David Warren has a column in the National Post today that sounds like.. well, like he’s been reading blogs.
Where else would you find questions on why the Canadian media isn’t covering the Martin connections to Oil-For-Food, a mention of his company Cordex Petroleum, that none of the Canadian tsunami aid has arrived in Sri Lanka, and a reminder that Adscam is only a tightly contained tip of a huge Liberal government corruption iceberg?
Good on him, though. It’s nice to see someone is big media is paying attention.
Via Neale.

Democracy Watch has background on who was hired to vindicate[1] Immigration Minister Judy Sgro;

To conduct the investigation into Sgro’s and others’ actions, the Ethics Commissioner hired (without a contract bidding competition) law firm Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG).� BLG donated $165,000 to the federal Liberals between 2000 and 2003 (2004 donation figures are not yet publicly available); donated more than $25,000 to Paul Martin’s campaign for the Liberal Party leadership; has three partners representing Liberals before the Gomery Commission inquiry (David W. Scott and Peter K. Doody representing Jean Chr�tien, and Guy J. Pratte representing Jean Pelletier), and; in February 2005 hired Gar Knutson, former Cabinet colleague of Sgro.

Curiously, the reports that Sgro has been cleared of wrongdoing are premature at best, as the Ethics Commissioner has not yet delivered his report. Most of the media is running on reports from Sgro’s staff.
The National Post seems to have actually, eh, fact checked the report.

Ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro is refusing to confirm a report that former immigration minister Judy Sgro has been cleared of alleged conflict of interest.
In fact, Shapiro says his report into the matter isn’t finished.
He will only say he released a confidential letter to Sgro answering a question she asked him in November.
He won’t discuss details of the question or his response.

Hmmmm… damned faint “vindication”.
Footnote:
[1] – Perhaps I worded that clumsily. I suppose the technically accurate term is “investigate”. Hair splitting, really.

Just received a heads up that CTV news will be airing a whistleblower segment tonight, involving a government reclocation contract.
Correction- it airs on Thursday, May 12.

Coming soon to Captain’s Quarters, transcripts of an interview with a Gomery witness who looks to be ready to go down swinging.

However, as he made plain during our interview, he sees the Gomery Inquiry as a red herring — a machination that allows Prime Minister Paul Martin to deflect attention from his own peccadilloes. According to Beryl, the structure of the Gomery Inquiry makes it almost impossible for any evidence given to it to be used to prosecute criminal or civil cases afterwards. Beryl speaks about Martin’s scandals in some detail during our interview, as well as his connections to the Power Corporation, Total Group, the Desmarais family, and Saddam Hussein. He told me that the Canadian media has focused on Gomery instead of Martin’s much more extensive (and expensive) financial manipulations simply because Gomery stories write themselves, and the media doesn’t have to lift a finger to get the updates.
If you expect to get inside scoop on Adscam corruption, you won’t find it in this interview. Beryl didn’t do any work for the Sponsorship Program, and as his upcoming testimony will show, he burnt his bridges at the Liberal Party well before Jean Brault alleges that Wajsmann was present at a cash drop (which reporters mistakenly attributes as an accusation that he took a payoff, which isn’t what Brault said at all, according to Beryl). He does give an insider’s look at some of the players involved in the scandal, though, including Martin, Alfonse Gagliano, and Daniel Dezainde, who he called a “racist f**k”. He also gives his own unique analysis of Canadian politics and talks about his plans for the future.

Wajsmann first came to the attention of Captain’s Quarters when he left a comment at the site, that Morrissey then extracted and featured as a post.
update – a commentor mentioned this essay by Mr. Wajsman. This is a man who has significant observations about the ��r�seau Lib�ral ��

Via reader email – Canada Free Press has “never-seen-before film footage taking you back to January 3, 2005 when Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and his entourage made an official visit to tsunami-ravaged Sir Lanka.”

Included in the Jan. 3 entourage were Martin’s wife, Sheila, PMO staff, Jack Layton, leader of Canada’s fourth party, the New Democrat Party, RCMP, and a handful of Canadian journalists, including the CBC.
The film footage was shot by award-winning Canadian documentary journalist, Garth Pritchard, who was on the scene prior to Martin’s visit at the invitation of Canada’s mercy mission DART team.
You will hear how an RCMP officer tried to relieve Pritchard of his camera. Pritchard’s voice can easily be picked up when he tells the officer that, “This is not Canada, this is Sri Lanka.”
[…]
See for yourself how the film footage shows the padre being pushed aside and how overzealous members of the Martin entourage physically knock a Sri Lankan mourner to the ground – without apology.
Ostensibly, the Prime Minister’s official visit to tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka was about Canadian compassion.
See and hear for yourself how he shills the purified water of Zenon Environmental Inc., an Oakville-based company of which his lifetime mentor Maurice Strong is a board member.
See and hear some of the film highlights, including Padre Hardwick trying to do the job he was asked to do: namely honouring the dead. Padre Hardwick calls for a Moment of Silence. Fifteen seconds into the Moment of Silence, Prime Minister Martin ends it, saying, “Let’s go.”

I can’t play this on my computer – so haven’t yet watched it. Let me know what you think in the comments.
Video is here. It’s a 25 meg file, so you’ll need hispeed.

Politics Watch is reporting on the Corbeil testimony, and the Paul Martin camp makes another appearance.

The former director of the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal party testified at the Gomery inquiry Monday that he paid nine party staff members and officials $50,000 in cash stuffed in envelopes shortly before the 2000 federal election.
[…]
Also shortly before the election, Corbeil testified that he made two additional trips to Brault’s office where he picked up two separate large yellow postal envelopes containing $35,000 and $15,000 in $100 bills.�
On both visits, Corbeil said he counted the cash before leaving Brault’s office.� He later returned back to the Liberal Party headquarters.�
“I came to my office and I divided it up,” he testified.�
Corbeil said he put the cash in nine separate envelopes for various party workers.
At that point in his testimony, Corbeil grabbed a piece of paper with the names of those he handed envelopes to and hesitated.�
Justice John Gomery asked Corbeil to provide the names of the recipients.�
“Commissioner, you know I lost my job,” Corbeil said to Gomery.
“Mr. Corbeil, you’re not the only one,” Gomery said. “You’re one of a group of people who have dealt with the very negative consequences because of having to tell the truth and we are making a request of you.”
Corbeil then testified that he gave Daniel Dezainde, who was an official in the office of then prime minister Jean Chretien, two envelopes – one with $3,000 for Dezainde and another with $2,000 for a woman who was a friend of Dezainde.�
He also said he gave Richard Mimeau, a known supporter of Paul Martin, an envelope containing $6,000 to reimburse him for travel expenses.�

Corbeil is naming names. Among them is Liberal MP Denis Coderre – and it’s not the first time.

Brault said that Gagliano crony Joe Morselli told him he could “solve potential problems” and “talk to Denis” – meaning Liberal cabinet minister Denis Coderre, who also served under Martin.”

I presume the Prime MInister will be before the press by sundown, to turf Coderre from the party to uphold that “moral authority to govern” he informed us of a few weeks ago.
update – Ed Morrissey has relevant exerpts from a Globe and Mail report.