– Jean Pelletier on Paul Martin

Double-standars anyone?

I mean seriously…does no one here read about some of the stuff that goes on in other countries? And people are going to moan forever about a small number of sleazebags stealing a few million bucks.

Do you have any idea how routinely overbilling and even entirely fraudulent billing goes on in industries like PR or law firms or various other forms of consulting? I guarantee you that RIGHT NOW the exact same thing is going on with any number of govt contracts at all three levels of government.

In the big picture that was a nothing scandal. It’s only because Paul Martin was so eager to distinguish himself from Jean Chrétien and unleashed the Gomery Commission that it became such a big deal. As the years go by, people will look back at that scandal and say really ‘what the hell was the big deal’? In fact I predict that when Jean Chrétien dies the scandal will start to assume its proper place in history: a footnote.

I also think its in poor taste and small of people to dwell on it the day that Jean Pelleteier died, given all the positive things he did for this country.

However, he drew in the drain all the respect I could have for him being a silent witness of the adscam. He was one of these many people in Ottawa in the 90s who professed that all means were legitimate to mate independatists.

Christian Martel
Oxford, UK

I wish his family and friends well, and hope he did not have to endure too much suffering, but he has NOT been absolved of what he did.

I wish Ian Brodie was stil with my main man PM Harper…

Great blog post Wells, great blog post…..

Paul, is it my imagination, or has Quebec City been blessed with more than a few popular, helpful and reasonably clean mayors over the last few decades? If my impression is correct, what makes them so lucky?

As far as the VIA nonsense goes, my guess is that the expression was indeed one of genuine pity for someone who kind of went off the rails, but it was the opportunity PMPM was looking for to vindictively fire the Chretien loyalist.

People who have nothing to say about Pelletier except the (wildly overblown) sponsorship scandal are missing the forest through the trees. The Chrétien govt may not exactly have been inspiring, but it was competent. After years of deficit spending and constitutional adventures by Mulroney (and yes, Trudeau, before him) you can argue that the country needed a time out and good management. M. Pelletier was one of the key people responsible for providing that.

Secondly, the case was about the authority of the PM to dismiss a PM’s appointment.

Thirdly, the poor Cape Bretoners get blamed for everything.

Lastly, we’re going to get hit with another storm tomorrow. It’s the Liberal’s fault.

Jan 9th, 2008, From The Cape Breton Post:

“OTTAWA (CP) — The Federal Court of Appeals has upheld the former Liberal government’s second attempt to fire Via Rail chairman Jean Pelletier.
The decision overturned a lower-court ruling last March which sided with Pelletier after he was fired in December 2005.”

Pelletier lost his case, so what’s your point? I was just fact-checking John K.’s post and corrected it. He accepted the correction rather gallantly. You sir, on the other hand, are engaging in nitpicking.

Jan 9th, 2008, From The Cape Breton Post:

“OTTAWA (CP) — The Federal Court of Appeals has upheld the former Liberal government’s second attempt to fire Via Rail chairman Jean Pelletier.
The decision overturned a lower-court ruling last March which sided with Pelletier after he was fired in December 2005.”

Pelletier lost his case, so what’s your point? I was just fact-checking John K.’s post and corrected it. He accepted the correction rather gallantly. You sir, on the other hand, are engaging in nitpicking.

“Mr. Pelletier,(…), denounced Ms. Bedard’s claims about being forced to leave the company, commented that she was “feeling the tension of being a single mother who has financial responsibilities” and described her action as a call for “pity” from “a poor single woman.” ”

Can we all agree that this wasn’t the man’s finest moment?

In other words, Gomery didn’t buy the “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” defence, also known as the turning a blind eye defence.

Given Pelletier’s position and reputed political acumen, Gomery was right in pointing out Pelletier’s failure, anything else would have been an impossible to beleive white-wash.

He was at the very least guitly of turning a blind eye while Liberals robbed the federal treasury. (Gavel rapped vigorously.)

If I was batting .500 for the Yankees I’d be a multi-millionaire…

I tend to fall off the wagon when I have nothing better to get engrossed in. And let’s face it, there’s been nothing in the news of late that is remotely novel or non-irritating. It’s all the same old dreary nonsense.

I just hope the War Crimes Tribunals start soon. Cheney in the dock would be just to ticket to lift a lot of people out of their funk.

“Subsequently, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld Mr. Pelletier’s second termination at VIA in January, 2008 on the grounds that the government appoints the chair of the board of a crown corporation at pleasure and therefore has no obligation to canvass the board, which would, by definition, include the chair, before dismissing its own appointee.”

Fact-checking Sisyphus. Mere fact-checking. When Liberal malfeasance is in issue the Liberal partisans look the other way or engage in after-the-fact white-washing.

Shame. My only resolution not in tatters was the one I made not to respond to chuckie inanities. Oh, well.

Gomery commission report, Vol. 1, page 428.

Guys like Pelletier, who use their jobs to enrich themselves criminally at the expense of the rest of us (adscam), have not done a service to Canada.

Now, was the job one that should have been done? That’s where the disagreement’s going to lie. But if the House of Commons today had a few Jean Pelletiers on both sides of the aisle, things might run a little more smoothly.

Sad that we have so many angry and negative people out there.

He was a human being who has a large legacy of good deeds and deserves to be recognized for them.

Mr. Wells, well done.

Public funds were secreted out of government coffers which action was authorized by high-placed government officials with Liberal partisan ties and loyalties and then found their way into Liberal Party of Canada coffers.

Taxpayer’s money was stolen by the Liberals who controlled the goverment in order to further their partisan electoral activities. It does not get any worse than that except for governing with the Separatists.

I used to be one who feared and admired the Liberal Party of Canada. Now I mostly pity this once-vaunted political party.

How so?

Judge Gomery implicated Pelletier in Adscam.

On the biggest Liberal screw-up in my lifetime – the Coalition with the Separatists to govern “Canada and Quebec” to use the putative Coalition government’s lingo, Mr. Wells is particularly forgiving.

The bad Conservatives are planning, according to Mr. Wells, to remind the Canadian public on what the press said was 2008′s biggest political story: the Liberal Coalition with the NDP and the Separatists.

The Liberal screw-ups sure are putting media enablers to the loyaly test.

Mr. Wells, why don’t you give constructive criticism to the Liberals and tell them to repudiate the Coalition because it’s both bad for Canada and the Liberal Party?

And Paul’s championing of Big Government is rather funny when it was Government that was responsible for creating the dodgy neighbourhood in the first place, one they are still trying to fix 40 years later.