Using Access to Information laws, I recently received a “House Card” for Public Works Minister Michael Fortier on the topic of the monies the governnment was seeking to recover in connection with the sponsorship scandal.
“House Cards” are prepared every day for Ministers on a variety of topics. Ministers use these to answer questions put to them during Question Period in the House of Commons — that’s why they’re called “House Cards”. They’re also relied on by Ministers for the “lines” that ministers ought to use if asked about a given topic by a reporter.
The House Card for “Recovering Funds” was prepared for Minister Fortier on May 18, 2006. As of that date, the federal government had launched civil lawsuits against 28 individuals or organizations in order to recover $57–million. As of May 18, $2.7–million had been recovered — including more than $1–million from the Liberal Party of Canada and more than $1–million from Paul Coffin and one of his businesses.
Feel free to download the three-page “House Card” on this matter yourself [this is 2 MB PDF file for which you’ll need a special viewer such as Adobe’s Acrobat Reader]. In addition to the “suggested response” the Minister might make to any question, it also contains a chronology of events related to the recovery of funds process and then lists all 28 defendants; the date each lawsuit was filed and the lawsuit’s status as of May 18.