Via radio news:
Gomery has announced a partial lifting of the ban on evidence, noting something that has been clear to anyone reading accounts – most of his evidence doesn’t incriminate those who have been charged, but both the Chretien and the current Martin Liberals.
Heh. Local talk radio host John Gormley is already spilling the details. You go, Metrosexual!
That the testimony that directly implicates those who face fraud trials is remaining under ban is a provision that I think is acceptable, and I will do my utmost to respect it, and ask my commentors to do the same.
And finally, a big thankyou to the talk radio stations here and across Canada who featured efforts and risks taken by bloggers and sent traffic flowing to our sites. Talk radio and the blogosphere are a natural fit, and we’ll both benefit if we can find ways to enhance the relationship.
In the meanwhile, I’m just looking forward to taking it easy for a few days. I plan to sit back and let the pros take over the real job of reporting on the testimony, so we bloggers can go back to our day jobs – keeping watch for the “spins of omission” soon to come from the usual suspects, once the realization settles in that The Natural Governing Party is in serious trouble of being supplanted by Extremist Conservatives.
One final thought.
Ed Morrissey of Captains Quarters should be nominated for the Order Of Canada.
(A more practical suggestion in the comments – go hit his donation tip jar, which you’ll find at the left side of the main page of his site).

Canada’s Liberal Party is in danger of losing its base.
Greg Weston. Sun Media;

The biker gang’s Toronto chapter is so peeved at the PM that it has adorned its website with a doctored photo of Martin, decked out in a bandanna, over the caption: “Pirate of Canada.”
What got the bikers’ leathers in a twist was Martin’s odd statement that the federal Liberals should not be tarnished by the “activities of a very small few who may have colluded against the party.”
The bikers fumed to us by e-mail yesterday, saying: “The government thinks it’s fine to blame every Hells Angel for the actions of a few … What a country this used to be. What a hypocritical pile of #&$* it is becoming”.

Via Political Staples.

“Pirate of Canada” isn’t such a metaphorical stretch – see my SDA post on Paul Martin’s Canada Steamship Lines and the unusual exemption that the Barbados recieved when Canada closed offshore tax loopholes rules. In Paul Martin’s government “blind trust” means wearing a patch over one eye.

Ed Morrisey is waiting for Justice Gomery to decide whether or not to lift the publication ban (in response to the decision to set back Brault’s trial date to June). If it isn’t lifted, an update on testimony is forthcoming.
The US media is starting to take notice. The New York Times is picking up the scent. I assume federal agents will be stationed at the border to intercept any NYT copies with banned information.
John Tabin at The American Spectator;

If you’re a Canadian, be advised: Your government doesn’t want you to know what lies herein. If you’re a blogger in Canada, you may actually get in legal trouble for linking to this column.

Ed has been interviewed by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and his efforts were the topic of the lead editorial at the Dallas Morning News, where they expressed concern that he may find himself the target of Canadian courts.
I hope the good citizens of the United States of America are letting up on the gas on those 75 mph Interstate highways – before the Canadian government gets wind of them breaking our speed limits.

Two posts which may or may not be related.
Colbert:

The Minister said staff in his Montreal-area riding office were approached by Maria Sicurella di Amodeo, who asked for help with her immigration file. Sicurella is the wife of Italian Cop Killer Gaetano Amodeo, who was arrested in Montreal in May of 1999. His name appeared on Interpol’s list of 500 most dangerous fugitives. Yet the Liberal Government granted him entry into Canada and permitted him to leave and return and even file for landed immigrant status after the Italian deportation order was requested.
Once his wife had successfully obtained landed immigrant status, she attempted to sponsor Amodeo for permanent residency.
Amodeo is affiliated with the Cuntrera mob family which had done business with Gagliano’s accounting firm before he was appointed to cabinet.
[…]
And I have already written about how in May of 1999 it came to light that Mr. Dithers had a connection to Connaught Labs and the Tainted Blood Scandal. He did not declare a conflict of interest when the issue of compensation was discussed a cabinet or when the heavily whipped vote was called in Parliament.
The toothless Ethics Commissioner Howard Wilson investigated and cleared Martin but key pieces of evidence had gone “missing”.
On May 18, 1999 the Montr�al offices of the Canadian Hemophilia Society were burglarized and items were stolen including documents that allege a link between Mr. Dithers and the tainted blood scandal.
On the very same day an Arkansas clinic owned by Michael Galster was firebombed and police found a gas canister near where Mr. Galster kept his records. Mr. Galster wrote the book “Blood Trail” which raised questions about the collection of blood from State prison inmates for sale to private labs like Connaught.

