You may want to take a look at this. Jumped the gun by 12 minutes. Can't wait for the details....and the feeding frenzy.
A certain infamous site may have some relevant information as well.
Update: The on again, off again publication ban is on again.
...Justice James Brunton of Quebec Superior Court beat the deadline by ordering a temporary ban on the testimony. He said he wanted to wait until he rules on a motion by Guite's lawyers to have the testimony kept secret until after Guite's criminal trial.
Brunton said "the Earth won't stop turning if I take a llittle time to decide."
And now it is off again.
...Throughout his week testifying in Montreal, Guite named names including the prime minister's.
Guite testified that back in 2000, he was told that then-finance minister Paul Martin had intervened to ensure a Liberal-friendly ad firm wouldn't lose its lucrative contracts with the federal sponsorship program.
Guite had already left the civil service by then, and was lobbying the government on behalf of the Toronto-based advertising agency Vickers and Benson Ltd.
You know who has more on this.
...Guite also claimed ad contracts were routinely handed out to reward ad agencies that did election work for the Liberals.
"It was politically driven," he said, explaining that he was constantly being told to help out the party's friends such as ad executive Jacques Corriveau.
Accused of exploiting a personal relationship with former prime minister Jean Chretien, Corriveau has denied the two were close.
But in his testimony, Guite said that in 1994, then-public works minister David Dingwall told him a different story.
"If you ever meet someone in bed between Jean Chretien and his wife, it'll be Corriveau," recalling Dingwall's remarks. "His comment was, you'll look after him."
In the broad sweep of his testimony, Guite even suggested Chretien's wife wielded influence over the sponsorship program.
The CBC goes after Chretien and Gagliano even harder.
Chuck Guité, the bureaucrat in charge of the federal sponsorship program, refused to take the entire blame for any problems with the program, pointing the finger at Jean Chrétien's office and former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.
The ill-fated program was "politically driven" from the start to reward Liberal-friendly ad firms which ran the party's Quebec campaign, Guité said during five days of testimony in front of the Gomery inquiry.
...The system "was 150 per cent politically driven," Guité told the inquiry.
...In one case, BCP fell short in its bid for a $60 million Tourism Canada contract. The contract went to another ad firm, Vickers and Benson. But Guité said the decision was quickly overturned after the Prime Minister's Office got a call from Yves Gougoux, the head of BCP.
"Yves Gougoux from BCP went ballistic and phoned the PMO and they changed it. Is that political influence?" asked Fournier.
And the Globe and Mail guns for PM Paul Martin - Guité details intervention by Martin
When he was still finance minister, Paul Martin was one of three cabinet ministers who intervened to make sure that a Toronto ad agency wouldn't lose its lucrative government contracts if it was to be sold to a foreign conglomerate, the Gomery inquiry has been told.
The startling claim linking the prime minister to the Adscam scandal was made at the inquiry headed by Mr. Justice John Gomery by Chuck Guité, the former head of the federal sponsorship program.
...Beyond the allegation involving Mr. Martin, Mr. Guité's testimony was a sweeping indictment of a federal procurement system which, he said, was geared toward rewarding friends of the party in power with profitable ad contracts.
The incidents Mr. Guité described began before the 1995 Quebec referendum and involved firms outside Quebec, undermining former prime minister Jean Chrétien's contention that irregularities stemming from the sponsorship program were justified in the fight for national unity.
...During his testimony, Mr. Guité detailed how top Chrétien loyalists such as Mr. Gagliano, Mr. Pelletier or Jean Carle intervened in what was supposed to be a competitive process to award advertising and sponsorship contracts.
The interference extended to hires in the civil service. Mr. Guité said the choice of his replacement in 1999, Mr. Tremblay, was imposed by Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Gagliano.
He also said that he was told by his political masters to "take care" of a close friend of Mr. Chrétien, the Montreal graphics designer Jacques Corriveau, who later became a key power broker in the sponsorship file.
Even Mr. Chrétien's wife, Aline, made a cameo in the testimony, with Mr. Guité recalling how she had an input in picking some overpriced promotional trinkets that civil servants later dubbed "Madame Chrétien's watches."
...One new rule obliged ad agencies doing government business to be 100 per cent Canadian-owned. Mr. Guité said the requirement was set up to eliminate unwanted applicants because the Liberal-friendly agencies all happened to have full Canadian ownership.
"We changed the policy from 50 per cent under the Conservative administration because all the boys now that are on the right colour of the party are all 100 per cent (Canadian) owned."
...Mr. Guité testified that two of Mr. Chrétien's top aides gave the green light to a controversial project where Ottawa took money earmarked for national unity to finance a television series broadcast solely in China.
Called "Dashan & Friends in Canada," the 26-part TV series was a long-time Vickers pet project that aired on Chinese state television.
It ended up costing taxpayers nearly $10-million.
"The China project from start to finish was strictly politically driven in funding," Mr. Guité said.
