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So we have left our Grand Mère's story just prior to the granting of the BDC's loan in early 1997(1). We have seen how Yvon Duhaime, a Chrétien's friend, was able to recover from near bankruptcy in 1993 when he bought the Grand Mère's Inn from Jean Chrétien and his partners, and how with a pyramidal loan scheme he was able to buy and carry his hotel business till 1996. He is now desperate for money, he owes some $890,000 to the local caisse populaire and he is defaulting in meeting his financial obligations. But he is lucky, he needs another project, bigger than any other, so that he can carry a bigger business, and then with some additional doling from his friend Chrétien, he may even be able to purchase again his own mortgaged assets. Anyhow, we are gathering the events surrounding Chrétien's involvement in the Grand Mère's story so that we can find a truth on his ethical behaviour. And since a truth is found in terms of patterns and relationships I will be listing a set of relevant events and their possible relationships within the Grand Mère's affair. The events outlined below have retained, as much as possible, the same English construct as per the original references.

1997: On February 20, Chrétien makes his third phone call to Mr. Beaudoin, president of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), and ask when the loan would be approved for the scaled-down version of the Auberge/hotel Grand-Mère. Mr. Duhaime has stated that it was during this time that he met with the Prime Minister at 24 Sussex, however, he has stated (November 2000) that he cannot divulge any information about this meeting unless he receives permission from Mr. Chrétien. Denise Tremblay, Mr. Chrétien's special representative in St. Maurice, also made four calls to the office of François Beaudoin, then president of the BDC, at his headquarters in Montreal about the Grand-Mère Inn case and attended meetings Mr. Duhaime had with local BDC officials. After Chrétien's third phone call to Beaudoin the BDC bank approves a loan for $615,000 to Duhaime. Mr. Duhaime's previous attempt to secure a $2-million BDC loan for the hotel's expansion had been rejected.

1997: The BDC's approval of the $615,000 loan to Duhaime was a breach of the established procedures at the bank and these are some of the worrisome facts: -A month before the loan to the hotel owner was granted, a management consultant's report concluded that the inn had huge mortgage debts it could not afford to pay, was poorly managed, had another $350,000 in unpaid bills and had defaulted on its mortgages. -Mr. Duhaime failed to disclose his criminal record for death threats, income-tax offences, assault and repeat drunk driving in his BDC loan application as required. -Ms. France Bergeron, the BDC's regional branch manager, has stated in an internal memo that the structure of the financing recommended does not meet the normal policies and criteria of the bank(2)

In the next related articles we will cover a web of relationships connected with the Grand-Mère's business and political environment.

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign

The author acknowledges the following news organizations: National Post, Canadian Internet Network, The Ottawa Citizen, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Press. The author read articles written by Robert Fife, Andrew McIntosh, Joël-Denis Bellavance, Peter Shawn Taylor, Andrew Coyne, Gordon Gibson, and Diane Francis of the National Post; Paul Adams and Daniel LeBlanc of The Globe and Mail; Lawrence Martin and Kate Jaimet of The Ottawa Citizen.

1. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's involvement with the BDC's $615,000 loan: The Grand Mère affair and Chretien's golf course just prior to the loan's approval, By Mario deSantis, December 4, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000_200/desantis278/ethicsGrandmerestyle.html

2. PM lobbied for disputed loan, Andrew McIntosh, November 16, 2000, National Post http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20001116/371963.html