That lo, my mind doth melt away...

The Gomery Inquiry is more fun than a barrel full of monkeys. Longtime Liberal party organizer and head of Pluri Design Jacques Corriveau denied that paying the salaries of 3 Liberal workers was a plot to divert sponsorship money to the party. The 3 were with Pluri Design when the firm raked in $2.3 million in subcontracts between 1998 and 2000. Inquiry lawyer Bernard Roy asked,
"So you returned a part of your profits that you obtained from certain clients to the Liberal party."

To which Corriveau replied,
"Completely false. That doesn't correspond with reality."

Of course he may be telling the truth - I'm certainly in no position to be able to dispute anything he has said. But I can certainly question some of those things. For instance, he described Liberal party organizer Giuseppe Morselli as a friend. Back in April he told the Inquiry that he didn't know Morselli very well. Corriveau explained,
"To correct my testimony, I very much agree that I knew him and he was a friend."

Justice Gomery then asked,
"Why is it necessary to correct your testimony? Weren't your previous answers an attempt to mislead us?"

Evidently he was at a loss to elaborate on the contradiction. I'm well aware that over time our memories are not as reliable as we would like them to be. But how do you not remember if someone is a friend or not? It's things like this that cast a shadow of doubt on his testimony.

On top of that he already admitted that he placed the 3 aforementioned Liberal staffers on the payroll at the request of Michel Beliveau, the former head of the party's Quebec wing. Does this mean it was an elaborate scam to divert funds to the party? No. But it sure seems fishy in light of everything else.

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