Liberal Corruption File Keeps Growing.

To know ourselves diseased is half our cure.
- Alexander Pope

Some of the Liberals could keep that in mind. The Hill Times has the goods:

Widespread contracting abuses go beyond AG's report: documents

Heritage Canada was 'concerned about its own financial and program accountability'

A September 1997 government audit of the Canada Information Office (CIO) reveals widespread contracting abuses -- including the absence of a paper trail for more than $2-million in advertising funds -- that go well beyond those identified by the auditor general's report on the advertising and sponsorship scandal.

In her 2003 report on government advertising and sponsorship programs, Auditor General Sheila Fraser targeted the CIO for its role in funneling money to advertising firms. Her findings of abuses at CIO included inappropriate sole-source contracts, a lack of paper trails and a failure to brief departmental officials on certain advertising and promotion initiatives. However, the Liberals shut down the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee investigation of the sponsorship scandal before the CIO's first executive director, Roger Collet, could be called to testify.

New documents, obtained by The Hill Times through access to information requests, show that the problems at CIO were more widespread than the auditor general's report suggest. According to an investigation conducted by the government's internal auditing agency, Consulting and Audit Canada, "no letter of understanding could be traced for $2,150,000 [in] advertising funds that was transferred from CIO to PWGSC [Public Works and Government Services Canada]." Additional problems included:

* "unconvincing justifications for most sole-source contracts";

* contracts issued that "exceeded delegated authorities";

* "contracts issued by CIO staff who did not have authority to issue them";

* "no contract performance process in place to evaluate delivery of services (as required by [section] 34 of Financial Administration Act)";

* goods contracts that "exceeded local purchasing authority limit" and "bypassed PWGSC procedures and regulations"; and

* "transactions [that were] poorly documented leaving an inadequate paper trail."
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According to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Collet was hired for the CIO position directly by then prime minister Jean Chrétien in 1996 and told colleagues that his boss was the prime minister rather than his office's minister, Sheila Copps. This arrangement was similar to that of Chuck Guité's, who played a prominent role in the sponsorship program as the head of advertising and polling at Public Works. Mr. Collet and Mr. Guité were both part of a group of close Chrétien confidantes, including the then-PM's chief of staff Jean Pelletier and then-minister of public works Alfonso Gagliano, who were running programs to boost federal visibility in Quebec.

Ahh, the old gang is back. They've bought off Beaudoin in the nick of time, but their own record will sink them.