Now, as I mentioned in an earlier post, Sean tells us more about apparent discrepencies between the money allegedly “donated” to the Liberals and the Elections Canada record;

I counted twelve donations to the Liberals from Groupaction Marketing/Gosselin Communications between 1993 and 2004 for a total of $150,605.88 (data available here). While that sounds like a lot, I have reason to believe [cough cough cough] that the amount of on record donations to the Liberal Party should be much higher. There are three possible explanations for this. The first is that the Liberal Party of Canada has been filing inaccurate financial reports and is in breach of the law. The second is that Elections Canada has some whomping big holes in their data. The third, and possibly most likely explanation, is that I’ve missed something somewhere. I would appreciate it if other bloggers could take some time today and double-check my work. I’d like to see this followed up on as I’m smelling blood right now.

Debbye has excellent commentary on the controversy surrounding we alleged “ban breakers”.

I finally and completely understand why Canada has not produced a Dr. King or a Henry David Thoreau. Every blogger up here has only one decision to make: will you fight for liberty? This is an act of civil disobedience, not armed insurrection, for crying out loud. The threat to charge those of us who published certain links, such as the second post in a series about Jean Brault’s testimony before the Gomery Inquiry – The Martin Connection, must be met with only one response: Bring. It. On. I mean it. Let’s drop the gloves once and for all and get some earnest debate up here about liberty and inherent human rights.

To those Liberal politicians now staggering towards the realization that while they slept safely in the incestuous arms of the mainstream Canadian media, the citizenry was quietly bypassing the gatekeepers and taking control of information – and with it the fate of their political leaders – into their own hands, I can only offer this small consolation;

It could be worse, eh?

Time has been pretty divided today. Two trips to town, a family visitor, work, and posting when I can, plus making dog show entries and the work that theoretically pays the bills.
This has been the top breaking story of the day, apparently – Toronto
Sun’s Greg Weston

A MONTREAL advertising firm that received more than $40 million in AdScam sponsorship contracts paid huge kickbacks to both the federal Liberal party and the Quebec separatists, senior executives of the company have told Sun Media. “I remember seeing the cheques,” one former Groupaction executive said of payments to the federal Liberal party in Quebec.
The man spoke on condition that he not be identified until he testifies at the Gomery inquiry sometime over the coming weeks.

Have read a brief comment that the PQ has denied this, but that it has made for some interesting exchanges during Question Period. Will update later, or you may pop any developments in the comments for me to pick up later.
correction In my haste, I originally typed “BQ” instead of “PQ” when I first wrote this. The distinction is important – the Bloc are the federal version of the provincial Parti Qu�b�cois.
Thanks for pointing this out in the comments and I apologize for the confusion.

A translation into French is now up at Captain Ed’s.

Edited exerpts from Hansard – From Question Period, April 5, emphasis mine. While I’ve edited out much of the debate, I do urge you to read the original, to establish for yourself the evasiveness of the government members in answering.

Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier–Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Gomery commission is revealing some surprises. The Liberal Party is apparently the victim of a plot hatched by a so-called parallel group. Public testimony alone shows the government story is not credible. It reveals that the Liberal Party is at the heart of the sponsorship scandal to such an extent that, in the past three elections, all Liberal candidates from Shawinigan to Outremont to LaSalle have benefited from tainted money.
Instead of being an accessory, will the Prime Minister demand that the Liberal Party reimburse the tainted money?
Right Hon. Paul Martin (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc must know that
supporters of all political parties, the Liberal Party, the Bloc Qu�b�cois, the Conservative Party and the NDP, are honest people devoted to their party, their country and their cause. It is important not attempt to tarnish the reputation of thousands of party supporters.
If one isolated group of people has done something inappropriate, it will be punished. We will see with the Gomery commission. The consequences will be felt by–
The Speaker: The hon. member for Laurier–Sainte-Marie.
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier–Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, if all the Liberal supporters were honest, why call in the RCMP? Perhaps he would explain that. It makes no sense.
The party was not infiltrated by a small group. The evidence is clear. The Liberal leaders at the highest level are involved. He was the number two in that bunch. There is only one thing to do.
[…]
Mr. Michel Guimond (Montmorency–Charlevoix–Haute-C�te-Nord, BQ): Mr. Speaker, according to previous testimony at the Gomery inquiry, a number of high profile Liberals have been identified as being very active in the sponsorship scandal including Carle, Pelletier, Chr�tien, Gagliano, Corbeil, Morseli, Bard, Corriveau. The list is long.
My question is for the Minister of Transport, the Prime Minister’s Quebec lieutenant. Are all these
people part of the parallel team he is trying to blame for the sponsorship scandal?
[…]
Mr. Michel Guimond (Montmorency–Charlevoix–Haute-C�te-Nord, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the government is trying to shirk its responsibilities by separating the Liberals into the old guard and the new guard.
Has the Prime Minister already forgotten that he was the second in command under the old guard, that he was the finance minister, that he was the vice-chair of the Treasury Board under the old guard and that many of his current ministers were part of what he calls the old guard, that is, the same old gang?
[…]
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, when he established the Gomery inquiry, the Prime Minister himself stated that there was political involvement in the sponsorship scandal.
Today, in an attempt to distance himself from the past, he speaks of a parallel group, which supposedly directed the sponsorships. This is my question for the Prime Minister. Does he mean that the political direction behind the sponsorships came from a parallel group within the Liberal Party itself?
Right Hon. Paul Martin (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that this government, this Prime Minister, called for the inquiry that is now being carried out by Justice Gomery. We did so because we want answers, and because Canadians deserve answers.
Now the member is asking questions. His own leader has said that we want to have complete answers, which is why we need to wait for Justice Gomery’s findings.
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval–Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Prime Minister is doing everything he can to dissociate the Liberal Party from the sponsorship scandal. To accomplish this, he is trying to tell us that the Liberal Party has nothing to do with it, and is a victim. Yet the Liberal Party is at the very heart of the sponsorship gimmick, and we all know that.
How can the Prime Minister justify the fact that, the day after Jean Chr�tien testified before the Gomery inquiry, he welcomed him to caucus where he was given a hero’s ovation? If he wants to distance himself from all this, why did he find Jean Chr�tien so admirable the day after his testimony?

Continue reading →

I recieved this article today, with permission to republish. All the information is from sources that were publicly available prior to the publication ban on Brault’s testimony at the Gomery Inquiry.

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The Black Rod – The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house.
We of The Black Rod have adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.

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Today’s Topic: Gomery secrets not-so-secret
The country’s press was giddy all weekend from eating of the forbidden fruit.
Details of Friday’s testimony before the Gomery inquiry had leaked into the blogosphere.
Reporters whose eyes had glazed over weeks before at the glacial pace of the inquiry were suddenly frisky as puppies over information they couldn’t use because of a ban on publication.
The word used most often to describe the not-to-be-repeated evidence was “explosive.”
Rumours had the Bloc Quebecois anxious to force an election because they now figure they can sweep every seat in Quebec. The Liberals were said to be so scared they want to force the Opposition to bring down the government over changes to environmental regulations so that they could fight an election on Kyoto rather than Korruption. The Conservatives, as usual, were eager for an election while anxious to avoid an election.
The Black Rod was among the first to get wind of the story on Captain’s Quarters, the American blog that broke the story. And what, we wondered, was all the excitement about?
Sure the details are outrageous. But no more so that anything we’re heard for weeks now.
We suspect that its suddenly big news because the players are all ‘names’ in Quebec and the reporters can now describe the kickback scandal in human terms rather than by company names.
Imagine how electrifying it would be in Manitoba if an Inquiry found that, say, as an anology, adman Allen Gregg was being strongarmed by Liberal backroom boy Ernie Gilroy to make “contributions” to MP Reg Alcock and put stalwart Liberal footsoldier like John Angus on the payroll.
How the Liberal Party was funnelling money through its secret Sponsorship Program through Quebec ad agencies, and how some of that taxpayers money found its way into Liberal Party coffers, is being described day after day at the Gomery Inquiry.
But the Liberals were literally pouring multi-millions into the ad agency gullets and, according to the evidence, were getting it back in eeny meenie dribs and drabs. Why spend so much for so little. That’s the mystery. It defies reason, yet there had to be a reason.

