Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Canadian Political Free-for-All -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen O who wrote (2993)	8/28/2003 9:03:30 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 37510

Notice to seize Auberge is filed By CAMPBELL CLARK From Thursday's Globe and Mail Ottawa — A credit union has threatened to foreclose on the Auberge Grand-Mère, jeopardizing a controversial government-agency loan that Jean Chrétien helped arrange for the inn in his riding. The Prime Minister personally lobbied for the Business Development Bank of Canada to lend $615,000 to the Auberge, owned by his friend Yvon Duhaime, even though officials at the bank judged the loan too risky. Now, another lender, the Caisse Populaire de Grand-Mère, has filed a legal notice threatening to have the inn auctioned off in 60 days unless Mr. Duhaime catches up on back payments. That means the BDC could suffer a loss as it tries to recoup its loan from the leftovers after other creditors take their money. It would also leave Mr. Chrétien, in his last months as Prime Minister, facing embarrassing questions about the taxpayers' loss on a loan deal he pushed for and would revive a controversy that dogged him for more than a year. Mr. Duhaime insisted yesterday that will not happen. The Auberge's owner said he will catch up on his mortgage payments and the caisse, which holds the first mortgage on the inn, will not foreclose. "It's the normal legal process," Mr. Duhaime said in a telephone interview. "We'll bring ourselves up to date with the caisse. "It will be settled." The notice of seizure, filed Tuesday in the registry office in Shawinigan, Que., claims that Mr. Duhaime's company, Les Entreprises Yvon Duhaime, has also failed to pay municipal and school board taxes, as required by the mortgage. And it states that on July 29, Mr. Duhaime was behind $28,474.93 in payments on his $589,658.59 mortgage debt. The BDC's loan to Mr. Duhaime became an issue during the 2000 election campaign when Mr. Chrétien acknowledged he had personally lobbied the BDC's then president, François Beaudoin, after BDC officials refused the loan. Mr. Chrétien later faced months of allegations that his actions placed him in a conflict of interest, since at the time he lobbied for the loan he had not yet been paid for shares in a neighbouring golf course, which he said he had sold in 1993. Mr. Chrétien had also owned a stake in the Auberge before he became prime minister. Opposition politicians charged that Mr. Chrétien still owned the golf course shares, or that he had an interest in keeping their value high to ensure he could recoup his money from the buyer, Toronto businessman Jonas Prince. They said the golf course would lose value if the Auberge went broke. Mr. Beaudoin is suing the BDC for wrongful dismissal, alleging he was forced out after he recommended foreclosing on the Auberge loan in 1999. The BDC alleges that Mr. Beaudoin misused company funds. The trial in that case is scheduled to begin Tuesday in Montreal. The BDC, a Crown corporation, is in line behind the caisse and another lender, which share the first-rank claims on the Auberge's assets. That means if the sale of the Auberge does not bring in enough to cover all the debts, the BDC could be hit with a loss. A spokesman for the BDC, Guy Beaudry, said the bank has not taken any legal action of its own to recover the loan to the Auberge, but will move to recover as much of it as possible if the credit union forces a sale at auction. He said the Grand-Mère credit union had notified the BDC of "its intention to recall the loan." In addition to the caisse and the BDC, the Auberge was financed by the Quebec Federation of Labour's Solidarity Fund and by a federally funded economic-development agency, Groupe Forces. Two officials of Groupe Forces, based in Mr. Chrétien's riding, were convicted last year of fraud for siphoning federal money into personal accounts in a case related to the so-called scandal at Human Resources Development Canada. theglobeandmail.com