Angry in the Great White North
Donald Black: Personal friend but not a political friend?
Thursday, January 05, 2006 at 08:20 AM

Read other posts by Steve Janke published by the National Post
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Donald Black has been caught up in the Income Trust Scandal. He has had close ties with Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale. Goodale, of course, is at the center of the controversy involving the RCMP investigation into the possibility that there was a leak of sensitive information concerning the taxation of income trust funds to select traders before the public announcement.

Donald Black was present at a meeting with Goodale as a director of the Investment Dealers Association. Goodale met with the IDA the morning before the announcement. That afternoon, there was a huge spike in trading in income trusts by certain traders. After the markets closed, Goodale announced that income trusts would not be taxed. The next day, income trust unit values soared, making a tidy profit for those traders who bought the afternoon before.

Donald Black is a fund manager, and his funds include major holding in income trust funds.

Donald Black is a close personal friend of Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale.

Donald Black insists, however, that he is not a political friend of Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale:

Conservative finance critic Monte Solberg described Black as a Liberal insider, so "I don't think he's the right guy to be defending Ralph Goodale on this."

Black had said he was a personal friend of Goodale's, but not a political one.

Really?

On the CBC report on this story last night by Margo McDiarmid, at the 14:49 mark, Margo reveals the following:

[14:49] He [Donald Black] is Goodale's close friend, contributing a quarter of a million dollars to his '93 campaign.

By my accounting, anyone who donates a quarter of a million to the campaign of an MP is a political friend.

Remember that from 1988 to 1993, Ralph Goodale was working at Pioneer Life in a senior position given to him by Donald Black.

Ralph Goodale was elected with the help of that quarter million dollar donation, and was made Minister of Agriculture by Jean Chretien.

In 1995, less than two years after that generous donation, Goodale appointed Donald Black as head of the Farm Credit Corporation, ignoring charges of patronage from the opposition.

I just don't buy the idea that Donald Black is just a personal friend and not a Liberal insider.

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