by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
January 20, 2005
Judy Sgro, the beleaguered Minister of Citizenship and Immigration finally resigned from the federal cabinet on January 14. The latest scandal to hit the Minister concerned allegations made by long term illegal immigrant, Harjit Singh. The pizza store owner, who was scheduled to be removed from Canada this week, alleged in an affidavit that was filed in Federal Court that Sgro had promised to solve his immigration problems if he provided pizza, garlic bread and workers to her campaign office during the 2004 election campaign. The affidavit further alleged that while Singh, who has been plagued by allegations of fraud and deception since first coming to Canada in 1988, kept his part of the bargain, Sgro reneged when a worker in her office began to talk about it.
The first hint of scandal concerning Sgro surfaced last November when it was alleged that a 25-year-old stripper from Romania was allowed to remain in Canada after she and her husband worked on Sgro’s re-election campaign. It was then revealed that Sgro’s assistant, Ihor Wons, went to a strip club to discuss the bringing into Canada of strippers from the Dominican Republic.
It is difficult to know if Sgro decided to resign after the Singh allegations surfaced or whether she was forced to resign. It is kind of suspicious that her resignation came on the day when the internationalist prime minister, Paul Martin, just happened to have been visiting Canada. But it doesn’t really matter; Martin is still defending his Minister even when it appears that he is defending the indefensible.
If Paul Martin has any sense (which is extremely debatable) he would never let Judy Sgro anywhere near the front benches no matter how these matters resolve themselves. Sgro handled herself badly when she came under fire. Like a good Liberal she changed the parameters of the argument. She tried to deflect the issue away from granting favours to campaign workers by accusing the opposition of picking on strippers. She then defended Canada Immigration’s special program to allow strippers into the country on the grounds that Canada is suffering from a severe shortage of women who are willing to take their clothes off in public. While she was doing that, Human Resources Minister Joe Volpe (who later took over her portfolio) cancelled the program, making Sgro look like a real idiot. The way she handled herself in the House showed that she just doesn’t have the smarts to be a cabinet minister.
But there is a more important reason why Sgro should be forever barred from having the keys to a government limo. During the Chrétien/Martin years, Canada has been quickly gaining the reputation as having a corrupt government. It’s no wonder that on matters such as outlawing the Tamil Tigers, Canada chooses to go along with corrupt third world countries rather than the U.S., Britain and australia. adscam, where the government siphoned off $100 million of taxpayers’ monies to pay Liberal-friendly Quebec advertising agencies for doing little or no work, shows exactly how corrupt our government really is.
Of course the level of corruption in this country in no way rivals that of say, Nigeria or Pakistan. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine that a Nigerian government official or a Pakistani civil servant could be bought off with a pizza and a couple of slices of garlic bread. and therein lies the problem.
a long term illegal immigrant who has a history of fraudulent activity and who is on the eve of deportation with nothing to lose makes an allegation that a Minister of the Crown had promised to allow him to remain in Canada in exchange for pizza and garlic bread. and it becomes a serious allegation. Even those who tend to think that Sgro is innocent of being bought for a pizza are treating the allegations as a serious matter. at any other time in our history those types of allegations that can be made so easily would simply be laughed off. But the credibility of the Liberals and of Sgro is such that Singh’s allegations are treated the same way as allegation of taking a large cash bribe would be treated. This is scary.
If Martin wants to retain any semblance of credibility, Judy Sgro would never again sit on the front benches. But don’t hold your breath.