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Aug 28,2005 - Sept 4,2005 |
Gagliano under scrutiny
Former minister denies any wrong doing
By Angelo Persichilli
Originally Published: 2005-04-03
The sponsorship inquiry is entering a crucial stage. Recently, Judge John Gomery embargoed the testimonies of three of the most important witnesses: former bureaucrat Chuck Guite, and two managers of advertising agencies that obtained million-dollar contracts from the federal government - Paul Coffin, of the agency of the same name, and Jean Brault of Groupaction.
The three had requested the embargo because they are subjects of an RCMP criminal investigation, and have been summoned to appear in court in early May. Their counsels remarked that their testimony for the Gomery Commission would jeopardize their chances of getting a fair trial in front of the Montreal judges.
After pondering their request for two weeks, Judge Gomery accepted it, so most of their testimonies will be sealed and inaccessible to the press.
Gomery will hear their testimonies next month, but journalists will not be admitted.
Meanwhile, the name of former minister of public works Alfonso Gagliano has been dragged out once again in relation to the controversial funding of an event in Italy for just over $6,000.
According to bureaucrat Huguette Tremblay, Gagliano asked to "leave no paper trail" of $6,850 paid for an event held in 1998 in Molise, in the town of San Martino in Pensilis (near Campobasso). Tremblay declared he received specific instructions to make it appear as if that money had gone to pay for an event held in Canada. Tremblay, however, claimed that he received these instructions not from Gagliano but from Chuck Guité, the bureaucrat charged with managing the sponsorship program.
The event in Molise took place on the occasion of a visit by then-prime minister Jean Chretien to Italy. Gagliano went to San Martino to attend a ceremony for the naming of a town square, "Piazza Canada."
Tremblay alleged that Gagliano asked Guité to hide the tracks of this payment within the folder of a "Canadian event." At the same time, another former bureaucrat, Mario Parent, testified that he did not regard that event as part of the sponsorship program, "because it wasn't being held in Canada." Parent also said that he thought San Martino was a town in Sicily, Gagliano's region of birth.
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