Canada: Scandal in Ottawa

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There is one other matter which I wish to announce," Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson remarked to the Members of Parliament in Ottawa last week. "The Minister of Justice this morning submitted his resignation to me. After discussing the matter twice with him, I have no course but to accept it. I do so with deep regret."

And deep embarrassment. For the resignation of Justice Minister Guy Favreau, 48, was triggered by the release of Canada's long-awaited Dorion report, prepared by Chief Justice Frederic Dorion, accusing Favreau of failure to take action on a bribery case involving the Pearson government. It was only the latest development in a series of scandals that has shaken the country's minority Liberal government, posing serious questions among Canadians as to the caliber of Mike Pearson's leadership.

A $20,000 Offer. The Favreau incident has been festering since last summer when Montreal Lawyer Pierre Lamontagne, 30, went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a story that four highly placed Liberals—Raymond Denis, 32, then executive assistant to the Immigration Minister; Guy Rouleau, 42, Pearson's own parliamentary secretary; Andre Letendre, 34, Favreau's executive assistant; and Guy Lord, 26, a former special assistant to Favreau—were pressuring him to take it easy in an extradition case. Lamontagne was working for the U.S. Justice Department, which sought the extradition of one Lucien Rivard, a Montreal racketeer wanted on a narcotics-smuggling rap. Lamontagne claimed that Denis offered him $20,000 not to fight bail for Rivard; the other three, said Lamontagne, tried to apply political pressure. The Mounties notified Favreau, who informed Pearson, then ordered a routine investigation by the Mounties. Their report was inconclusive, and there the matter remained until last November, when the opposition Conservatives broke the story in Parliament.

Pearson seemed surprised by the fuss. Denis had already quietly resigned; Pearson now accepted Guy Rouleau's resignation and appointed Chief Justice Dorion as a one-man commission of public inquiry. To make matters worse, in the midst of the investigation Racketeer Rivard escaped from Montreal's Bordeaux Jail, has not been seen since.

In his 149-page report last week, Justice Dorion confirmed virtually all of Lawyer Lamontagne's charges. Favreau, said Dorion, was derelict in his duty for not looking deeper into "the possible perpetration of a criminal offense by one or several of the persons involved." If Favreau lacked facts, "he should have submitted the case to the legal advisers within his department with instructions to complete the search." Justice Dorion said nothing about Prime Minister Pearson's role.