The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Ottawa - Treasury Board president Reg Alcock has admitted he was wrong when he claimed a new audit has revealed that the cost of the sponsorship scandal was much less than reported by the auditor general. "I made a mistake," Alcock said Monday. On Sunday, Alcock said that an audit by independent accounting firm Ernst and Young found $13 million misspending in the federal sponsorship program, not the $100 million identified in a report by Auditor General Sheila Fraser. St. John's Nfld. - The government of Newfoundland and Labrador is defending its stance of asking striking public-sector unions for concessions. On the 13th day of the public service walkout, hundreds of government employees paraded through downtown St. John's on the way to protest on the waterfront. About 20,000 public sector workers have been on strike since April 1. Ottawa - Prime Minister Paul Martin will meet with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Canada, which begins next week. Martin will become the first Canadian prime minister to meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, even though such a meeting will undoubtedly raise the ire of China, which is now Canada's fourth largest export market. China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959 and now lives in India.
