Insider Denounces Gagliano
EXCLUSIVE: Appalled by what he saw at Public Works Canada, a respected
corporate veteran steps forward to accuse the embattled minister
of meddling
and patronage
By DANIEL LEBLANC
Wednesday, January 9, 2002 Page A1
OTTAWA -- Public Works Minister
Alfonso Gagliano and members of his staff repeatedly tried to
obtain jobs
for friends and sway the commercial dealings of Canada Lands Co.,
the
former chairman of the agency has told The Globe and Mail.
Jon Grant, a veteran of private-sector boardrooms and the current
chairman of Laurentian Bank of Canada, said he was appalled by
the
political interference he witnessed during his six years at the
Crown
corporation.
While allegations of patronage have been swirling around Mr. Gagliano
for
years, Mr. Grant is the first person from the inside to denounce
publicly the
practices at Public Works.
Mr. Grant, 66, said he felt compelled to speak out after reading
comments
by Mr. Gagliano in an interview with The Globe last month. In
it, Mr.
Gagliano asserted that he did not play any role in the 1999 hiring
by
Canada Lands of one of his friends and organizers, Tony Mignacca.
But Mr. Grant said he was asked directly to make the hiring by
Mr.
Gagliano, the minister responsible for Crown corporations.
"The minister asked me to hire him," Mr. Grant insisted.
"He said [Mr.
Mignacca] was out of a job."
Mr. Mignacca's contract with Canada Lands was terminated early
and he
has since found work in Mr. Gagliano's riding office.
In addition, Mr. Grant said Mr. Gagliano's chief of staff, Jean-Marc
Bard,
asked to be directly involved in Canada Lands deals in Quebec.
Mr.
Gagliano is the government's regional minister and the Liberal
Party's top
organizer in the province.
"As Jean-Marc [Bard] said to me very clearly, 'The rest of
Canada is
yours, Quebec is ours,' " Mr. Grant recalled.
Mr. Bard and Mr. Gagliano's communications director did not return
telephone calls yesterday.
Mr. Grant also said he had to fight attempts by officials in Mr.
Gagliano's
office to improperly influence commercial dealings of Canada Lands,
which was created to sell off excess federal property.
"I didn't let them happen," he said. "I resisted
all that, so I wasn't very
popular."
Mr. Gagliano's organization seemed to be run like ministerial
offices in
Russia or Ukraine, said Mr. Grant, who did business in those places
when
he headed Quaker Oats Co. of Canada Ltd.
He said Mr. Gagliano has surrounded himself with "political
operatives"
and "hangers-on" who directly call civil servants to
try to shape their
decisions.
"I didn't expect to see this in a democratic society,"
Mr. Grant said.
He retired after his second three-year term as chairman of the
board of
Canada Lands in November of 2001. The position had been offered
to
him by the Liberal government when it created the agency in 1995.
Mr. Gagliano, a long-time loyalist of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien,
has
been on the hot seat over contracts awarded by his department
to Liberal
supporters.
Mr. Gagliano has always denied wrongdoing or interference. He
has
insisted that he never got involved in the internal affairs of
Crown
corporations, which are supposed to operate at arm's length from
the
government.
"I don't give contracts to my friends," Mr. Gagliano
said last month.
Speaking in the House two months ago, Mr. Gagliano said, "Crown
corporations manage their own affairs and ministers do not get
involved in
giving contracts."
Regarding his friend Mr. Mignacca, Mr. Gagliano told The Globe
that
Canada Lands hired him because "they thought that maybe they
could get
closer to the minister."
Mr. Grant called that ludicrous.
"It is an insult to Canada Lands, its board and staff that
Minister Gagliano,
in a recent interview, accused the company of hiring one of his
friends to
buy access to the minister," Mr. Grant said.
Mr. Grant praised the work of the Crown corporation, which returned
hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to the government during
his
tenure.
"Minister Gagliano and his political staff shouldn't go after
Canada Lands
-- it's not a good move," he said.
Mr. Grant added that Canada Lands was asked by Mr. Gagliano's
office
to hire Michèle Tremblay, another one of Mr. Gagliano's
friends and
supporters, for $5,000 a month to write speeches and provide access
to
the minister.
Mr. Grant said he wasn't happy with that deal.
"We took her on for a while, we got nothing in return, and
so I let her go,"
he said.
Mr. Grant said that he never had any problems in his dealings
with other
regional ministers such as David Collenette and David Anderson.
Mr. Grant said he raised his concerns with the government's
ethics
counsellor, Howard Wilson, but that Mr. Wilson told him not to
worry
about overeager staffers.
In an interview yesterday, Mr. Wilson said his office looked into
a
complaint of "undue influence from the minister's office"
involving Canada
Lands last year. Mr. Wilson said he concluded there was nothing
to it after
discussions with staff in Mr. Gagliano's riding office and Mr.
Gagliano's
chief of staff, Mr. Bard.
"It was based on a misunderstanding," Mr. Wilson said.
Mr. Grant said that political interference brought down morale
at Canada
Lands.
"We didn't get any support but we got a lot of criticism,
which is not really
helpful when you're trying to run a business," he said.
Reprinted from Toronto
Globe and Mail