QUEBEC - There was no bomb dropped Wednesday at the Bastarache Commission, as an ink expert testified that he was unable to determine with any precision the date on which Marc Bellemare took notes on his allegations of influence-peddling on the nomination of judges.
Luc Brazeau, an expert with the Canada Border Services Agency, did testify Wednesday that the document contained three different types of ink – one that is black, one that is a luminescent blue and another that is a non-luminescent blue.
However, Brazeau was unable to confirm Bellemare's assertion that the only notes he kept regarding his allegations were written just after his resignation as justice minister in 2004.
The former minister explained that he began scribbling some notes on a piece of cardboard the evening of his resignation in April of 2004 while watching a Montreal Canadiens hockey game at home. That piece of cardboard was submitted to the commission as evidence and was analyzed by Brazeau.
The document only had three lines on it that fell within the mandate of the Bastarache Commission, and Brazeau found that those three lines were written in a blue ink that was different from the blue ink used elsewhere in the document. Bellemare had previously admitted during his testimony that his notes regarding the influence peddling were added to the document at a later date, CTV Montreal's John Grant reports.
Bellemare was scheduled to return to the hearings presided by Michel Bastarache on Thursday to respond to Brazeau's testimony, but seeing as Brazeau's findings were inconclusive, that will no longer be necessary.
However, Grant believes Thursday will remain an interesting day at the hearings because of the possibility that Bellemare's opponents could use Wednesday's testimony to discredit him.
