PM denies Power Corp. links affected decisions on Iraq
canada.com
Joe Paraskevas
CanWest News Service
Thursday, May 01, 2003
Canadian Alliance foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day yesterday questioned whether Jean Chrétien's family associations had any bearing on the government's decision to stay out of the recent war against Iraq.
"I do not fault the prime minister's ties with his nephew (Raymond) our ambassador to France," Mr. Day said in the Commons, "or with Paul Desmarais Sr., who is the largest
individual shareholder of France's largest corporation, TotalFinaElf, which has billions of dollars of contracts with Saddam's former regime."
Mr. Chrétien's only daughter, France, is married to André Desmarais, son of the controlling shareholder of Montreal-based Power Corp., one of Canada's largest companies.
"With this valuable source of experience and information at his fingertips," Mr. Day asked, to jeers from the government benches, "has the prime minister ever discussed Iraq or France with his friends or family in the Desmarais empire?"
"I never thought that this gentleman would go so low as to attack one of the best bureaucrats we have had in years in the Department of Foreign Affairs because he is my nephew," Mr. Chrétien replied.
"The question has already been posed and repeated a number of times in various publications," Mr. Day said, in the foyer of the House.
But Ted Johnson, vice-president and general counsel at Power Corp., said TotalFinaElf "has no interests in Iraq. Anybody who has even the barest understanding of business and public policy in Canada would recognize that the suggestion that (Mr. Day) makes ... is malicious and preposterous."
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