goverment. This does not even speak to the number of Bands who are now millions of dollars in debt, and who will fall immediatley into 3rd party Management if they say they want to halt the Treaty process - since if that occurs the "loans" made to these bands for these "fake-work" jobs in the Treaty Industry and the hundreds of thousands a year salarys for non-native consultants etc -- comes due immediatley.

And then - guess who then takes over the finances of the Indian Bands at that point? Mr.Watson's special friend's accounting companies.

Indian Affairs - Kleptocracy as an Artform!

I wonder if some math might help us here. What is the annual federal budget for "Indian" Affairs? How much money actually goes to the "Indians"? What is the difference? Where does the difference go? Coiffs for Pierre Pedicure? How does the size of the difference compare to the gun registry expenditures (just to put things into perspective)?

Where to find this corruption?

Old song goes:

"Barney Google, with the goo-goo-goo-ga-ly eyes..."

Notice the ga in that line. Is it a cryptic reference to Gag....o?

Interesting that the gov't can come up with cash for consulting companies to "sell" a treaty, but not to save a child's life.

See http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113666663718_24/?hub=Canada
"Father of sick Alberta boy seeks province's help
Canadian Press

CALGARY — A gravely ill aboriginal boy is holding his own despite having to drop the treatment for his rare disease because its too expensive..."

The province says its a federal issue, the feds say provincial... I did the math, $17k/week works out to $884k/year. The $ blown on the gun registry to date would keep this boy alive for over 2000 years.

Interestingly enough, the gov't is okay with paying for over a million fraudulent prescriptions for First Nations (so I guess the boy's issue IS federal vs. provincial), in what John Williams, Conservative chair of the federal public accounts committee refers to as "four times bigger" than adscam.

see http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113350864114_9
"Whistleblower: How free drugs end up in the wrong hands
Kathy Tomlinson, CTV News

The federal government spends tens of millions of dollars more than necessary each year on prescription drug benefits for native Canadians, and fuels an epidemic of abuse and addiction among First Nations patients in the process..."

I am not sure if there is as much here as meets the eye. In the first place, if the Gagliano family that owns St Joseph Corp (and affiliated entities) is unrelated to the former Librano Alphonso, then a coincidence in names is just that: a coincidence. It is rather like castigating Garry Trudeau, the writer of Doonesbury for being an effete, socialist, twerp who damaged the fabric of his country, simply because he shares a name with a... Well, you get my point.

Secondly, in privatizations it is quite common to provide for a period where the former government operation will have a (temporary) advantage in performing the work that would previously have gone to them (in this case as the Queens Printer / CCG), either by way of an absolute monopoly or a price preference or other "first refusal" provisions. This is for a couple of reasons: first, it makes it worthwhile for potential buyers to investigate the opportunity and eventually purchase the operation as a going concern - the alternative is simply to shut down, which will be disruptive and will incurr severance and other transition costs that could otherwise be avoided. As well, to the extent that there has been a problem in over-manning or featherbedding in the government operation (and if there has not, much of the argument for privatization disappears), it allows the new owner a period to rationalize operations and staffing levels at a low risk, thus reducing their cost and maximizing the government's proceeds. From a taxpayer point of view, this is a good thing.

This sort of arrangement was used in privatizing the BC Department of Highways road maintenance operations, as well as in outsourcing both the Terasen Gas (BC Gas) and BC Hydro back office functions. You can quibble with wether those deals were good or bad, but the idea of a transition period as the former government operation adjusts to be ready for a fully competitive environment is not unusual.

Finally, it is not at all surprising that St Joseph would seek to keep the terms of their deal secret; they don't want the price structure for a large portion of their business made public. In that, I can't blame them - I would do the same.

Cheers,

Dean

Perhaps someone with the right access to the right information will surface some documentation that illuminates some of the consulting revenues surrounding the Gun Registry. How much of the $2B was for IT consulting, and to what firms? Where are these firms located? How many in Quebec? How many outside Quebec? What was the total? What is the relationship between these consulting firms and the Liberal Party of Canada? I have worked in the IT industry for years, and know that $2B is so astronomically outrageous for such a project that we probably have here something far worse for the Liberals than Adscam. I cannot for the life of me understand why the MSM refuses to dig into this. Could it be the ignorance of the MSM about what such a project ought to cost? For the MSM investigative journalists that might be reading, think in these terms: $20M of IT consulting is in the ballpark. Anything more than that smells.

You make a good argument, Dean, but they bought a government operation, which should be a public transaction. Besides that, the timelines are pretty long, the purchase took place in 97. I work in a highly competitive industry and the owner of the co I work for buys smaller companies all the time. They look back over the past 5 years financials, but are really only interested in trending, i.e. steady growth. It's the last year that they care about, and any carry over business.

I don't see why anyone would care, competitor or otherwise, about the price they paid, nor should it be a secret if they purchased a Crown corporation.

Why the big secret?

Surely Candace it cannot be that the Liberals thought that privatizing something was somehow beneficial to the public?

Sorry Deaner I don't agree. Details concerning the sale of public property must be public information. Periods of exclusivity/preferential treatment, if justifiable, must be fixed, reasonable and public information.

Some intense Googling on some of the business associates of our former Ambassador to Denmark resulted in this interesting reading. Search in the text for Montreal, and observe the names carefully.

Link from Brightleaf's comment at 08:24 AM this day returns this reader to this comment page. Is there a problem at this end?

Wish to read that link. Please help. Thanks.

Oops. try this

True, BrightLeaf, hard to believe the Libs would privatize anything ... but of course, that was the OLD regime, Martin as FM would have had no knowledge of such an insignificant transaction, so shouldn't be held accountable.

Hey, BrightLeaf, I think this quote from "Martin, Harper make campaign-like tours - By PETTI FONG AND KAREN HOWLETT" in the Globe & Mail today explains so much of what we're not getting... (Martin explains that forking over cash to Vancouver is NOT electioneering, nor is handing out cabinet posts, nor is...)

""For someone who says that's campaigning as opposed to governing, it indicates they don't know the fundamental shift in the way governments are operating in this country and what we have to do," Mr. Martin said..."