I’ll bet that Mr. Justice John Gomery is figuring fairly large on the prime minister’s Christmas gift list. Now that Gomery’s report on the adscam scandal is out it "absolutely absolves" Paul Martin of any wrongdoing with respect to adscam. To me, the whole thing sounds like a whitewash.
Let’s look at some facts: adscam was pulled off during the reign of Jean Chr™tien. Paul Martin was a minister in Jean Chr™tien’s government, not just any minister, but the Minister of Finance. Isn’t it odd that the Minister of Finance, who is charged with keeping an eye on the nation’s purse strings, missed something as intrusive as adscam and why is it that he should not be held to account?
The Liberal caucus may be rejoicing, because John Gomery identified a few mid-level miscreants and a couple of ad guys are going to have their knuckles rapped and maybe Jean Chr™tien’s legacy won’t be so great after all, but let’s face it; they’re still the Liberals and many Liberal MPs sitting today were sitting MPs under Jean Chr™tien.
It seems as if the Liberals are attempting to convince the nation that all that icky adscam stuff was done by a completely different Liberal Party of Canada, certainly not the one governing today.
Sad part is that many Canadians in their apathetic stupor are buying this notion and the result will be, as you may be guessing, another couple of decades of Liberal rule and its attendant destruction of what’s left of Canada.
Before I proceed, I should acknowledge that I am extremely biased towards the Liberals today, for the same reason that I was extremely biased against the Tories during Brian Mulroney’s second term. Namely, that power corrupts and it is important to make sure that our politicians are not in power too long. Jean Chr™tien has been a Member of Parliament for close to 40 years and Paul Martin’s been in for 17 years. Frankly, that’s too long.
On that count the americans have it right with the term limits that they have imposed on the presidency. We could do with a similar scheme here and not just for the prime minister, but also for Members of Parliament as well as cabinet ministers.
The problem with adscam isn’t that the Libs are any more corrupt than any other political party might be under similar circumstances. The trouble with adscam is that it demonstrates the propensity of politicians to do whatever necessary to ensure they stay in power. Sometimes that desire is so strong that the inconvenient illegalities that tend to limit what politicians can do with taxpayers’ money are totally ignored.
So now the Liberals are going to come back and ask for yet another mandate during the next election, which they will in all likelihood get, unless it is discovered that Paul Martin is guilty of sexually abusing little boys, end even then, it might be a squeaker.
Most Canadians see the Liberals as their best bet, given the fact that the opposition parties present limited alternatives. The Bloc is committed to establishing a separate country, The NDP wants to bankrupt every man woman and child through tax and spend largesse and the Conservatives are panderers who believe that by pretending to be Liberals they will get into office.
If there were term limits, then we would not be faced with the arrogance and criminal behavior that so often rears its ugly head in our elected officials. We would be guaranteed that the luminaries running our government would have no more than eight years tops, which likely wouldn’t be enough time to entertain the sort of machinations created by Jean Chr™tien and his Liberals.
Which brings me back to my initial question: is the Liberal Party with Paul Martin in the Prime Minister’s Office still the Liberal Party, or is it another, different Liberal Party that’s going to ask for our vote during the next election?