CoolE

You wouldn't believe it if I told you, but here goes...

The current Government of Canada (Liberals) pays to have ads placed across a particular region of the country which is demographically crucial to Liberals in the next election. The ads don't really promote anything at all - they are just feel-good "Oh Canada", "Thank goodness we aren't American" type of ads. All these ads are placed through advertising agencies that are owned by Liberal Party of Canada members, who then kick back portions of the payments to the party in the form of political donations (where they actually get 140% tax credits for each 100% donation - so they get ALL the money they donate back again anyway!). To milk it even more the advertising agencies overcharge the goverment on the order of tens of thousands of percent higher than the normal rates. Like charging $100k for a three page report on which newspapers to place ads. To hide it all, senior civil servants and key figures in Crown Corporations (overwhelmingly Liberal patronage appointees or loyal Liberal Party members) route the money through various government agencies and crown corporations using phony invoices.

It's like a giant make-work project, but where the work is only given to friends of the ruling party in a particular region of the country and no work is actually done. Sort of an evil perversion of Roosevelt's New Deal.

Hard to believe but true.

Even more bizarre is that the party that did this will be re-elected by Canadians in 6 weeks.