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A20 NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2005

DAVID ASPER GORDON FISHER CHAIRMAN PUBLISHER

TERRY WILLOWS DAVID LINDSAY V.P. R EADER SALES & SERVICE V.P. M ANUFACTURING

LORI MORGAN DIR. MARKETING EDITORIALS How a scandal was born

ince became Prime The first goal was merely silly. Even Minister in 2003, this newspa- in the absence of fraud, the $332-mil- per has given him mixed lion spent on sponsorship would have reviews. But even his critics been a total waste. But that money must give him credit for the might have washed harmlessly down wayS he has responded to Adscam. the drain had it not been for the second While some Liberals urged him to goal, which resulted in a perversion of bury the issue lest skeletons be government protocols, and which unearthed, Mr. Martin gave Justice thereby produced a scandal that has ’s Commission of done more to resuscitate separatism Inquiry broad investigative powers, than anything since Meech Lake. and stood by Judge Gomery even after The desire to share sponsorship the commissioner’s own comments to goodies with the Liberals’ ad-industry a Post journalist put his credibility in friends meant that the program was question. Yes, the Martin Liberals conducted in a climate of secrecy. In- have delivered plenty of self-serving deed, it was only in 2002 — more than spin since Adscam broke — this is pol- six years after the program began — itics, after all. But the important thing that its existence was even announced. is that Judge Gomery was given free The same desire also caused the PMO rein. As a result, the report he deliv- to short-circuit the bureaucracy. After ered yesterday was comprehensive, all, a contracting process based on par- detailed and credible. tisanship can hardly be trusted to non- To readers of Judge Gomery’s find- partisan civil servants — except, of ings, the most striking theme is how course, the one man who played ball. different the sponsorship program was Messrs. Chrétien and Gagliano still from just about every other program maintain that everything they did was run by Ottawa. justified by the need to save the coun- Notwithstanding popular concep- try. They have not yet come to terms tions of how public institutions run, with how abysmal the sponsorship our federal government is actually full program was in conception and execu- of checks and balances. Typically, the tion. Indeed, they are likely incapable bureaucrats who approve projects are of such insight: One of the most dis- not the ones who pay for them. When turbing revelations from Adscam is large sums are involved, they are close- how thoroughly and instinctively the ly watched by deputy ministers, minis- Liberal Party confuses its own interests ters and a host of arm’s-length func- with those of the country. It is easy to tionaries whose job it is to ensure that see why such people would be inclined Ottawa gets value for money. to look the other way as the parasites BEAUTIFUL MINDS The main reason Adscam happened multiplied. To the extent the party and was that this whole apparatus of ac- its partners profited, some Liberals countability was systematically elimi- reasoned, so too did Canada. nated in the case of the sponsorship In democratic societies, scandals program. The same bureaucrat who lead to reforms. So it is with Adscam, picked ad agencies — Joseph Charles which has already produced initiatives (“Chuck”) Guité — was also responsible aimed at improving whistle-blower pro- A policy wonk with for paying them. And since Mr. Guité’s tection, contracting practices and activities were being overseen directly spending oversight. But such protec- and actively by the Prime Minister’s tions are hardly new. When Mr. Guité chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, and two worked as director of advertising at Ministers of Public Works — David Public Works and Government Services Dingwall and then Alfonso Gagliano — Canada in the mid-1990s, there were al- entrepreneurial flair the bureaucratic hierarchy that would ready plenty of safeguards in place — it normally catch such abuses was neu- is just that they were shunted aside for tered. Mr. Guité was permitted to be- political convenience. When push The National Post is conducting a search to find come a fiefdom unto himself, and so comes to shove between bureaucracies Canada’s most important “public intellectual.” In completely ignored the Treasury Board and politicians, the latter get their way. today’s instalment, Reford MacDougall profiles contracting rules by which he was And that will not change. bound. When auditors found irregular- What is needed as much as new laws Economic Institute President Michel Kelly- ities in his department — as occurred and more auditors is a new attitude Gagnon. Other profiles, as well as contest rules, appear in both 1996 and 2000 — the findings among the federal Liberals, who have at www.national post.com/beautifulminds. were buried. And when Allan Cutler, a ruled this country for a dozen years subordinate, bravely sounded the and may well rule it for a dozen more. R EFORD M ACD OUGALL alarm about what was happening, he Their sole objective must be the benefit was declared “surplus” by Mr. Guité of its citizens, not that of the party and and shipped out. its friends. Mr. Chrétien appears to cy deduction and pitiless logic have never been And so the parasites swarmed — have forgotten that during his many cornerstones of ’s public discourse. Policy- sleazy ad executives, Liberal bagmen years in office. For a prime minister making is rarely grounded in reality, and that is and political cronies who played up who centralized power in the PMO and precisely why the province now teeters on the eco- their connections with Jean Chrétien. turned committees and backbenchers nomic edge. Mr. Guité was recognized as an easy into rubber stamps, extending his fiat ILast month, former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard mark, a man who not only was free to the career bureaucracy must have joined with a group of Quebecers arguing for a pull-back from meaningful oversight, but who al- seemed a natural step. from the precipice. The group’s “manifesto” caused quite so might be swayed with concert tick- Which brings us back to Paul Mar- a stir, with good reason: The document called for review- ets and nice meals. It was Chuck Guité tin. While Judge Gomery reports that ing the Quebec government’s role in the economy and who managed the program in concert the Prime Minister is entitled “to be ex- paying down the