Ketchup: Oil for Food? We did it, too!

A tip o' the hat to "Woe Canada" for something that got way under the radar, thanks to our revered mainstream press.

According to a journo by the name of Steel... Kevin Steel of the "Western Standard"...

Just a month before the Canada Free Press revealed that (Paul) Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, is a member of Power Corp.’s international advisory board–and a close friend and personal adviser to Power’s owner, Paul Desmarais Sr.–a U.S. congressional investigation into the UN scandal discovered that Power Corp. had extensive connections to BNP Paribas, a French bank that had been handpicked by the UN in 1996 to broker the Oil-for-Food program. In fact, Power actually once owned a stake in Paribas through its subsidiary, Pargesa Holding SA. The bank also purchased a stake in Power Corp. in the mid-seventies and, as recently as 2003, BNP Paribas had a 14.7 per cent equity and 21.3 per cent voting stake in Pargesa, company records show. John Rae, a director and former executive at Power (brother of former Ontario premier Bob Rae), was president and a director of the Paribas Bank of Canada until 2000.

Can you feel the plot thicken? If you click on the the link, you'll find out that the Power Corp., for all it's modesty and diffidence, is one of Canada's most influential companies with links to Parliament Hill powerbrokers.

And somehow... while the U.S. was asking Canada if she was willing to contribute to liberating Iraq, Power Corp. was working behind the scenes laundering cash and materiel between the Euro oil companies and So-damn Hussein's Ba'ath buddies.

Why didn't the National Post or the Toronto Sun pursue this story? Are there any skeletons running around their corporate offices as well?

It sorta makes you wonder why Canada said no to W. Hmmmm...