David Smith appears on the delegate list for Stephane Dion.
That David Smith is a delegate is not a surprise. He is an ex officio delegate, meaning it is automatic, in his case, by virtue have having been a candidate in the 2006 election. Still I can't help but wonder if having David Smith as a delegate is a good idea for a party so desperately trying to present itself as having cleaned itself up of the scandals of the past.
I also found this recent article (dated March 5, 2006) in the Montreal Gazette about just how serious the Abotech mess was:
The Paul Martin government, bracing last fall for Justice John Gomery's scathing sponsorship scandal report and a possible snap election, played down opposition questions suggesting the emergence of another potentially explosive federal ethics controversy.
The questions related to media coverage of an obscure government employee named Frank Brazeau, suspended after contracting irregularities were uncovered by auditors for KPMG - an international accounting company - including contracts improperly let to the family company of Quebec Liberal MP David Smith.
Smith has been exonerated by the House of Commons ethics commissioner of any conflict of interest.
Smith, who had known Brazeau since childhood and developed both a professional and political relationship with him in adulthood, was elected in 2004 and was defeated in January.
In fact, they were cousins. Smith's mother and Brazeau's grandmother were sisters.
Former Liberal Public Works minister Scott Brison insisted the internal KPMG probe was "not an audit" but, in fact, part of an "ongoing ... review" to improve accountability and competition in government operations.
"It is important to note that ... value was received for tax dollars," Brison assured B.C. MP James Moore in October, adding Brazeau had been disciplined.
But a series of documents, requested by the Vancouver Sun on Oct. 3 and provided a week after the January federal election, paint a far more dramatic picture about how seriously Ottawa was taking the emerging scandal.
Scott Brison never adequately explained what was going on at Public Works.
The documents, and subsequent interviews, show the issues linked to Brazeau triggered two police investigations since 2004, $655,000 worth of forensic reviews by KPMG Canada, and a number of disciplinary actions against federal bureaucrats -including three firings.
Public Works also cancelled two government contracts handled by Smith's family company and dismantled a federal agency under Public Works called Consulting and Audit Canada (CAC).
The first two KPMG reviews looked at 89 Brazeau-managed contracts valued at $15 million from March 2001 to March 31, 2005.
KPMG uncovered "systemic" and "egregious" rule-breaking as well as a "conflict of interest" at Brazeau's unit at CAC, the documents show.
There was "evidence of manipulation of procurement process, including apparent manipulation of evaluations," as well as "evidence that in three cases contractors were directed to submit false or misleading invoices," according to one summary of the KPMG reports looking into contracts managed by Brazeau, a "principal consultant" at CAC.
A million bucks of manipulated contracts benefited Smith, who admitted that his firm did nothing much of value:
KPMG, meanwhile, was hired by Public Works after deputy minister David Marshall learned in mid-2004 of the Ottawa police probe into the CAC-linked pension plan problems.
Among the contracts looked at by KPMG were 15 - valued at a total of $1 million - that went to the family company of Liberal MP Smith.
Public Works wasn't aware until the KPMG probes that Brazeau and Smith are cousins who grew up together in the same small Outaouais town of Maniwaki, and that Brazeau was secretary of Smith's Liberal riding association from December 2004 to August 2005, according to department spokesperson Pierre Teotonio.
Smith, who identifies himself as Metis because his great-grandmother is aboriginal, registered Abotech as an "aboriginal IT consultant firm" with Industry Canada in 2000.
Smith said he approached Brazeau in 2000 for advice on obtaining government contracts, just as he sought out other friends from Maniwaki working in other departments.
He said he never got preferential treatment because of his company's registration as an aboriginal firm - an assertion confirmed by Public Works.
Smith transferred ownership of his home-based company to his wife, Anne Ethier, a nurse, and their two teenage sons before becoming an MP.
Smith said last week his company was effectively a personnel agency that acted as a middleman, finding private contractors for CAC and taking a 5-per-cent cut of the value of the work received. "So Abotech did not do the work itself."
Now I wonder where Frank Brazeau is. Is he about to pop up? He and Smith never seem to be too far apart, especially when the Liberal Party is involved:
In addition to the past professional relationship between Mr. Brazeau and Mr. Smith, sources said that this past year Mr. Brazeau became the secretary of the Liberal association in Mr. Smith's riding of Pontiac, a rural area north of Gatineau, Que.
Association president Luc Martel confirmed in an interview that Mr. Brazeau was elected after the 2004 federal election, in which Mr. Smith first entered the House of Commons. Mr. Martel said the Liberal association is not very active and that Mr. Brazeau did not attend many of its meetings, and that Mr. Brazeau sent a letter of resignation last month. "We didn't meet very often, and when we did meet, he wasn't available," Mr. Martel said.
New Liberal Party, same as the old Liberal Party, at least if Stephane Dion wins.
