Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien was to be criticized in a report to be released yesterday by a federal inquiry investigating allegations of kickbacks and money laundering by the Liberal Party, a newspaper reported.
The report puts the blame on Chretien but not on Prime Minister Paul Martin, the Globe and Mail reported.
The first report by Justice John Gomery's inquiry into the alleged misspending of tens of millions of dollars in public funds by the Liberal Party and federal bureaucrats is likely to further weaken Martin's minority government, which was nearly toppled earlier this year by the scandal.
At the center of the allegations is a program under Chretien to promote national unity in Quebec following the narrow defeat of a separatist referendum in the French-speaking province in 1995.
The inquiry heard that millions of dollars in a national unity fund went to Liberal-friendly advertising firms to promote the program. The firms apparently did little work in return.
Among others who will be implicated in the scandal are former bureaucrat Chuck Guite, former minister of public works Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal Party fundraiser Jacques Corriveau and Chretien's longtime chief of staff, Jean Pelletier, the newspaper reported.
The Globe and Mail did not report any other details about the findings.
Justice Gomery is expected to issue a final report and recommendations in February.
Martin has vowed to call an election within 30 days of the release of the final report.
Martin has not been implicated in the scandal and is quick to point out that his first piece of business in office was to cancel the unity program, file lawsuits against 19 of the involved firms and demand the inquiry.
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O’Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wresters tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle. This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears — mostly sweat — to St Peter’s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It is the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who said he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus — and wants others to have the same experience. The outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit
ACCESS DISPUTE: The blast struck a house, and set cars and tractors alight, with the fires wrecking several other structures and cutting electricity An explosion killed at least five people, including a pregnant woman and a one-year-old, during a standoff between rival groups of gold miners early on Thursday in northwestern Bolivia, police said, a rare instance of a territorial dispute between the nation’s mining cooperatives turning fatal. The blast thundered through the Yani mining camp as two rival mining groups disputed access to the gold mine near the mountain town of Sorata, about 150km northwest of the country’s administrative capital of La Paz, said Colonel Gunther Agudo, a local police officer. Several gold deposits straddle the remote area. Agudo had initially reported six people killed,
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
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