JEAN CHRÉTIEN LAWYER

JEAN CHRÉTIEN LAWYER, PRIME MINISTER, THE REST OF THE STORY....

At first I thought the Right Honorable Jean Chrétien was going to just fade away, keeping his mouth shut and hoping that eventually the Liberal Sponsorship scandal with all those millions of ripped off taxpayers dollars would fade away with him. As the Elder Statesman, people could indulge in his often humorous nature and watch him play the self professed little man from Shawwinagan who made good. He would not comment on politics only offering his sage advice to any who might wish to ask but never in public. Or so he said. Let sleeping dogs lay is how I think it goes. Let him write a book and tell his side of the story for Historians to ponder.
But oh no, Mr. Chrétien decided to blast our Prime Minister for not showing up in China. He made headlines in China doing it. My ex-Auditors red flag went up. Why would he do this? In Auditing you usually can find out what is really going on if you simply follow the money. So one might ask -is there any money flowing to Mr. Chrétien, his family or friends from his connections to China and is he trying to protect that flow? This is a serious question to ask. At this stage it is merely a question.

There is some history between Mr. Chrétien and China both while he was Prime Minister and after. So again the obvious question becomes is Mr. Chrétien engaged in activity in the best interests of himself or the best interests of Canada? And he is a member of the Liberal Party. Is he speaking on behalf of the Liberal Party?

Yesterday, the Corporate Secretary blasted Mr. Chrétien for attacking our Prime Minister when he himself had a personal history of financial gain from China and clearly would continue to gain if that connection was healthy. Today MP Jason Kenny, certainly no slouch, launched a counter attack on Mr. Chrétien mentioning specific financial details between China and Mr. Chrétien showing his financial gains from that source. The cat is now out of the bag. So to speak.

We suggest you also check out our page on CHINA which includes very useful information and links to better understand this emerging story. You would be well served to also read the Corporate Secretary's book YOUR VERY FIRST BILLION where she describes certain techniques China uses.

That there is a story here -is not up for argument. There most certainly is. What will be interesting is to watch how Canada's left leaning media treats it. Are they going to place it on page 8 or are they going to dig and get the story? If in fact the story does have legs then it will be game over for the Liberals in the next election or two to come. They may wish to call a snap election to divert public opinion from this story. Its almost unbelievable that a Canadian Prime Minister would place his personal financial interests over the interests and welfare of the country and I sincerely hope that research will discover this is not the case with Mr. Chretien. In fact he may be completely innocent. Its just that it looks bad and now that its become a political issue things will just get messier..

Canadians are hard working, over taxed, honest people and we expect the same in our Prime Ministers. We don't expect them to be using their positions and connections for personal gain. Our present Prime Minister is probably the best PM we have had in decades and may very well become the greatest PM ever. Time and history will measure that.

Is there bullshit here? The detector went off when Mr. Chrétien began complaining about the Harper absence at the Olympics. I smell a rat -as they say. Time will tell.

(Who knew!)

A last thought on Mr. Chrétien. He is a very charismatic and likeable guy with a long and very distinguished public service career. Nobody is perfect and one needs to look at the big picture here. He has the right to express his opinions just like the rest of us. And unlike the rest of us reporters constantly ask him for his opinions! Should he have commented on PM Harper's decision not to attend the Olympics? Maybe it was important enough that he should have. Maybe not. He obviously knows more about China than most of the other people in Canada do. My point is that once the money flag goes up and people are benefiting financially from maintaining a relationship that they subsequently comment on -its time to take a closer look. Personally I would prefer to see Mr. Chrétien as a valuable resource for serving PMs -somebody you could call when something tricky came up and you wanted to bounce some ideas off before taking action.