J. Charles (Chuck) Guité (born 1943 or 1944 in Dugas, Quebec, on the

Gaspé peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (, ; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick on it ...

), raised in

Campbellton, New Brunswick Campbellton is a city in Restigouche County, New Brunswick, Restigouche County, New Brunswick, Canada. Situated on the south bank of the Restigouche River opposite Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec, Pointe-à-la-Croix, Quebec, Campbellton was officially ...

, is a former

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

, appointed by Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government. He held his position under the Liberal government of

Jean Chrétien Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien (; born January 11, 1934) is a retired Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003. He served as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, leader of t ...

and was in charge of the federal sponsorship program from 1996 to 1999. On April 2, 2004, previously confidential testimony from a 2002 inquiry into suspicious Groupaction contracts was made public. In it, Guité admits to having bent the rules in his handling of the advertising contracts but defends his actions as excusable given the circumstances, saying, "We were basically at war trying to save the country... When you're at war, you drop the book and the rules and you don't give your plan to the opposition." He became head of federal government advertising in the 1980s, and left the public service in 1999. On June 6, 2006, a jury in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

found Guité guilty on all five counts of defrauding the

Federal Government A federation (also called a federal state) is an entity characterized by a political union, union of partially federated state, self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a #Federal governments, federal government (federalism) ...

. On June 19, he was sentenced to 42 months in jail. He appealed his conviction and sentence and both appeals were dismissed in 2008. Since he was granted bail pending appeal, his 42-month sentence did not begin to run until 2008. On December 23, 2008 the

National Parole Board The Parole Board of Canada (PBC; ; formerly known as the National Parole Board) is the Canadian government agency that is responsible for reviewing and issuing parole and criminal pardons in Canada. It operates under the auspices of Public Safe ...

authorized Guité's conditional release making him eligible for day parole on February 15, 2009 and full parole on September 16, 2009. Under Canadian law, first time non-violent offenders are allowed an accelerated review and a possible early release.

References

External links

Chuck Guité
20th-century Canadian civil servants 1940s births Living people Corruption in Canada Year of birth missing (living people) {{Canada-gov-bio-stub