Continue reading →

MacLeans;

Federal Court has put Jean Chretien’s challenge to the federal sponsorship inquiry on a legal fast track, in the hope of resolving the dispute before Justice John Gomery starts writing a final report.
The court agreed Tuesday to set June 7 for the start of hearings on the former prime minister’s claim that Gomery is biased and should be removed as head of the inquiry. By judicial standards, that’s speedy action for a case that was filed in early March. Government lawyers had argued that the matter deserved priority handling.

It helps to have friends in high places – even better when you’ve put them there.

If Jean Chretien cannot persuade Justice John Gomery to step down from the federal sponsorship scandal inquiry, the former prime minister’s appeal would go to a court led by a close personal friend, where three-quarters of the judges indirectly owe their jobs to him.
Of the Federal Court’s 32 judges, 27 were appointed during Liberal mandates, including 24 named during Mr. Chretien’s tenure as prime minister. Just four judges were appointed by Brian Mulroney, the Conservative prime minister from 1984 to 1993.
The Federal Court’s chief justice, Allan Lutfy, was appointed to the court in 1996 by Mr. Chretien and was elevated to head the court three years later.

Considering that the Alberta Liberal Party hasn’t won an election in that staunchly conservative province since the Triassic period, I’m surprised that it took federal Liberal Party corruption for their straggling descendants to ponder the obvious solution.
You’d think an unbroken record of electoral failure would have been enough of a motivating factor.
Update Leading contender news just in:

The Alberta “This Pig Is Wearing Lipstick Now” Party.

Did you know that in Canada, the courts can not only order a publication ban, but they can place a publication ban on publishing the fact that there is a publication ban ?
I kid you not.
Via John Gormley of 650 CKOM, who is scheduled to interview Winds Of Change’s Joe Katzman today. I will try to liveblog the segment, but no promises. Events of the past few days have left me a little behind in my work, and deadlines are looming.
On the lighter lighter side…
A few more updates as I surf today;
Greg Staples is making a well deserved name for himself with posts like this.
Jeff Quinton is receiving a traffic surge from Canadians searching for “Instipundit”. (It’s Instapundit, folks – welcome to the blogosphere, and I’ll direct you to the real deal. If this is your first foray into this media, be sure to bookmark Glenn and add the site to your daily reads.)
Montreal Gazette – Gomery’s publication ban backfires

In keeping with the theme of the past few days, I invite new readers to visit the following links on research done by various bloggers into the distribution of donations to the major political parties in Canada – and the list of questionable sources.
Shortly after the results of the investigation began to make its way onto the pages of major publications, Elections Canada pulled down the database search function and replaced it with a version that renders the site useless.
(The following are all my own posts, but within are links to more comprehensive information at other sites.)
Did you know that the Liberals have been recieving donations from charitable institutions?
Canada, We Have A Problem
More Stones Unturned
And municipalities or your favourite zoo? First Nations recieve billions per year in Canadian government largesse.. and donate handsomely (and virtually exclusively) back to the Liberal party. How about your fondest assumptions about where big business spends its political buck?
A Liberal Slice
Now here’s another question. Why have our dataminers been unable to find evidence in the Elections Canada database of the donations alleged to have been given to the Liberals under the Gomery Inquiry testimony? (There are private copies of the downloaded database out there with new and improved search functions running).
Speaking of “old” and unreported news, don’t let this Adscam story consume your attention. Read this post from last year on the Auditor General’s report on national security, airline screening, and the abysmal state of border security. It’s been out for months – your professional media hasn’t bothered to crack the thing open. It’s due to be formallly presented by the AG tomorrow.
$7.7 Billion in terrorist “initiative” is buying us nothing.
Sound boring? Give it a chance – you’ll discover that Canadian airport security screeners does not exclude employees who have links to organized crime – because of their charter right to “freedom of association”.
And that’s just the small stuff.

