Montreal — A high-ranking Liberal organizer says he received tens of thousands of dollars in sponsorship cash in 2000 from the president of Groupaction Marketing and funnelled the funds into the hands of “fake volunteers” working on the Liberal campaign.
Benoît Corbeil, the former director-general of the Liberal Party's office in Montreal, said in an interview that he received approval from some of his superiors for the cash transactions that were part of a regular flouting of electoral law.
At the time, Mr. Corbeil was at the top of the party's organization in Quebec, working under the direct supervision of then-minister Alfonso Gagliano.
Mr. Corbeil is the first Liberal official to state that funds from the sponsorship program were illicitly funnelled back to the senior members of the party. The declaration corroborates explosive testimony from Jean Brault, president of Groupaction, that he gave money to Mr. Corbeil for the Liberal Party and is certain to rock the Martin government.
Benoit Corbeil, seen during an interview in Montreal on Wednesday, says he funnelled cash to Liberal campaign workers. (Armand Trottier/ La Presse)
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“I took the bills [from Mr. Brault] and with that, I paid people, without declaring it [to Elections Canada],” Mr. Corbeil said, refusing to state exactly how much money he received that day.
“I have to admit it, that's the way it happened,” he said.
Mr. Corbeil was giving a preview of his coming testimony at the Gomery inquiry.
In the wake of Mr. Brault's testimony, Prime Minister Paul Martin vowed that wrongdoers would face consequences, and Jean Lapierre, Mr. Martin's current Quebec lieutenant, said it was the work of an unelected “parallel group” of rogue Liberals.
Mr. Corbeil said most of the recipients of cash payments were Liberal supporters who took unpaid leaves from their positions in ministerial offices to work on the general election.
“I liked to call them fake volunteers,” he said.
He is scheduled to testify in early May, at which point he wants to highlight the level of control that was exercised upon him at the time by the Prime Minister's Office of Jean Chrétien and the Liberal hierarchy in Quebec.
Mr. Corbeil confirmed that Groupaction issued cheques to five Liberal “volunteers” in 2000 through a company owned by one of Groupaction's employees in Quebec City, Commando Marketing.
He said the total contribution by Groupaction of almost $100,000 came after he made an urgent plea for money to an unnamed senior official in Ottawa.
Mr. Corbeil said he then told many of his superiors about the transactions, which he said were approved.
“I informed members of the electoral commission,” Mr. Corbeil said of the Liberal organization in charge of daily operations during elections.
Mr. Corbeil refused to provide names, either of those who got money or those who approved the practice, adding he is willing to do so under oath at the Gomery inquiry.
“Many of them came and told me they wanted to get paid right away,” he said.
Mr. Corbeil said the people who received the cash payments were part of a larger group of party supporters who worked at the Liberal Party's headquarters in Montreal during the election campaign. He said most of that larger group were lawyers, engineers or accountants from major firms, which he said hoped to reap federal contracts after the election.
“They don't want to get paid right away, they want to get paid later,” he said, noting that many of the lawyers have since been named to the bench.
Mr. Corbeil said that in that context, the Liberals did not fully reveal the full cost associated with their campaign as required under Canadian law.
“We accounted for the provision of goods, but we didn't account for the majority of the services,” he said.
Mr. Corbeil said the problems originated in the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty, in which the federalist camp exceeded the spending limit through a major demonstration in Montreal dubbed the “love-in.”
Mr. Corbeil said the viewpoint at the time was that this was a “war” against Quebec separatists, and that all means should be employed to ensure victory.
He said that after the referendum, two goals were approved by the highest authorities in the Liberal Party: Annihilate the Conservative Party in Quebec to unite all of the federalists in Quebec under the Liberal banner, and ensure that the Liberal Party became synonymous with Canada in the province of Quebec.
That, he said, led to the creation of the sponsorship program under which flags and banners were placed at events all over Quebec, and the establishment of ministerial tours under which federal ministers regularly travelled across the province.
Mr. Corbeil said the strategy was developed by the PMO and the Liberal establishment in Quebec, and that Mr. Corbeil's group only provided the foot soldiers.
Mr. Corbeil said that as the director-general of the party in Quebec, his biggest challenge was raising funds.
He said the Quebec wing of the party was in a constant rivalry with the national organization, which got the first crack at the biggest donors in Quebec.
He said the Quebec wing always wound up with the crumbs, and that it could never find a permanent solution to its funding woes.
“Maybe if more people had listened to us and paid more attention, maybe we could have avoided some problems down the road,” he said.
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