Martin aide linked to scandal - Canada.com

[Screaming Lord Byron]

http://www.canada.com/national/features/undersiege/story.html?id=3FB8F748-E6AC-41C9-9805-D42DFD40B93C
Lague denies any knowledge of impropriety

Prime Minister Paul Martin's communications director was the senior public servant in charge of the government's communications strategies during most of the sponsorship and advertising scandal, but he denied any knowledge that "people were actually stealing money."

Mario Lague admitted Tuesday he was questioned by investigators from the auditor general's office over poor record-keeping at the Privy Council Office from 1998-2003 where he was the assistant secretary to cabinet's communications committee, headed by former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

He also admitted having several meetings on the sponsorship program with Chuck Guite, the former public works official at the centre of the fiasco and one of several people blamed by Auditor General Sheila Fraser for bending the rules to select Quebec advertising firms in a covert fight against separatism.

While Guite talked to him in "general terms about the need (for Ottawa) to be visible" in Quebec, Lague stressed he had no idea of any wrongdoing in the program. Fraser found massive abuses in $100 million of sponsorship commissions "designed to put money into" Liberal-friendly advertising firms, including double-billing, false invoices and payments for fictional work.