폴 마틴 수상은 목요일,Gomery 판사의 청문회에 나와서, 그때 재무장관으로 재직시 나는 정책결정하는 핵심 구룹에서 제외되여 있었기 때문에 sponsorship 계획에 대해서 전혀 아는바 없다 라고 증언했다. Gomery Commission 청문회에 현직 수상으로는, 1873년 John A Macdonald수상이후로 처음 나와서, 1996년부터 2003년 사이에 행해졌던,sponsorship scandal 에 대해서 깊이 알아보기위한 증언대에서, 증언했던 그는, 그프로그람을 담당했던 소수멤버속에 끼어있지 않았다고 말했다. 목요일 오타와에서 판사 Gomery가 주관하는 증언에서, 마틴의 대답은 같은 논리에서 크게 벗어나지 않은 내용들이었다. 그는 반복해서, sponsorship 계획, National Unity Fund, sponsorship 프로그람에서 이익을 챙긴 회사에 대해서도, 전혀 아는바 없다고 했다. 그때는 캐나다 정부가 지고 있는 부채와, 세계시장속에서 캐나다의 역활 증진에 총력을 기울이고 있었다 라고 되풀이 했다. 그는 말하기를, 1996년도 예산에 포함시켜 나타날때까지, 당시 수상 Jean Chretien 이 비자금으로 구좌를 설치, 사용하면서, Sponsorship Project 에도 인출 했었던, 캐나다를 하나로 묶기위해 쓰려는 자금의 존재에 대해서 일체 아는바 없다 라고 했다. 이상은 2월 10 일 목요일 행해진, 폴 마틴 현직 수상에 대한 Globe and Mail 지의 기사를 일부 옮긴 내용입니다. 초록은 동색이라고, 그놈이 그놈인것을 아무런 죄책감도 없이 떠들어 대는 그를 보면서, 해답은 없을 것이다라고 생각을 해 봅니다. 오히려, 당시의 수상과 같이 배를 탄 그들을 잘했다고 부추기 까지 했읍니다. 자세한 내용은 아래 원문 참조 하시기를..... 감사. Martin in the dark on sponsorship, inquiry told By ALLISON DUNFIELD Thursday, February 10, 2005 Updated at 4:41 PM EST Prime Minister Paul Martin used his appearance at the Gomery inquiry Thursday to underscore that he was far removed from the inner workings of the sponsorship program during the time he was finance minister. Mr. Martin, the first sitting prime minister to testify publicly since John A. Macdonald in 1873, told the Gomery commission looking into the sponsorship scandal that during the era the sponsorship existed -- from 1996 until 2003 -- he was not privy to the inner circle that controlled sponsorship funds. During testimony Thursday to Mr. Justice John Gomery in Ottawa, Mr. Martin's answers stayed close the same basic theme. He repeatedly said he was not aware of funds being used for sponsorships, or of the beginnings of the national unity fund, or of ad companies that may have benefited from the sponsorship program. At the time, he said, he was much more focused on getting Canada out of its deep debt and increasing Canada's role in the global market. He said he did not even know about the existence of the unity reserve, a secret fund controlled by former prime minister Jean Chrétien, from which funds were drawn for sponsorship project, until it appeared in the 1996 budget papers. He said earlier, in 1994 and 1995, the unity reserve was "deeply in the bowels" of the Finance Department and was not included in the budget working papers. And, as it had been set up by the former Conservative government, he said it was simply part of the fiscal framework and would have been grouped with "other spending," thus he had no reason to be aware of it. Further, Mr. Martin said he did not recall any discussions of the national unity reserve at a February, 1996 cabinet retreat. Money from that reserve was used to create the sponsorship program to gain visibility for the Canadian government after the near-disastrous 1995 Quebec referendum. Instead, he became aware of it during the drawing up of the 1996 budget papers, he said. He also said he did not know funds would be drawn from the national unity program for sponsorships. "Do you recall any discussion of using sponsorships to gain visibility as a unity issue?" asked Neil Finkelstein, the commission's co-counsel. "No," the Prime Minister answered, during a morning of testimony that had Mr. Martin replying: "no" "nil", "never" and "not that I'm aware of" to many questions surrounding the sponsorship program and national unity fund. He said he did not hear the word "sponsorship" or realize there were major problems within the program until media reports began to surface on the topic in 2001. His testimony was much different from a defiant performance from Mr. Chrétien earlier in the week, who defended the program as necessary to deal with the urgent emergency of fighting Quebec separatists. During his appearance before the commission on Tuesday, Mr. Chrétien drew Mr. Martin into the web, saying Mr. Martin "always agreed to set aside $50-million a year for expenditures related to national unity that would be decided upon during the course of the year." But Mr. Martin shrugged off any suggestion of his relation to the spending under the program. "You were never involved in any discussion with the prime minister or anybody in his office about what kinds of expenditures would come out of the unity reserve?" asked Mr. Finkelstein. "No, I was not," Mr. Martin answered. As finance minister at the time the sponsorship program was created, he had little to do with the inner workings of other departments or ministers or how they spent their money, he said. "The responsibility of the minister of finance is to set the financial context. To set the financial framework in