Twelve charges of fraud, that's the tally thus far as the RCMP wade into the Adscam scandal, this time in an investigative capacity, not to be confused with their former participatory capacity in the Capital's latest financial scandal.
Former Bureaucrat Chuck Guite faces six charges of fraud, while Groupaction president Jean Brault also faces six charges of fraud, over alleged offences between 1996 and 1999. If convicted of all six charges each could face over 60 years in jail. The allegations of the RCMP are that Mr. Guite awarded five fake or inflated invoices to Mr. Brault for about two million dollars.
Three charges revolve around reports that were billed at 1.6 million dollars but were only worth approximately 460,000 dollars in value to the government.
Another two charges are related to two contracts worth a total of 480,000 dollars invoicing work supposedly done on the Federal Gun Registry program; in the opinion of the RCMP no value was provided on that file.
The final charge of fraud is an allegation that Mr. Guite and Mr. Brault conspired to award a 330,000 dollar contract to Groupaction.
Both men entered pleas of Not Guilty and await a trial date and a chance to explain their side of the story in a legal environment. Having been roasted in a public forum one wonders exactly where they may possibly find an unbiased jury pool for this most heralded of scandals.
The legal maneuvering coincided with some parliamentary moves today as the Liberals began to put in play motions to bring to an end the parliamentary committee exploring the Adscam scandal. The plan is to stop hearing from any further witnesses, draft an interim report and get on with an election, as the Adscam scandal sits on a back burner until the Judicial Inquiry of Judge Gomery in September. The good judge taking some time to collect the staples, paper clips, pens and photo copy paper required for a fine traditional Canadian inquiry. Having previously stated that his sessions are not designed to assign guilt or point fingers, the legal happenings today should not impact on his deliberations, except of course in the area of availability, should his two key witnesses Mr. Guite and Mr. Brault suddenly find themselves occupied with more pressing personal matters, like trying to stay out of jail!
Needless to say the Opposition is up in arms over the move to end the parliamentary inquiry, claiming that with over 90 witnesses to be heard there may be more legs to this story than the Liberals might like. Not to mention an end to those nightly news clips of Tories waving accusatory fingers at their Liberal counterparts. Conservative MP Jason Kenny used Question Period to ask some questions and suggest ulterior motives for the sudden end to the rambling inquiry. No Liberals took the bait, claiming it was the intention all along to issue an interim report so as to keep Canadians fully informed.
Canadians of course have probably nodded off over the last month or so as the two sides traded accusations, charges of stonewalling and of interference. The last month of the parliamentary committee meetings the equivalent of ancient water torture as slowly snippets of information would come out, only to be rebuffed by one side or another. The legal happenings and the political posturing suddenly breathes a bit of life into the tired old scandal. Of special interest will be the charges revolving around the Federal Gun Registry, which should make the Liberals feel just a little bit uncomfortable. Regardless, we are surely nowehre near the end of this yet, the truth somehow a far off option not likely to be achieved any time soon.
Now with two names put into the legal gazette we can all refocus our attention. With Guite and Brault charged and awaiting the wheels of justice we're left to wonder are they scallywags or scapegoats, better yet will we know before an election or far off in the future when their names will become the vernacular of the what ever happened to columns.
Time will tell for them, it will be interesting to wait and see how many other names get added to the list of miscreants before this saga reaches some kind of eventual end.
The above posting first appeared in my Boondoggle blog, for more items and links about Government matters check it out.
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