Angry in the Great White North

I'm going to assume the Paul Martin did not tell Brison. He'd have no reason to.

But there is another major Liberal Party figure who has already been identified as likely to have known about the taxation decision, and that is David Herle. I'm certainly not the first to say so. In fact, the Conservative Party itself made that connection in January 2006:

PMO spokesman Scott Reid says it is “ludicrous” to suggest that any member of the Liberal campaign team knew about the income-trust decision – presumably including campaign co-chair David Herle.

Facts:

• The Department of Finance hired Gandalf Group (formerly Veraxis Research and Communication) to provide “Communications Professional Services” from September 6 through November 30 (contract reference number 6006504).
• The contract coincides with the income trust consultation and decision-making period, which ran from September 8 – November 23.
• David Herle is Principal Partner of Gandalf /Veraxis.
• Herle is also co-chair of the Liberal campaign.
• The income trust file has huge significance to the government – as evidenced by the way they rushed out their announcement on the evening of an election.

Q1: Does Mr. Reid expect us to believe that Gandalf/Veraxis had nothing to do with the department’s hottest file?

Q2: If the firm had no involvement, then what precisely was Gandalf /Veraxis paid to do for Ralph Goodale’s department between September and November?

Q3: Did Mr. Herle have the income trust decision prior to it being announced on November 23, 2005?

Recall too that David Herle is a close friend of Ralph Goodale's, and was Goodale's driver during the Saskatchewan campaign:

Then began the hard years, driving from town to town searching to rebuild what once had been a power in the province.

David Herle, a friend and Liberal worker who shared the driving in those days and now is Martin's campaign manager, remembers the Prairie odyssey:

"He [Goodale] chose to spend his time basically singlehandedly holding the Liberal party together in Saskatchewan."

People speak of making sacrifices in politics, Herle says. "He's a guy that did."

So David Herle, close friend of the finance minister and Paul Martin's chief supporter and chair of the national re-election campaign committee, is certainly near the top of my list of people who would have known about the taxation decision.

Indeed, if the Conservative researchers are right, Herle was hired by Goodale to research the issue of taxation trusts and so was deeply involved in the decision-making process itself.

But what of Scott Brison?

I found this interesting tidbit from Warren Kinsella's blog for April 2005:

April 28, 2005 - There's a story in today's Post (no link, sorry) about a 1995 memo detailing contract links between a certain federal government department and a certain lobby/PR firm. In the story, there is this paragraph:

...

"If taken at face value, Mr. Kinsella's note alleges a widespread conspiracy across many government departments and involving many individuals," said a statement issued by both Mr. Herle and the office of Scott Brison, the current Public Works Minister.

...

Along with being astonishingly bad PR - it repeats the allegation being made - what a few of us found exceedingly interesting is not some dusty ten-year-old memo, quite frankly. What was interesting was that a consultant and a federal cabinet minister - the minister allegedly responsible for cleaning up contracting! - issuing a joint statement to the press. That says more than an old memo ever could, don't you think? My, my, Ottawa is so cozy, these days!

In an unrelated development, I have heard that Michael Jackson and Santa Barbara County District Attorney Thomas Sneddon are about to appear in a joint televised press conference, detailing how they plan to clean up the criminal justice system!

According to this, Herle and Brison were closely connected, and have been for some time. A cynic would think that the relationship developed in order to protect access for firms like Herle's Earnscliffe Group while Brison's public works ministry went through the motions of cleaning up government contracting procedures. As Kinsella points out, cleaning up the process should have resulted in an arm's length relationship, not joint memos.

So we have a triumverate of closely linked Liberal Party personages -- Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, Earnscliffe partner and Liberal advisor David Herle, and Public Works Minister Scott Brison.

Goodale hires Herle to research the income trust issue. Contracts are managed via Public Works (in general) meaning Scott Brison is involved (and in any case, we know that Brison and Herle are tight inasmuch as contracts are concerned). Goodale makes a decision about trusts. Herle knows, either because he was told by Goodale, or by Paul Martin, or came to the conclusion based on the information he gave Goodale. For some reason, Herle lets Brison know. And then, for yet another reason that is not clear, Brison sends an email to someone at the CIBC spilling the beans.

It's just a theory.