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Henderson defends Art Eggleton
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (CP) -- The chairman of Toronto's failed '96 Olympic bid defended Defence Minister Art Eggleton on Tuesday, saying the former Toronto mayor didn't warn organizers of Quebec City's unsuccessful 2002 bid about corrupt IOC members because he was never asked.Paul Henderson, the former chairman of Toronto's '96 bid, said Quebec officials never consulted with his committee, insisting they had a policy of not doing so.
"Why didn't he tell Quebec City? Ask Quebec City who put the rule in that nobody (on Toronto's committee) was to be consulted with the Quebec City bid," an indignant Henderson told reporters Tuesday at the IOC's World Conference on Doping. "The policy was not to use anybody or ask for advice from anybody who had anything to do with Toronto.
"We were never asked. We were always available to be asked. Other bid cities asked me. Quebec City never did. Because of their policy.
"So please don't blame Art Eggleton or myself for not keeping Quebec City up on what was going on."
Eggleton was the senior elected official on Toronto's Olympic bid team and helped write a report the committee presented to the International Olympic Committee in 1991. The report, written shortly after Toronto lost the '96 Games vote to Atlanta, outlined how the organizing group spent between $700,000 and $800,000 on IOC members breaking or stretching rules governing visits to bid cities and how many IOC members were improperly cashing in airline tickets and hinting that they wanted to receive jewelry or cash.
Eggleton says he was not aware of financial wrongdoing surrounding the Toronto bid until 1991, denying claims from former city auditor Jack Rabinowitz that he discovered unaccounted-for spending in 1988 and warned Eggleton immediately of that fact.
Eggleton said Monday that Rabinowitz did express concerns about spending after reviewing the Toronto committee's $16.8-million budget in 1988. However Rabinowitz never followed up, Eggleton added.
"The auditor was very useful and very helpful to the bid process and ensuring that (the Toronto group's) books were properly maintained," Eggleton said in Ottawa on Monday as the House of Commons resumed sitting following the Christmas break. "In one report, it said he had some concerns but he didn't say exactly what those concerns were.
"As far as I know all the concerns he raised were addressed. If there were any outstanding concerns, they would have been dealt with."
That's not good enough for Conservative MP Mark Muise, who is planning to introduce order paper questions in the House of Commons about Eggleton's knowledge of IOC corruption.
Muise said Eggleton had a duty as a federal minister to advise Quebec City Olympic organizers that some IOC members were corrupt in order to protect taxpayers from more misspending.
Quebec City lost its bid for the 2002 Games to Salt Lake City in a competition tainted by a bribery scandal. Subsequently, Quebec Mayor Jean-Paul L'Allier said he'll request the IOC compensate the city the $12 million it spent mounting its bid.
Some of what was said on the first day of the world anti-doping summit in Lausanne, Switzerland:
"In 1980 if I had been a Canadian representative on the IOC and voting to go ahead with the Games in Moscow, I would have been toasted about a nanosecond later. As an independent member of the IOC I am now free, untrammeled, to decide based on what I think is best." -- IOC vice-president Dick Pound, reacting to the suggestion that the anti-doping agency should be under the control of governments through the United Nations rather than the IOC.
"The IOC must stress the importance of values -- not the importance of its leaders." -- Elsebeth Gerner Nielsen, Danish minister for culture.
"The IOC has a particular responsibility in the global fight against doping in sport which it cannot live up to unless it regains its basis of legitimation. Those who sacrifice the credibility of sport on the altar of economic interests provoke immense dangers for the Olympic movement and sports worldwide." -- Otto Schily, German interior minister.
"No one has ever thought to test ministers at the end of a parliamentary session, or test industrialists who have to face social conflicts. Doping is all over society." -- Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of IOC medical commisssion.
"The culture of doping begins at an early age and is created and may be reinforced by coaches, agents, doctors, team leaders and all the others. Athletes call on tough sanctions against these individuals who take advantage of the athletes."-- Olav Koss, Norwegian speed skater, triple Olympic gold medallist, member of IOC athletes' commission
"Athletes who use performance enhancing drugs do not earn medals -- they steal them. They are cheating themselves of honour, and their fellow athletes of a chance to compete on a level playing field." -- Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the White House Drugs Policy Office
"International sports bodies have responsibilities as well as rights. Their internal systems of organization and application must be based on democracy, accountability and honesty. The British government expects the IOC to clean up its act." -- British Sports Minister Tony Banks
"For complete credibility it (the agency) must be headed by someone other than an IOC member. Credibility is so important. The fact that the United States Olympic Committee has to do that testing creates a lack of credibility all over the world. Everyone thinks that the fox is guarding the chicken coop." -- Dick Schultz, executive director of the U.S. Olympic Committee