One of the questions surrounding the Abotech affair is how does Anne Ethier, David Smith's wife, run the business?

Apparently, it's not too hard:

Smith himself protested his innocence during a visit to Wakefield last week, arguing that regardless of the appearance of conflict of interest, he followed federal ethics guidelines when elected in June 2004. He also said he didn’t know why the two recent contracts were cancelled and added he and his wife never talk business at home, painting a picture of a business that takes care of itself.

“You’re a specialist in communication, and you’re looking for a specialist in communication. We do an RFP (request for proposal) and we place you. We accept you. We pick up five per cent commission on what you do as work. It’s not very hard. How much work is there to do in that? What management is there to do in that? Once a month we send a bill. How much time does it take to send a bill? My wife does that…and we didn’t solicit anything in new business after that,” he said.

So Abotech is a shell company that just helps connects contractors with the government, and takes a slice off the top, thus increasing the cost to you and me. As he said, "How much work is there to do in that?"

Now a question to answer is whether any of the contracts were aboriginal set-asides, and what exactly did KPMG find so offensive about this that contracts had to be terminated?

Remember that $200,000 in contracts were cancelled (part of the $1,000,000 or more in contracts that Abotech allegedly had with the federal government in the last 5 years). Does that mean that the contract between the government and the person doing the work was worth $200,000, and that Abotech picked up 5% of $200,000, or $10,000, in commission?

Or did the $200,000 represent the 5% commission, meaning that this work involved moving contracts worth upwards to $4,000,000?

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