Quebec Liberal Party won’t let Zambito join
The Quebec Liberal Party has refused a membership card to star Charbonneau Commission witness and former entrepreneur Lino Zambito.
The Liberal Party confirmed Friday that Zambito, who made embarrassing revelations at the commission in 2012 about corruption, tried to sign up in order to attend Sunday’s leadership candidate’s debate in Gatineau.
But the party, already saddled with an integrity image problem, gave him the big thumbs-down after getting wind he would try to get the card. The party has 20 days after someone applies to review the request.
The Liberals got the request, informed him he had been denied membership and returned his $5 membership fee.
Officially, the party invoked its own party statutes to deny his membership, but the reason is clearly political.
“Mr. Zambito admitted before the commission that he used collusion and corruption,” party communica- tions director Michel Rochette said in a telephone interview late Friday. “We asked ourselves if this is the kind of activism we need in the party. His vision of politics does not correspond with ours.”
Zambito told Radio-Canada he was not surprised they turned him down.
“I attacked people who were directly in the Liberal Party organization and former ministers,” Zambito said. “For me this is clearly the motive (in the refusal).”
Zambito rocked the political world when he appeared before the commission, testifying that he, for example, gave former Liberal organizer Pierre Bibeau $30,000 in cash. He also embarrassed former cabinet minister Nathalie Normandeau.
The Liberals are holding two leadership debates this weekend: one, in English, on Saturday at the Oscar Peterson Hall at Concordia University in Montreal and a second, in French on Sunday, in Gatineau.