Can we destroy any incentives that may lead to this corruption from happening again? or any other corruption that is happening right now? I wonder.

Sometimes we can be suckers for punishment to the point where we are blind to the bigger picture of corruption in public office or the civil service. I do not care whether Paul Champagne goes to jail or not. I just want my money back!

Even if we can not get all of the money back, I would say that realistically, firing him is probably sufficient punishment given that he is going bankrupt. Try applying for a job with “I swindled the tax-payer.” written on your forehead and unexplained blank time periods on your resume.

By the way, I think a few people in the Department of National Defense should be fired too.

“All Canadians were victims of these offences and all no doubt felt a sense of betrayal and loss because of them,” said Justice Ann Alder who sentenced him to seven years in jail. Sorry, not good enough. In fact, I think the judge’s statement is highly naive because not all Canadians were victims at all. [Maybe being naive is the best thing we can do? The justice system is part of the civil service too.] Some clearly benefited by being his clients. We should never forget the middlemen.

Hewlett-Packard reached an out-of-court settlement with Champagne before he was convicted of fraud. If you read the rest of the article, you find a lot of tax-payer’s money was spent by Champagne in many different extravagant ways. As it turns out, many assets “owned” by Champagne but paid by the tax-payer are now going to Hewlett-Packard! Great!

Unless you grow your own vegetables, raise your own livestock, chop your own wood, fetch your own water and weave your own wool, there will always be a middleman. I am not saying that all middleman are complicit and I do not want to cast aspersions on Hewlett-Packard. My hope is to point out that how we deal with corruption should be more profound than putting one guy on a chopping block. Bureaucracy can be a nasty network.