A chill is settling on various blogsites over this rumour.
Now, on to updates:
I’ve had over 38,000 sitemeter hits today, and there’s “miles to go before we sleep”*. I read somewhere that fully 7% of the hits at Captain Ed’s are from Government of Canada servers. (On the blogosphere the watched watch their watchers). He’s probably going to clock half a million hits today alone.
Ed is going hoarse talking to Canadian media outlets – and he had larengitis to begin with. He’s supposed to appear on CBC Vancouver tonight. Go check it and the page that follows.
A question: Has anyone besides me noticed yet that the testimony leaked has very, very little to do with Brault? Exactly what is the publication ban protecting him from? Sympathy?

Wretchard weighs in, and Instapundit has been focusing his formidable audience on the muttered threats to bloggers.

Faster, please.

An anonymous source tells me there is more on its way to Captain’s Quarters today.
I am again compelled to leave the computer and do some work so you kiddies are on your own for a few hours.
In keeping with the publication ban, I ask that any commentors limit their discussion of the actual content of any newly released information to Haiku and/or limerick form.
There will be prizes for the best entries.

April 4, 1974:

President Nixon calls in FBI to investigate possible fraud perpetrated against Republican party.
Full story here.
Government officials suspend hearings of Senate Watergate Committee and decline to comment further on details surrounding the allegations against the Party, for fear of compromising the official investigation, which is expected to conclude in 2008.

At the moment, SDA is recieving about 2,000 hits an hour – about 15 times
normal traffic for this time of day. But look at Captain Ed’s stats:

My logs show that the vast majority of my hits are from Canadian sources, including media and government servers (there are few on normal days). I suspect Ed’s site is showing similar demographics. That means that a lot of Canadians are becoming aware of the information.
That raises difficult poltiical optics for a government considering prosecution of bloggers or news aggregators. How does one prosecute individual citizens for sending readers to the same information that politicians and media have been recieving via blackberry (elitist hypocrisy) – information that is deeply damaging to the governing party – without the appearance of abuse of power to protect your own political interests?
The traffic is causing some loading problems here and at Captain Quarters, who is anticipating more information – and another traffic surge – later today. Our host (this blog is also hosted in the US) is “clearing the decks” to smooth server problems. I’ll second his recommendation of Hosting Matters as a blog host par excellence.
update – Welcome, MIchelle Malkin and Wizbang (as well as Instapundit readers who have been surfing in for the past couple of days).
As I wrote on Kevin’s site – this is Canada’s “Watergate”, writ large – but in this case the blogosphere is playing the role of both “Deep Throat” and the Washington Post, and in the case of Canadian sites – doing so with the threat of legal action over our heads. Kudos too, to CTV News for naming Captain’s Quarters on their broadcast last night. It is no small assist to have the nation’s leading news broadcaster pushing the envelope along side us – especially NealeNews.com, who is going to need all the backup we can give him.
update 2 Colby weighs in and suggests now is the time for American bloggers to pour on the heat. I’ll exerpt the juicy bit, but it’s a good idea to read the whole thing for context.

Under the metaconstitutional Oakes test, any infringement of individual Charter liberties, such as a publication ban, must have a “rational connection” to the intended benefit and must be the most minimally restrictive measure that can bring about the benefit. The argument here is that if a ban doesn’t work in practice–say, because American webloggers are all printing the mind-blowing stuff Canadian ones cannot–it can’t meet Oakes. With due respect to the ban, which I consider myself to have observed herein, it would actively help free the hands of Canadian webloggers and reporters if our foreign cousins were to be aggressive about “publishing” the substance of the Brault testimony outside the reach of Canadian law.

