Wow! I gotta get me one of them ties that cost $121.50 each!!
I figure they either tie themselves, or are bulletproof ...
(which might come in awful handy for some people at the Adscam inquiry ...)
Ottawa paid thousands for ties, inquiry hears
Feb. 7, 2005. 08:01 PM
OTTAWA (CP) â †The Liberal government paid nearly $60,000 for 480 neckties to be given to foreign dignitaries on Jean Chrétien's trips abroad, the federal sponsorship inquiry heard today.
The information came to light just as the former prime minister was getting ready to testify at the inquiry.
Chrétien is cheduled to begin his testimony tomorrow morning and continue for up to two full days.
The ties, which came in two styles and bore maple leaf logos, were ordered in 1998 after Jean Pelletier, who was Chrétien's chief of staff, complained about the poor quality of souvenir neckwear his boss had been handing out.
â Å“I thought Canada deserved a tie that held its own, that had some allure,â ? Pelletier told the inquiry headed by Justice John Gomery.
He said he asked Jean Carle, then Chrétien's director of operations, to come up with better products.
Details from there are hazy, but the job was eventually entrusted to the Montreal ad agency Lafleur Communication.
Pelletier said nobody told him the final price tag at the time. He only found that out last week, when he was shown the invoices in preparation for his testimony at the inquiry.
â Å“I was scandalized,â ? he said. â Å“All those costs made no sense, it wasn't what we wanted.
â Å“If I ask somebody to buy four tires for my car, it doesn't mean I'm giving him authority to pay four times the price.â ?
Documents provided by the Public Works Department show that Lafleur charged $88 apiece for 240 ties in one style, and $105 apiece for another 240 in the second style.
The two lots added up to $46,320 â †but that wasn't the end of it.
Lafleur also billed Public Works for commissions of more than $8,000 for the agency's work on the project.
Another firm, Pluri Design, collected $4,500 as a subcontractor, billing for â Å“strategic researchâ ? as well as a range of other creative and production services.
Previous evidence has shown that Pluri Design was owned by Jacques Corriveau, a Montreal businessman who also did electoral campaign work for the Liberals.
A onetime vice-president of the federal party, Corriveau provided outdoor advertising signs for all Liberal candidates in Quebec in the 1993, 1997 and 2000 elections.
His name surfaced last week at the inquiry, in connection with other subcontracts he obtained through Groupe Polygone, a printing firm that did millions in sponsorship business with Ottawa.
Former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano has adamantly denied claims by opposition MPs that Corriveau was favoured for sponsorship deals because of his previous election work.
The fancy neckties weren't the only items that found their way to the Prime Minister's Office under the catch-all heading ``promotional itemsâ ? funded by the sponsorship program.
Chrétien was also furnished with dozens of golf balls embossed with his signature, in a deal that Gomery denigrated as â Å“small town cheapâ ? in a pre-Christmas media interview.
The judge held his tongue today and offered no personal view of the tie transaction.
Paul Martin, who was finance minister during the sponsorship years but killed the program when he took over the top job from Chrétien, is expected to testify Thursday and Friday.
Under Chrétien, starting in the mid-1990s, Ottawa spent some $250 million sponsoring sports and cultural events, films, TV series, books, magazines and a host of other projects.
The primary aim was to raise the federal profile in Quebec and fight separatism. But an estimated $100 million went to Liberal-friendly ad agencies and other middlemen who often failed to deliver quality work.
In his testimony, Pelletier readily acknowledged - as he has done before - that he offered personal advice on which projects should be funded.
But he insisted there was nothing wrong with that, given the program's overriding goal of promoting national unity.
"I have no apologies," he said. "I think I only did my duty. . . . I have a clear conscience about all of this."
Pelletier said it was natural that Chuck Guité, the Public Works bureaucrat in charge of sponsorship files, would want political guidance.
"So he would consult the Prime Minister's Office frequently to get our opinion. It was absolutely logical, in our view."
The opinions were offered in meetings where Pelletier, sometimes accompanied by Carle, would go over lists of proposed projects with Guité and discuss how much money each should get.
For some "major files" Guité may have referred to the need to hire a particular ad agency with sufficient resources to manage the project, said Pelletier.
"Perhaps he mentioned that, and perhaps I accepted it."
Pelletier maintained, however, that neither he nor anybody else at the PMO tried to impose their own views on which firms should handle specific events.
"We never chose any agencies at the Prime Minister's Office. We had nothing to do with that."
Pelletier conceded he had socialized with Jean Lafleur, the founder of Lafleur Communication, but said the two never discussed sponsorship business.
He also sought to play down the fact that Eric Lafleur - the son of Jean and a vice-president of the family ad firm - worked as a contract employee for the PMO on a 1998 trade mission by Chrétien to South America.
Eric's job was to look after relatively minor logistical matters like bus schedules and hotel accommodations, said Pelletier.
He was recommended for the work by Carle, who had also employed the younger Lafleur as a Liberal campaign volunteer during the 1997 federal election.
