In 2004, only weeks after becoming Prime Minister, Paul Martin established the Gomery Inquiry to study the federal government’s sponsorship program, which operated during his Jean Chrétien’s time in office. This was just one of the many decisions made by Martin to distance himself and his new government from the Sponsorship program and ensuing scandal.

In the end, many observers would agree that Justice Gomery was a poor choice to lead such a controversial inquiry. While it was still ongoing, for example, he gave a media interview where he famously called former PM Chrétien “small town cheap” for having special golf balls made up that featured his signature. After Gomery’s report was released in 2005, Chrétien and his former chief-of-staff, Jean Pelletier, both of whom Gomery slammed, had those portions casting any blame upon themselves expunged by judicial order. It was a humiliating moment for Justice Gomery. He died at age 88 in 2021.   Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.