OTTAWA—The Liberal whose name appeared on a mural at a Quebec college after he tapped the government's sponsorship fund for $5,000 said yesterday it was all a misunderstanding.
In a report last week, Auditor-General Sheila Fraser cited the incident as an example of improper use of Ottawa's $250 million sponsorship program but didn't name the MP. He was identified in media reports yesterday as Claude Drouin from the Quebec riding of Beauce.
"I never saw the cheque," a shaken Drouin told the Star.
But Mr. Garneau [Charles Garneau, principal of the Beauce-Appalaches community college in Ville Saint-Georges, Que.] said that Mr. Drouin is blameless in the whole affair, and it was the college's decision to put the MP's name on the mural, following the same protocol it uses when receiving donations through provincial members of national assembly.
"He didn't know about the mural," said Mr. Garneau. "The idea of the mural came after the end of the fundraising campaign."
Mr. Drouin, reached in his southern Quebec riding yesterday, said he never intended to benefit personally from the donation, and did not even know his name was on the mural until he was contacted by journalists on Thursday. "I didn't do this for my own visibility, but for the foundation," he said. "It was a good cause, a foundation to help youth." He said he has asked the college to remove his name from the mural. It is being replaced by the phrase "gouvernement federal."
They assume they need about 30 cents of every dollar in their economy to come as a net federal transfer from the economies of Ontario and Alberta.
[. . . . ] The economist Fred McMahon, formerly of Halifax, wrote about this problem in the November edition of Fraser Forum.
Canada, he says, transfers more regional equalization funds than any other country in the world. As a direct result, other countries or regions that were stagnant a generation ago (i.e. Ireland, the Dixie cotton states, Taiwan) have adapted and are now prosperous in their own right while Atlantic Canada is still hooked on political hand-outs that Ottawa transfers from Alberta.