Joe Katzman at Winds Of Change provides invaluable background for those readers not familiar with Canadian Liberal Party history, the Sponsorship scandal and Gomery Inquiry.
He also believes this is the first big test of the Canadian blogosphere – this episode having subverted their control over the trial and the timing of release of information. I tend to agree. We shall see. At any rate, I’ll bet there were more than a few who were shaken at the sheer speed at which the information broke.

Bound By Gravity is tracking the Canadian blogs commenting on the leaked Brault testimony, some directly, some obliquely. Captains Quarters has a new post up as well.
update Greg Staples is reporting that CTV news has mentioned that the Brault testimony is on a conservative American website. (See the Rosemary Thompson video)
Stephen Taylor has some thoughts worth checking out.

Now, we are becoming aware of the sordid and symbiotic money laundering scheme between the Liberal Party of Canada, the Government of Canada and Montreal ad agencies. Mix in some organized crime (as reported by the New York Daily News on Nov 18, 2004) and you’ve got a powder keg that will decimate the Liberal brand in Quebec for decades.

At the time of this update, Technorati’s politics link tracker currently has three Brault testimony – Adscam posts in the top 25. Considering the competition with the death of the Pope, that’s astonishing.
Typing keywords like “Jean Brault” testimony into a Google search will bring up any number of blog links to both the Free Republic and Captain Ed.
All in all – going rather swimmingly, Id say.
update 2 – The mainstream comes calling. Actually, I got one as well this evening, though it wasn’t nearly as exciting (nor I as useful).
Update
I suspect that concerns about Canadian bloggers linking directly to Captains Quarters post reporting testimony of the Gomery Inquiry can probably be put to rest. CTV provided the information tonight on the National News to their viewers, naming the blog and displaying the page – a move that would have been cleared by their lawyers before hand. Questions about the validity of the information were also cleared up by CTV’s Ottawa Bureau Chief, Robert Fife – whose comments suggest that the content is probably pretty accurate.
(If you want to see what a CTValanche looks like, Ed’s sitemeter just recorded over 7,000 hits in the last hour).
All of it seems to have a certain misogynist running about huffing that conservative bloggers are “repeatedly, proudly – the violation of a court-ordered publication ban, by linking directly to ban-breaking web sites in other jurisdictions.
That leads me to wonder if we both just play lawyers on the internet.
Websites in “other jurisdictions” by their very definition are not subject to Gomery’s publication ban. American sites may publish whatever their little hearts desire, and it’s their constitutional right to do so. They are not “ban breakers” – for they have no ban to break.

In the ethical seas over which Captain Martin Of Canada Steamship Lines sails, “blind trust” means a patch over one eye.

Canada had signed a double taxation treaty with Barbados in 1980 when the corporate taxes of both countries were roughly comparable. But in 1991, Barbados created a new class of offshore company, the “Barbados international business corporation,” whose tax rate would be 1%-2.5%. This created for Canadians, if they routed their business through a Barbados company, a 10-fold savings in taxes.
The auditor general of Canada, in her report of December, 2002, noted that $1.5 billion in taxes was being lost to the Canadian economy annually as a result of this agreement, and she called for a rewriting of the rules. She noted that all of these concerns had been present since 1992 — throughout the period when Martin was finance minister, but he made no changes.
Martin’s hypocrisy again was shown by his announcing in his first budget of February 1994 that he would tighten the regulations allowing Canadian companies to bring dividends of foreign affiliates back to Canada tax-free from a number of countries. But Barbados remained exempt. This allowed Canadian companies, including CSL, to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in Canadian taxes by moving their foreign affiliates to Barbados.

Martin’s action did close certain tax havens, such as Liberia: CSL subsequently moved seven Liberian-registered ships to Barbados, where the tax haven continued.

The fact that Martin has since transferred his controlling interest in CSL to his sons did nothing to prevent this conflict-of-interest situation continuing.
Canadian companies are now stashing more money into offshore tax havens than ever. Between 1990 and 2003, the amount soared from $11 billion to $88 billion, according to a Statistics Canada report last month.