On Monday I mentioned that Jean Lafleur of Lafleur Communications, currently under fire at the Gomery Inquiry, gave $74,534.24 to the Liberal Party through personal donations and donations from Lafleur Communications. What I did not know was that he also owns Gescom Inc. which donated another $10,989.96 bringing the total from Jean Lafleur to $85,525.20 in donations. Does he own any other companies?
Also under fire is former MP David Dingwall. According to the Elections Canada Website Wallding donated $39,315.88 to the Liberal Party. That it is a high percentage of the $133,500 contract that they were given for Sponsorship (29%). David Dingwall gave a paltry $2,980.96 to the Liberal Party.
According to testimony today, Wallding was given a contract by VIA Rail to consult on the government. Since Crown Corporations are not allowed to hire such consulting they tried to hide it through Lafleur Communications. Since David Dingwall is a former Minister in charge of Crown Corporations he knew it wasn't allowed. Such regulations did not stop any of them. Lovely.
Update: Here is Sun Columnist Greg Weston's take:
...We say "supposedly" because exactly what Dingwall did to earn $120,000 of taxpayers' money over the ensuing 10 months remains one of the unsolved mysteries of this tale.
The first puzzle is how Dingwall came upon his lucky windfall. Montreal ad exec Jean Lafleur testified at the Gomery inquiry this week that in the spring of 1998, he had been instructed by the chairman of VIA rail, Marc Lefrancois, to hire Dingwall for $12,000 a month and send the bills to the public railway.
As a result, there was nothing in VIA's books connecting Dingwall to the Crown agency.
Asked why all the secrecy, Lafleur testified that Lefrancois "wanted to influence certain cabinet ministers and give them certain information to convince them that it would be important to reinvest money in the passenger rail service.
"I assume it's delicate for a Crown corporation president to use the services of a former member of cabinet to bring additional information to current members of cabinet."
So, was Dingwall being paid $12,000 a month to lobby his former cabinet colleagues to throw more loot at money-eating VIA?
