Brown Envelopes of Cash

The Globe reports on one of Jean Chretien's right hand men receiving over $300,000 in kickbacks:
The Quebec wing needed money to organize in ridings that didn't have Liberal MPs, he said.

He said that while the two were alone at the party's Montreal offices, Mr. Corriveau handed him about $100,000 in an envelope that held $100 and $20 bills.

"I assumed that it was money that was voluntarily donated," Mr. Béliveau said.

He then gave the money to his deputy, Benoît Corbeil, who succeeded him as director-general in 1998.

The balance, about $200,000, was given to an intermediary and was supposed to go to a riding in eastern Quebec, Mr. Béliveau testified.

He said eastern Quebec top organizer Marc-Yvan Côté told him later that "the needs had been met."

I've worked on campaigns before. I have never seen money in these sums transferred by brown envelopes. I fail to understand how anyone could not see something conscipous about a donation in $100's and $20's of over $100,000. I could understand if it were talking about $100 or even $200 dollars, but this is just bizzare.
In January of 1998, he said, he approached Mr. Corriveau for $7,000 to $8,000, to reimburse an election volunteer in Mr. Chrétien's riding for food and lodging.

He said he "never, never" told Mr. Chrétien. "And if he had known, I know how he would have reacted."

Do you? Then why did you do it in the first place? No I think Chretien did know, or atleast chose not to know.

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