Talk:Gomery Commission

The True Powers of the Gomery Commission

This is a preventative strike here; there has been a serious misrepresentation of what the Gomery Commission can do. The media and the Liberals have been saying time and time again; “Let Gomery get to the bottom of things”. The impression they have given, one that alas the majority of Canadians have bought into, is that Gomery has the power to name names, to identify who was responsible for the sponsorship fraud. In fact, Gomery has no such power. Gomery’s mandate is not to identify who was responsible for the fraud; his only mandate is to identify if there were any “problems” with the sponsorship program, and if there were, to suggest recommendations to ensure that none of these problems emerge again, all without naming names. Even Scott Brison has admitted “Gomery is on a fact-finding mission” and nothing more. Unfortunately, Mr. Brison and the rest of Liberals have usually not been this honest, giving Canadians the distinct impression that Gomery is on something more then a fact-finding mission.

Gomery can say that there were “problems” with the sponsorship program; what has mandate prevents him from doing to naming who was responsible for these “problems”. However, because the majority of Canadians believe that Gomery has the power to name names, when he issues his report and does not name names, the Paul Martin and the rest of the Liberals will no doubt try to spin it that this proves that they had no involvement with the sponsorship fraud, that this entire multi-million fraud was all the work of a rogue bureaucrats and advertising agencies heads, that the Liberals were the hapless and unknowing victims of this colossal fraud committed by a few middle-ranking civil servants. And no doubt, some Liberal supporter or someone has bought into the spin, will try to say here that the Gomery Commission has “cleared” the Liberals of any involvement of the sponsorship scandal since it didn’t name names. For the reasons I have just explained here, such an interpretation is total nonsense. If Gomery had the power to name names, and he didn’t name any senior Liberal as being involved, then I might say that the view that Gomery has “cleared” the Liberals might have something to it. But as it is, Gomery doesn’t have the power to name names; so when he issues his report and does not name names; please remember this is not because Gomery didn’t find any evidence that the Liberals were involved, but only because Section IV, clause I of the Inquiries Act prevents him from saying so. A.S. Brown 05:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


 * So ... why, then, is the first report titled, "Who is Responsible"? --142.242.2.248 19:46, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * just a clarification: Gomery can assign blame, but he cannot offer any "conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization". In other words, he can assign blame, as it would be difficult to uncover what occured without naming individuals involved, but he cannot say that these individuals should be charged or punished or recommend any punitive action against them.

Some questions about the First Report section
The statement: "such abuses would not have been possible had Chrétien set the program up in the first place", doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. Could someone review it?

Also, the assertion that the government seems unlikely to fall before the final report is tabled seems POV. Anything could happen in a minority government, the likelihood of anything happening ir not is a matter of opinion. Feets 21:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * That statement about abuses is a bad statement. I wrote it and I can barely tell what I mean. I'll review it straight away. And I would argue that, as a) the opposition basically has to topple the government this week in order to avoid a Christmas election, b) nobody wants a Christmas election right now, c) the New Democrats seem likely to prop the government up anyway if the government implements some of their policy, d) by the time the House can convene after Christmas, it'll be close enough to the final report that they may as well wait for the thing, it's quite likely that the government will survive until Gomery gets his final report out. Lord Bob 21:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Someone fixed the statement for me. Problem solved. :) Lord Bob 21:34, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Groovy. You're probably right about the election business, too.  I struck my previous concerns. Feets 22:00, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Adding a new link for "Gomery Report"
It took me quite a few click to find "the Gomery Report." I'm not too familiar how to do so, but perhaps we could add a link so it would be easy to find, in the search engine for wiki, "Gomery Report." Perhaps making a new page called Gomery Report and then redirecting to the article in this page? --CyclePat 17:17, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I took the honour of adding a new page called "gomery report" and redirecting it to here.--CyclePat 17:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

The Mandate section
The information under the Mandate heading seems to be false, or misleading, considering the scope of Gomery's first report .. --142.242.2.248 23:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it was a mistaken assumption by the National Post that the contributer put in. I have replaced it with a more general comment on the mandate.  I did leave the previous submission as a comment as it my be worth trying to fix it and reintegrate it back in.  -- Webgeer 21:07, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

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