I have been driving most of the day so I missed this story in the Toronto Star from Jim Travers.
...Justice John Gomery will report in less than two weeks that the Quebec sponsorship scheme was a narrowly held secret with broadly dangerous implications for government integrity.
After months of conflicting testimony, the Quebec Superior Court judge will load much of the blame for the mutant $250-million program on a group of loyalists clustered around former prime minister Jean Chrétien.
But in the first of two reports, Gomery will also conclude that controls to protect taxpayers failed under political pressure, making it child's play for rogue civil servants to direct contracts to Liberal-friendly advertising firms.
Gomery will lay bare what many Canadians suspect: An elite few routinely and for ruling party advantage abused a system that buckled and then failed.
As Don Martin points out on Mike Duffy Live (click above Mike Duffy's head, but only until 5 tomorrow), nowhere does Mr. Travers suggest that he has read the report, nor does he reveal a source, so how can he report this as fact. It got me thinking back to an earlier post I wrote, which quoted from a post by Warren Kinsella
...So, for instance, I object to the fact that media organizations buy tickets at political fundraisers - which outfits like the Toronto Star do all the time. It's a conflict. Or that the Star's Jim Travesty gets invited for beers at 24 Sussex, all cozy-like, and he never discloses that to his readership. That's a conflict, too. Or that a celebrated CBC TV talking head - an “analyst,” he's called - rings up to warn a well-connected Ottawa lobby firm whenever bad news is imminent. That, too, is a conflict.
Was a beer involved in Mr. Travers getting this information. According to Robert Fife the PMO denies leaking any information on this story. If not from the PMO then where did Mr. Travers get this information?
