Ottawa to sue sponsorship ad agencies: report

CTV.ca News Staff
January 13, 2005 1:54 PM ET

The federal government is ready to sue three Quebec advertising firms. According to a report in Montreal's La Presse, Ottawa is looking to reclaim $10 million in lost sponsorship funding.

Citing anonymous sources, the report in La Presse Thursday didn't name the agencies or suggest a timeline for the court action.

Quebec Justice John Gomery is currently leading an inquiry launched in the wake of Auditor General Sheila Fraser's damning report on the sponsorship program designed to promote national unity after the 1995 referendum.

Over five years, the program spent a total of approximately $250 million. But in her 2004 report, Fraser said Ottawa paid $100 million to Liberal-friendly advertising agencies and other middlemen through the program, but had little to show for it.

So far, the bureaucrat who ran the file, Chuck Guite, and three ad executives face criminal charges in connection with the program.

After he took office, Prime Minister Paul Martin promptly cancelled the program, but he's been unable to shake the attendant political baggage.

Martin, former prime minister Jean Chretien, and the minister responsible for the program during much of its troubled tenure, Alfonso Gagliano, are expected to appear before Gomery's inquiry in the coming weeks.