It would appear that in Brantford, at any rate, that our politicians are struggling more with the appearance of competency than they are corruption.

The city of Ottawa has always had a certain amount of "cooperation" between developers, contracters and our city hall.

I am hoping that after the Quebec corruption inquiry examinies Gatineau, that there will be demands for an investigation into Ottawa. 

Did anyone see Senator Pamela Wallin's interview on CBC?  Did you buy her story?

Are you sure?   Branford is half way between London and Toronto.

Perhaps they were smoking pot at a wedding paid for with public funds? 

To be honest, the London and Toronto situations are pretty mild compared to what's been going down in Quebec. I think this makes 4 or 5 mayors that have gone down in flames there, though this is by fair the worst. Makes you wonder worry what a similar commission here in Ontario would find.

Laval is Quebec's third largest city, and not only has the mayor been charged, the whole city has basically been an extension of organised crime. 

It is turning out to be the same for MTL. Except in Mtl it is not so bad, becasue Mtl has always had viable opposition parties who would win respectable number  of votes. It seems in Laval there was no viable opposition so the corruption was much work.

Three mayors have been charged so far, but alos the heads of major corporation like SNC Lavalan, one of the leading engineering and construction groups in the world.  (the largest in Canada)  SNC Lavalin  have also been active in corrupting (bribing) public officials in almost evry country they operated in.  So I expect that it is the same where they worked elsewhere inside Canada.

Most shocking of all was testimony was from an employee of an engineering firm. He operated turn key election campaigns. It appears that most of the PQ and Liberal machine in Quebec were essentially non existant ,and that competing construction and other gvt contractors ran local riding elections, as well as those for municple elections.   He painted a picture of elections being just battles between compagnies, that would switch from PQ to LIb and back again, just for the contacts. 

While this person did not say that contractor  also set general gvt policies, I would not be surprised if they did.

The whole inquirey will continue to shock Quebec once it stars to look specifically at Transport Quebec and provincial politics. Becasue jean Charest has not recieve any plum patronage appointments, or named to sit oon the board of directors of major Canadian compagnies, I think it is an open secret that he is going to be a major target and could end up in jail.

Major Canadian Projects run by SNC Lavalin, 

The story that she frequently flew from Ottawa to Halifax and other far off places for speaking engagements— for which she got paid—and then flew from there home to Saskatchewan, and the entire round trip was "mistakenly" expensed as a trip home?

A simple error of omission, eh?

Hey, you want to see corruption, come to New Brunswick. On balance, I preferred the mafia of Montreal. I knew some of them. They wanted a piece of the action. But as long as they got their percentage, they didn't care about anything else.

Here, the corrupting force is big business - and what they want is control of government itself - all government - to extablish a level of extortion way beyond the wildest dreams of mafioso.

I'm surprised the Montreal investigations seem not, so far, to have included the Irish mob. Do they no longer control the waterfront?

They are just investigating the construction industry, 

This has been going on for so long....

When I was in elementary school, we knew all about it. And we knew the names of the companies that operated it. One was, if I remember correctly, Donolo. That's now gone quite respectable.

That was a time when thugs controlled the night clubs, too. One night there was a killing in a club with blood splattered all over the piano.

The piano player was told to keep playing. The body was carted out to the lane behind the club, and the police were called. A police car promptly arrived, put the body in the trunk, and then drove to a deserted street in the east end to dump it there.

Illegal gambling clubs were all over. Police would raid them, thoughtfully calling the club to inform it a half hour or so in advance. Then they would raid the (by now) empty club, push chairs over on their sides, occasionally turn a table upside down, then call in the press to take pictures of the raid.

When I was working with street gangs, it was well known that you could get car tires, brand new, still wrapped, at half price, delivered to your door in a police car.

In those days, the mafia bosses still lived in our neighbourhood. Today, most of them live in tonier areas - but some are still in my old neighbourhood - and they still eat at restaurants in the area.

My last few years in Hamilton we had an old townhouse out near Hamilton General Hospital. One day, an old boss was hit in town and when I looked up the street where he lived, I realized that it wasn't all that far from us. I knew the Mafia was active in Hamilton and I knew I was near where a lot of older Italians lived but that hit made me a bit more aware of the Mob's presence.

Mendalla

Here in Vernon BC we only ever had one major crime gang called  "The Greeks," but they are safely behind bars now, and some RCMP members recently got some citations for helping to put them there.

"The Greeks" were particularly notorious for having their lawyer in cahoots with them. I think this was the only instance in Canadian history when a lawyer was convicted of collaborating with a crime gang.

Well at least there are no mayors who bragg about killing kittens.

oops I was wrong

Quebec mayor forced to apologize for saying how much he enjoys killing kittens with his car

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/07/14/bang-i-accelerate-quebec-mayor-f...

“When I see a cat in the street, I accelerate,” Gendron had said, days earlier, on his radio show.

“Stray cats have no business on the street,” he said, raising his voice to a shout for dramatic emphasis: “So bang! I accelerate.”

He didn’t stop there.

“The other day I backed up over a newborn and I’m sure it didn’t feel a thing,” Gendron said.

“The pickup passed over him like it was nothing.”

One of his fellow hosts called his comments, “Sick,” while another compared such actions to the alleged behaviour of Luka Rocco Magnotta.