Scandal's $8-million man can't remember

By TU THANH HA
Friday, April 15, 2005 Updated at 2:00 AM EST
From Friday's Globe and Mail


Montreal — Having made $8-million from the sponsorship program, a key figure in the scandal said yesterday that the effects of age, medication and anesthesia from a recent operation mean he can no longer remember pivotal events in the controversy.
In his long-awaited testimony at the Gomery inquiry, Jacques Corriveau, 72, also tried to play down his friendship with Jean Chrétien, prime minister at the time of the sponsorship program, despite being shown phone logs listing dozens of calls between the two.
He said he could not document past meetings because he throws away his agenda book every month.
“Because of the medications I am taking I have trouble focusing and remembering,” he told the inquiry.
Inquiry counsel Bernard Roy asked why Mr. Corriveau's recollections “seemed sharper” when he reminisced about his career and trips to Italy in the 1960s. “I was curious why your memory fails you on more recent events.”
“I can explain,” Mr. Corriveau replied.
“I know a person very close to me who suffers from Alzheimer's and I am conscious of that problem. I am 72, I had an important operation, four hours and a half of anesthesia. It can have an impact. In my entourage people realize that problem.”
A reporter who later buttonholed him in a hallway asked Mr. Corriveau whether he had Alzheimer's. “No,” he said.
Documents filed at the inquiry show that his graphics company, Pluri Design Canada Inc., made $8-million in subcontracts from six firms for sponsorship-related work.
Revenues linked to federal contracts totalled 79 per cent of his earnings between 1996 and 2003. In addition, he earned another $1.1-million in contracts from the Liberal Party of Canada.
Mr. Corriveau conceded he did better with the Liberals in office during the 1990s than under the 1980s Conservative governments.
“When good fortune smiles on you, you don't turn it away,” he said with a chuckle.
The sponsorship program was created to raise the federal profile in Quebec after the 1995 referendum by spending millions of dollars to place ads at sporting and cultural events.
Mr. Corriveau, who has been active in the Liberal Party for 40 years, has been portrayed in previous testimony as a central power broker in the program.
However, Mr. Corriveau said yesterday that he is not a close friend of Mr. Chrétien. “A close friend, you see him 10 to 15 times a year, not twice,” he said. Still, he said he felt “respect, loyalty and solidarity” for Mr. Chrétien, whom he has known since 1976.
He confirmed that he stayed at the prime minister's home at 24 Sussex Dr., but said it happened just once.
Phone logs at the prime minister's switchboard showed numerous calls between Mr. Corriveau and Mr. Chrétien from 1996 to 2003.
Mr. Corriveau said some of those calls were made because his firm employed one of Mr. Chrétien's sons, Michel. But Mr. Roy pointed out that Michel Chrétien worked at Pluri Design before the Liberals took office.
Also, a 1998 government document filed at the inquiry and marked “Secret” shows that bureaucrats in the Canada Information Bureau set up an advisory group to help Ottawa find ways to appeal to Quebeckers. Mr. Corriveau is listed on the document as an “informal adviser” to Mr. Chrétien.
Mr. Corriveau said the document is wrong.
A proud, quick-witted man, Mr. Corriveau described himself as a cosmopolitan art-lover who likes classical music, admires the Bauhaus architecture school and has worked in New York, Italy and Iran.
“Culture is my reason for existing,” he said.
Last week, ad executive Jean Brault said in sensational testimony that Mr. Corriveau was one of a trio of Liberal organizers who repeatedly hit him up for political donations.
Mr. Corriveau said he knew Mr. Brault, but only wanted his philanthropic patronage for Champ Libre, an electronic arts group that sponsors lyrical creations.
Asked what he discussed at another meeting attended by Chuck Guité, the civil servant who ran the sponsorship program, he said he had no information.
“Very good question. I am not able to answer,” Mr. Corriveau said, adding it might have been to seek funds for arts projects.
“Mr. Guité? He's a man interested in cultural matters?” the inquiry's commissioner, Mr. Justice John Gomery, asked, alluding to the bureaucrat's rough-hewn persona. “Maybe I misjudged him.”
Mr. Corriveau said he has had memory trouble ever since an operation in November. Mr. Corriveau was not asked about the nature of his medication or the surgery.
He will be back in the witness box today.