The man Stephen Harper had put in charge of overseeing our spy agency, CSIS, is now a wanted man by the police in Quebec.
An arrest warrant was issued against Arthur Porter, the former head of the federal agency in charge of the oversight of our CSIS spy agency
Porter is one of five persons named in the arrest warrants issued this week by the Quebec anti-corruption squad investigating the construction contracts for McGill University's new $1,000,000 mega-hospital.
The others are former SNC Lavalin senior executives Pierre Duhaime and Riadh Ben Aissa, and Yanai Elbaz and Jeremy Morris.
The men are wanted for fraud, breach of trust and falsification of documents.
Porter was the CEO of the McGill University Health Centre where the fraud took place.
Porter resigned in 2011, and has since left the country. He settled in the Bahamas, where he opened a medical clinic.
Harper has been trying to distance himself from Dr. Porter.
Harper blames the opposition parties. He says it's their entire fault that he appointed Porter chair of the supervisory agency on June 24, 2010.
Harper said he appointed Porter and they went along with him. The opposition parties should have done their own investigation into Porter's background and warned him.
Harper did not explain why he could not rely on his Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews to do the checks on Porter. For that matter, why rely on Toews for anything?
But one might ask: since when is the Opposition in charge of making inquiries about the integrity of the Prime Minister's appointments?
Liberal Leader Bob Rae had his say: "Who recommended Mr. Porter? Did Mr. Porter made the application himself or was it someone else? '
Rae knows whereof he speaks. He himself has been a member of the supervisory committee overseeing the spy agency.
"If you are a member of this committee, you have access to a lot of information that is of high security that you cannot reveal to anyone at any time. It is important to know exactly how the name of Mr. Porter arrived to the office of Mr. Harper. '
The NDP also had a comment. "Was Arthur Porter was the Conservatives' man at CSIS?
"And was it because of his generous contributions to the Conservative Party? '
Porter was appointed by Harper just before the 2008 elections.
There are many questions that remain to answer. What began with a UPAC police investigation into the construction of the new McGill hospital complex is turning into a case of espionage and suspicious political appointment.
.jpg)