which overall government spending can be done," he said. "That's not approval. That is simply a statement that if everybody else approves, that there is the money in the financial framework to pay for it. Once the minister of finance has done that, which is essentially the presentation of the budget, his responsibility comes to a total end," he said, adding that after that, the responsibility shifts to another government department. He said he had no part in the administration of the unity reserve and did not know that sponsorships were being used as part of the reserve until well after the year 2000. Mr. Martin is contributing his long-awaited testimony Thursday before Judge Gomery to answer questions about what he knew about the problems in the program created by his predecessor, Mr. Chrétien, to boost Canada's image in Quebec following the referendum. The inquiry is looking into why up to $100-million from the $250-million sponsorship program went to Liberal-friendly ad firms — often for little or no apparent work. Mr. Martin is the last of several Chrétien-era cabinet ministers to appear before the Gomery commission. He also said he had little or no relationship with others who have been alleged to have been part of the sponsorship scandal. He testified that he never discussed sponsorships with former prime minister Jean Chrétien's chief of staff, Jean Pelletier — the point man in the prime minister's office for the file. Mr. Pelletier has already testified before the inquiry that while he had an impact on the decision-making process, the bureaucrats always had the final word, not Liberal officials. Later on Thursday afternoon, he also denied speaking with Alfonso Gagliano -- the former public works minister -- about sponsorships. Mr. Gagliano, as former public works minister, oversaw the department that administered the sponsorship program. Despite allegations of patronage, Mr. Gagliano has placed the responsibility for the decision-making process in the sponsorship program solely on the civil service. Upon questioning from Mr. Gagliano's lawyer, Mr. Martin said he "supported the decision" to remove Mr. Gagliano as the ambassador to Denmark. But he said the Liberals did so only to protect Canada's reputation abroad after the sponsorship scandal broke. He would not answer a question from the lawyer, Pierre Fournier, about whether he had additional information about Mr. Gagliano at the time Mr. Gagliano was stripped of his ambassadorship. Further questions about Mr. Gagliano's removal were shut down by Judge Gomery, who said it was not directly related to the commission of inquiry. Mr. Gagliano was removed the same day that the Auditor-General's damning report on the sponsorship scandal came out, early last February. And Mr. Martin also said during Thursday's testimony he had no contact with former Chrétien aide Jean Carle. Mr. Carle told the commission last week he created a fake paper trail after becoming an executive with the Business Development Bank of Canada. He added that he helped a senior Public Works official camouflage a transmission of money by allowing it to be transferred through the bank. Mr. Martin was also pressed at length on his relations with ad executive Claude Boulay, whose firm Groupe Everest did millions in sponsorship and other advertising business with Ottawa. Martin said Mr. Boulay was an acquaintance who worked briefly on his first unsuccessful campaign for the Liberal leadership in 1990. But Martin said he played no role in ad contracts Mr. Boulay's company received. Mr. Martin made no opening statement Thursday, in contrast to a long speech from Mr. Chrétien during his appearance about why the unity program was necessary. However, at the end of his appearance, Mr. Martin gave a statement in which he recounted the steps the Liberal government took following the revelations in the Auditor-General's report about money funnelled to Liberal-friendly ad agencies. He repeated what he has said many times -- that the government moved immediately to set up both a parliamentary inquiry and the Gomery inquiry to get to the bottom of the scandal. "We've taken things very seriously, and the commission, the commission of inquiry, is a tremendously important commission firstly because we want to have the answers. Canadians deserve to have those answers, and we as a government, we want to have them," he said. He also said he was awaiting Judge Gomery's final report. The next phase of the commission moves to Montreal, where it begins hearing witnesses in two weeks.The final report is not expected until November of this year. With a report from Campbell Clark and Canadian Press