debt, warning that with a declining pop- with his political masters. But it was onerated,” many will not see ulation Quebecers cannot continue expanding their social men like Jacques Corriveau, Jean it that way. He was the Finance Minis- programs as if there’s no tomorrow. Brault, Alain Renaud and the appa- ter, not to mention the senior Minister It was a welcome development, but I was disappointed ratchiks of the Liberal party’s Quebec from Quebec, during Adscam. And to find no acknowledgement in the press of the indirect wing who divided the real spoils. though the PMO did its best to keep role played by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI) The law of unintended consequen- the ad program’s line item under and its president, Michel Kelly-Gagnon. For the past six ces was at play. There is no evidence wraps, it is hard to believe that a man years, no individual or organization has done more to pre- that Messrs. Gagliano, Chrétien and in Mr. Martin’s position would not have pare the intellectual ground for just such a challenge to Pelletier were seeking to create a party- had an inkling — at least — that some- the modèle québécois — and for a return to fiscal sanity. financing kickback racket run for the thing fishy was going on. Who is Michel Kelly-Gagnon? A lawyer by profession benefit of the Quebec wing of the Lib- Whatever he did or did not know, and entrepreneur in spirit, he is above all an iconoclast. eral party, which is what the sponsor- Mr. Martin must definitively break At an early age, he realized that his society’s statist direc- ship program became. But that result with his predecessor’s ways. Adscam tion was dangerous folly. Six years ago, he helped revive a was brought about thanks to their ef- was not merely an indictment of moribund think-tank, and has since made the MEI a pow- forts to accomplish two other goals: (1) Chuck Guité and the people who took erful influence in Quebec. The organization was certainly Michel Kelly-Gagnon fight separatism by covering Quebec advantage of him, but of the whole ar- a first for French Canada, in that it refused to regard “cap- with made-in-Canada stickers; and (2) rogant system of government that re- italism” as a pejorative term. ensure that the people who made those sulted in a man like him wielding and Whether studying taxation, government subsidies, edu- classes. Symbolic of its broader appeal is its weekly col- stickers were friends of the Liberals. abusing so much power. cation, medicare, poverty, labour law, telecom regulation umn in the popular Journal de Montréal, the city’s or the like, the MEI has deferred to reality — and reality largest-circulation daily. This is one of Kelly-Gagnon’s can be ruthless. The organization’s only “ideology” has greatest sources of pride. THE VIEW FROM OTTAWA been clear-sightedness, though Kelly-Gagnon would nev- The MEI has been called a neo-liberal reactionary er deny a rooted affinity for the principles of an open soci- toady of big business, and Kelly-Gagnon was once re- ety and free market. ferred to as “a menace to Quebec’s future” in the letters In praise of Project Porchlight Approaching an issue, the organization’s researchers column of Le Devoir. His harshest critics may be the lead- simply ask: “What are the facts? Where lies efficiency? ers of Quebec’s powerful trade unions, who are naturally The light bulb, a bright idea. An en- will distribute 50,000 free energy- Who benefits? How is wealth truly created?” Their an- suspicious of findings that encourage deregulation, lower ergy-efficient light bulb, an even saving compact-fluorescent bulbs swers have provided a steady stream of studies that con- taxes and private enterprise. brighter idea. throughout the riding of Ottawa sistently take on the sacred cows of Quebec’s (and Cana- Clearly, what sets Kelly-Gagnon apart is the degree to The McGuinty government has South. The cost of the $130,000 pro- da’s) economic orthodoxy. In other words, they have which his ideas are transformed into action. Policy wonks brokered billions of dollars of agree- ject has been covered by private and shown that our trust in government intervention is fatally usually know next to nothing about marketing and appli- ments to build nuclear reactors. government organizations. wrong-headed, and that the paternalistic state creates cation: Once they’ve done their studies and their analyses, There is a water tunnel to be built at One estimate maintains that if more problems than it solves. they prefer to leave the field. Kelly-Gagnon is the rare per- Niagara Falls to maximize electricity every Canadian replaced a regular Report after report out of the MEI reveals that many son who bridges the gap between research and reality. output at that site. Ontario homes bulb with a CF bulb, it would cut pol- established ways of doing things are inefficient at best, National Post will get special meters to boost lution by the equivalent of 66,000 cars. and counter-productive at worst. Most recently, the MEI’s prices at peak-use times. Ottawa South MP David McGuinty study of Quebec’s publicly owned retail liquor system ❚ Reford MacDougall, a member of the Order of Canada, All this to solve an energy crunch has helped with the project. earned it headlines and editorials across the country. has played an active role in Quebec’s business, political in a jurisdiction that was once fa- So our advice to David is to call Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled and cultural scenes over the last 40 years. He is a former mous for inexpensive power. The brother Dalton to tell him about the that the Quebec government cannot prevent people from journalist and stockbroker. province of Sir Adam Beck. value of a campaign for energy con- buying insurance for procedures covered by medicare. But the least expensive way to cope servation. It’s cheaper than those oth- Again, little was reported about the MEI’s indirect role in with the energy crunch is conserva- er capital-heavy projects. And, oh yes, that outcome. But one of the successful plaintiffs, Dr. tion. No great capital outlays, no huge mention the light bulbs. Jacques Chaoulli, is a senior fellow at the Institute. And TOMORROW power purchases. Just say no. much of the pleading in the case mirrored data and argu- That’s why it is easy to like Pro- ments presented to the public over the years by Kelly- L. Ian MacDonald on economist and political advisor ject Porchlight. Twelve volunteers Gagnon’s team. Charles McMillan The MEI’s audience is not restricted to the chattering

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