Former Martin aide on witness list for Commons Earnscliffe probe  
by Romeo St. Martin

[PoliticsWatch Updated 7:05 p.m. March 21, 2005]

OTTAWA  — A former aide to Prime Minister Paul Martin and two former senior officials at the department of finance - including Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge -- are among those on a witness list to appear before a Commons committee examining the awarding of contracts to the Ottawa firm Earnscliffe, PoliticsWatch.com has learned. 

The Commons public accounts committee, which last year held public hearings into the sponsorship program, agreed Monday to hold what is being described as a one-day "exploratory" hearing on April 11, sources tell PoliticsWatch. 

Earnscliffe is an Ottawa lobbying and research firm that has employed a large number of people who either worked on Martin's leadership bids, his transition team or the last federal election campaign. David Herle, who will co-chair the Liberals' next campaign, was a partner at Earnscliffe up until last summer when he started his own research firm, Veraxis. 

Six witnesses will be asked to appear that day, including Terrie O'Leary, who worked for Martin when he was finance minister and is considered one of the prime minister's closest informal advisors, and Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella, who at the time worked as an aide for then public works minister David Dingwall. 

Kinsella is staunch loyalist to former prime minister Jean Chretien who has made no secret about his displeasure with Martin's decision to call for investigations into the findings of the auditor general's report on the sponsorship scandal. 

Other former finance officials are on the witness list, including Dodge, who was deputy minister at finance in the mid 1990s, and Don Drummond, who is now an economist with TD Bank but was assistant deputy minister of finance during Martin's time as minister. 

Auditor General Sheila Fraser will also be asked to appear as will Allan Cutler, a retired public works bureaucrat who last year provided the committee with boxes of documents regarding contracting procedures at the department. 

The committee has not formally asked people who worked at Earnscliffe to appear before the committee, but will allow them to come forward if they wish. 

Opposition MPs on the committee passed a motion last month to look into contracts awarded to Earnscliffe after the head of the public inquiry into the sponsorship program, Justice John Gomery, determined the firm was not within his mandate of probing advertising and sponsorship firms. 

Public opinion research, which is one Earnscliffe's specialties, was mentioned in parts of the auditor general's report into the sponsorship program. 

During the public accounts committee's hearings last year, contracts awarded to Earnscliffe arose in testimony from Chuck Guite, the star witness who oversaw advertising and public opinion research at public works in the mid 1990s. 

"There were many contracts with a local company, Earnscliffe," Guite testified. "And I had interference from a minister's office - the finance Department, which was Mr. Martin's office at the time. 

"[They] tried influencing the decision. I think that if someone today would ask through access to information for all the contracts awarded to that company, you would have some surprises," Guite informed the committee and all the reporters in the room. 

O'Leary and the Prime Minister's Office have both denied Guite's allegations.

Cutler did not testify specifically on Earnscliffe, but he left with the committee a series of memos and contracts documenting a battle he had in 1995 while at public works over what he viewed as finance's efforts to create a favourable bidding environment for Earnscliffe for a contract estimated at over $240,000 for communications advice and strategy. 

"Under the present scenario, my concern is that only Earnsliffe or a firm using Earnscliffe as a subcontractor will be aware of the actual level of effort required," Cutler wrote on one document he sent to a finance official. "All other firms would be at a competitive disadvantage. This would defeat the purpose of soliciting competitive bids." 

Although the hearing will only be scheduled for one day, sources say they believe the six witnesses will provide the committee with a good idea of what exactly happened with regards to the contracts in question. 

But if the committee discovers anything they determine requires further examination then it will keep going one source said.  

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