A couple of updates on Adscam for Canadian readers this morning:

First, after I posted about the Toronto Sun's allegations yesterday about Parti Quebecois receiving Sponsorship Program monies through Groupaction, several people e-mailed and commented that PQ vigorously denied the allegations and that the Sun had reported factually incorrect data. Specifically, the contract to which the Sun tied the illegal payments expired in 1998. However, Greg Weston's column in today's Sun makes the chronology clear :

As we reported yesterday, Alain Renaud, a senior executive who worked for the ad firm Groupaction during the Adscam years, claims that while the company was getting $43 million in sponsorship funds, it was slipping thousands of dollars to the PQ.

In one deal, Renaud says, Groupaction paid about $90,000 to the PQ in return for a $4.5-million advertising contract with the Quebec liquor board, the SAQ.

The PQ, of course, went berserk over the story, denying it with separatist vigour. Groupaction had actually lost the bid for the liquor board contract in late 1998, the party insisted. Too bad Renaud was talking about Groupaction's contract from 1996-97.

It does indeed appear that money spent on convincing the Quebecois not to secede from Canada went into the pockets of the very separatists it was meant to oppose. This led to a particularly uncomfortable exchange between Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Liberal PM Paul Martin during yesterday's Question Period:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper made the perfectly sensible point that since "hundreds of thousands of tax dollars may have been funnelled through the Liberal sponsorship program to the Parti Quebecois, I guess the Keystone Crooks stole the money and gave it to the wrong people."

Harper asked, could the PM "guarantee Canadian taxpayers that not one red cent of their money went to the separatist cause in Quebec in the name of national unity?"

Martin, of course, could give no such guarantee.

In another update, CTV confirms that Justice Gomery will decide this morning whether to continue the publication ban now that Jean Brault's testimony has been completed, and of course reported through this site and others. As I mentioned before, an end to the ban would be the best possible result, as Canadians would get first-hand reporting on the courtroom testimony and all the information they want on the scandal.

However, if Justice Gomery does not lift the ban, my source has prepared an update which will be sent later today to me. I assume that will cover the testimony from Monday and Tuesday, and possibly the cross-examination yesterday. If it comes through -- which is completely at the discretion of my source -- I will post it as soon as I'm able.

UPDATE: Justice Gomery will announce the decision on the ban at 2 pm EDT, according to a separate source.

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