Confidence Men

It's an old story; have enough confidence in yourself, exude that confidence, and you convince others of your super capabilities. A facade of self-confidence can accomplish what a lack of ability cannot; the trust of others. Convincing other people that they are quite correct in sharing your confidence in yourself is not all that difficult; people are basically won over by a brisk attitude of 'can-do'. And it doesn't hurt if there is official documentation to aid the process, like an academic or professional degree.

Integrity and honesty do not necessarily accompany academic credentials and professional certainties. But when one attains a trusted position the stage for embezzlement and fraud is set, and some see no reason not to take advantage of such opportunities. There are people who conduct their professional lives in this manner, and who never get caught out, and there are those who attain a level of respect to the degree that more trust is placed in them, and they do eventually trip over their own success.

You can fool all the people all of the time, but life gives no such guarantees that you will succeed in so doing forever.

It was a tangled web of intrigue, strange connections and trust on a wide scale that elevated Arthur Porter, a medical man of some repute originally from Sierra Leone and more latterly the Bahamas, who made some very interesting business connections for himself, and ended up gaining the trust of high-level politicians. Dr. Porter achieved the post of chief executive of McGill University's hospital network, the McGill University Health Centre.

He was appointed to Canada's Security Intelligence Review Committee, and as such was privy to the country's top-secret security documents. He sat on a multitude of high-profile corporate boards, including Air Canada's corporate board for which he earned a six-figure annual director's fee. He had been appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a lifetime member of Canada's Privy Council, making him eligible to become SIRC chairman.

This man reeked privilege and prestige and trustworthiness. He led a charmed life of entitlements. But he never left his native Sierre Leone behind in his fond estimation, and was that country's "ambassador plenipotentiary".  It took a suspicious snoop of an investigative reporter to wonder how it was that a man of Dr. Porter's political, business and social standing would have a questionable relationship with a man known to be involved in shady business dealings to uncover Dr. Porter's own strange dealings.

Which eventually led to a lost of trust when it was revealed that Dr. Porter had entered into a peculiar business arrangement with a notoriously peculiar lobbyist, Ari Ben-Menashe, an Iranian-Israeli with odd business contacts including the regime of Robert Mugabe, and the Russian government. Dr. Porter's personal company, one of many, was to have taken advantage of a Ben-Menashe-brokered $120-million Russian grant to benefit Sierra Leone.

More latterly, in his position with the McGill University Health Centre which he had left under strangely clouded circumstances, owing a considerable sum of money to the MUHC, he had brokered another deal, this one with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. to award the engineering firm a sizable construction contract for a superhospital in Montreal. SNC executives Pierre Duhaime and Riadh Ben Aissa have been charged with fraud.

An affadavit was issued for a warrant to search the MUHC headquarters, alleging Mr. Ben Aissa oversaw transfer of $22.5-million from SNC-Lavalin's Tunisian operation to a bank account in the name of Sierra Asset Management. Auditors could find no services performed for that payment. The RCMP laid charges of fraud, fraud against the government, breach of trust,, conspiracy and laundering the proceeds of crime.

Canada's federal Justice Department will now seek to have Dr. Porter extradited from Bermuda where he operates a range of businesses, including a cancer clinic. To which he has admitted himself, with inoperable cancer, he claims, in his defence. Dr. Porter denies any wrongdoing. He is ill, under treatment, and unavailable.