Recall that Frank Brazeau, the bureaucrat at Public Works and Government Services Canada, suspended over the Abotech affair, has had his entry in the Government Electronic Directory expunged.

The Abotech affair involves questionable contracts handed to a company once run by David Smith, Liberal MP representing the riding of Pontiac. David Smith's wife now runs the company, which is run out of the family home. Frank Brazeau is David Smith's cousin. Something was discovered, but not revealed yet, during an audit that caused Frank Brazeau to be suspended without pay and Abotech to lose contracts.

Curiously, at the same time that Frank Brazeau's name disappeared from the directory, a co-worker and presumably his supervisor, Marc Carriere, assistant director in the same office, also disappeared from the listing. I speculated whether the two were linked.

On a hunch, I called who I assumed was Carriere's boss, Bill McCann, Director General at Consulting and Audit Canada. McCann remains in the directory, but the outgoing message on his voice mail states that he would be out of the office from October 20 to November 4, returning November 7.

The outgoing message was recorded by a woman, clearly not McCann.

It is now November 13, six days past his return date.

If he has a secretary recording his outgoing voicemail messages, then I would assume she would record a new outgoing message on his return as part of her regular duties.

Why has a new outgoing message not been recorded? Did something happen while he was away that made adjusting the outgoing message a moot point? I'll follow up on Monday to see if McCann is actually in the office.

Technorati Tags: David Smith, Frank Brazeau, Abotech, Liberal Party, Bill McCann, Marc Carriere, PWGSC

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