The Montreal Gazette gives Hubert Bauch the front of its “Extra” section today to look at the case of my friend Globe and Mail reporter Daniel Leblanc.
Leblanc is not a sponsorship villain. More like a sponsorship hero. He's the reporter who broke the story of the $100-million boondoggle that ultimately brought down the federal government of the day.
It was a series of articles by Leblanc in The Globe and Mail nine years ago that first brought to public light the looting of a fund to promote Canadian allegiance in Quebec by a select group of local ad agencies which, in collusion with a corrupt senior bureaucrat, bilked the government for tens of millions of dollars, some of which was kicked back to the Quebec section of the governing federal Liberal Party.
The budget for the program, mounted in frantic haste after the 1995 referendum scare when the separatists almost won, was $250 million; it was later established that $100 million of it was simply ripped off by the clubby set of sponsorship culprits who were hired to do the job of promoting the country.
Leblanc was hailed for his sterling journalistic coup by no less than Justice John Gomery who headed the commission of inquiry into the affair. It was Leblanc's reports, the commission report acknowledges, that “made the problems affecting the program a matter of public discussion.” Yet despite this signal public service, Leblanc is due to be dragged into court for a hearing that could land him in jail, as was the case with so-far convicted sponsorship felons Jean Lafleur, Jean Brault, Paul Coffin and Charles Guité. Criminal charges are also pending against adman Gilles-André Gosselin and Benôit Corbeil, a former director-general of the federal Liberal Party's Quebec wing.
But unlike the rest, who stood before the courts in shame, Leblanc will be standing on principle at his hearing scheduled for next month. He will be asked to name, or at least provide vital clues to the identity of the source who put him on the scandal's track, one he promised to keep confidential.
And he plans to keep that promise.
Its time you Liberal reporters realize you can't protect your friends forever. You don't have immunity. You are not Gods. Give the Judge the names or go to prison. Since when did we decide that “reporters” have the right to break the laws?
bobo17 est complètement dans le champ. Si les journalistes sont obligés de dévoiler leurs sources, ce sont les criminels qui vont applaudir. Je ne peux pas croire que quelqu'un ne comprenne pas ce fait aussi élémentaire.