Yesterday was former PM Jean Chretien’s turn on the witness stand in the Gomery Commission inquiry into the 2003 sponsorship ‘scandal’.
“Chrétien ended the day by taking a theatrical shot at inquiry commissioner Gomery, who said in a controversial year-end media interview that he found the fact the Prime Minister’s Office had golf balls made up with Chrétien’s signature to be “small town cheap.”
Former prime minister Jean Chrétien holds a golf ball during his testimony at the Gomery inquiry. (CP photo)
A smiling Chrétien proceeded to pull from his briefcase golf balls that he said he’d received from people from small towns, including U.S. President George W. Bush and former president Bill Clinton.”
One might say he now has a pair from Mr. Gomery, too. Gomery did try to stop Chretien, who refused to stop because “it’s too much fun.”
As part of his testimony, Chretien also said it was misleading to refer to the ad agencies who allegedly benefitted from the affair as “Liberal-friendly” – he claims the agencies are in fact “federalism-friendly” and that the alternative would have been “separatist-friendly” companies.
Ah, well, that’s alright then.
They’re all excessively “money-friendly”, ie. greedy and corrupt. The question is whether the gov’t is as well, to which I think a resounding “duh!” would be the answer.
If you wanted to get every incidence of “golf ball” type spending, the inquiries would be endless. Which, BTW, I’m all for, assuming it would actually change something.
I believe we get fairly good value for money in terms of tax dollars being spent by our governments. There will always be “waste” and there will always be money spent on programs and agendas I don’t agree with. That’s just the down side of democracy.