Saturday, May 14, 2005

follow the money, if you can

follow the money, if you can

Andrew Coyne's latest column shines some light on the elephant in the corner at the Gomery inquiry:

"Two former executive directors of the Liberals’ Quebec wing have now testified to giving or receiving great big wads of cash, in amounts that stagger the imagination: not just envelopes but suitcases full, as much as $200,000 at one go. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars were allegedly distributed in this way, to dozens of people -- that we know about.

We know why they did this: to escape detection. What’s not clear is how. Where does anyone get their hands on $200,000 in cash? You can’t just walk into a bank and cash a cheque for $200 grand, in small bills please, unmarked, and be sure to scramble the serial numbers, won’t you? Even if you make a lot of little withdrawals, there are bound to be questions asked. There are laws about these things. To scrape together that kind of cash without attracting attention, you have to draw from a large number of separate and unrelated sources, and do so in a way that does not leave a paper trail of its own. Or you have to know the kind of people who can do that for you."

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