New Gomery Inquiry testimony shows that while the people who actually performed work on government contracts received appropriate compensation for their efforts, the middlemen tied to Liberal politicians made almost twenty times as much without lifting a finger. The Sponsorship Program bought advertising at ten hunting and fishing shows from Gaetan Mondou for $100,000, who discovered yesterday that the man who bought them, Luc Lemay, told the government that they had cost over $1.8 million. The difference disappeared into the pockets of Jacques Corriveau, longtime pal of Jean Chrétien and a man who doesn't even fish:

An events promoter who bought the exclusive federal government sponsorship rights to two small hunting and fishing shows for $100,000 turned around and billed taxpayers more than 10 times that amount to display the Canada wordmark.

Luc Lemay, president of Expour Inc., charged the government more than $1.8 million over five years to sponsor annual hunting and fishing shows in the Quebec cities of Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivieres that he bought the rights to for $10,000 each.

"I think it's f---ing bullshit," Gaetan Mondou, the small-town promoter who sold the shows to Mr. Lemay, testified yesterday at the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship program.

"I don't know what's happening with the government and why they pay like that for my show, that's too much. ... Two million (dollars) to have some Canadian flags in the show, that's crazy."

But Mr. Mondou was particularly upset to discover most of the remaining $1.7 million didn't even go to Mr. Lemay, it went to another sponsorship middleman, Jacques Corriveau, a Liberal loyalist and good friend of former prime minister Jean Chretien.

Mr. Corriveau, who subcontracted for Mr. Lemay's Expour Inc., was paid $1 million for work that Mr. Mondou actually did.

Not only did Lemay direct most of the funds into Corriveau's pockets, he justified the expenditure with false information about the reach of Mondou's events. Lemay told the government that each of the shows attracted 25,000 people or more, while Mondou told Gomery that 6,000 was about as good as it ever got, if the weather stayed nice. Moreover, Mondou insists that he did all the promotional work on his shows, and never received any assistance at all from Corriveau.

It might be a bit clichéd to say that there's something fishy going on with Corriveau, especially since the urbane man of culture never got close to baiting a hook -- except when landing fat, no-work government contracts from his cronies in Ottawa. This latest testimony shows the level of corruption and the depth of greed involved in skimming government funds from fishing shows, of all things.

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