Politics: Canada: Prime Minister Paul Martin regarded as Canada's most dishonest political leader by 63 % polled

According to the most recent poll nationwide, sponsored by CTV and The Globe and Mail, taken on the telephone by The Strategy Counsel between May 2-8 (before yesterday's vote in the House of Commons), Martin has slid to the bottom of the pile.

CTV reports the details online:

The sponsorship scandal and negative commentary over Martin's recent efforts to strike deals to keep his party in power seems to have eaten away at his once-vaunted credibility. ¶ When asked to name which of the leaders is the most dishonest:

• 63 per cent of Canadians picked Martin;
• 20 per cent chose Harper;
• 5 per cent of respondents said NDP Leader Jack Layton; and
• 3 per cent named Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe.

The picture gets even bleaker for Martin: 61 per cent of Canadians say they believe he would lie if it would help him politically; 54 per cent call him hypocritical; while 47 percent say he's indecisive. ¶ "Paul Martin is looking like a caricature of a stereotypical politician -- a person who is prepared to lie, a person who is prepared to bribe people with their own money," Allan Gregg, chairman of The Strategic Counsel, told CTV News.

In the poll, it was the Adscam revelations at the Gomery Commission hearings where Liberals and their agents increasingly undermined their own chief, and Martin's shelving the budget of February 5 (which was supported by the Conservatives) to sign on instead a week ago to the New Democratic Party's budget, in exchange for the votes in the Commons needed to keep himself in power.

Dancing about desperately to avoid an outfront confidence vote, except on the NDP budget, Martin denied the opposition its usual days to set the agenda and thereby these days bring forward a Confidence on Adscam and the Gomery revelations, so the Opposition leader Stephen Harper had to attach a no-confidence clause to a committee referral motion on another matter. The vote was one in which the Government with its NDP allies and two independents (and two members missing) received 150, while the Conservatives and the separatist Bloc Québecois received 153.

The Liberals had lost!

But they marched out their Caucus whip and their strategists and their legal experts and every gun they could fire, including those members of the press who dote on them (especially in alliance with the NDP) - marched them all out to say the vote was on a procedural matter, so did not have the dignity or import of a Vote of Non-Confidence, which would obligate the Government to resign and go to the polls. One headline characterized this whole process as a Liberal attempt to "ignore" the non-confidence motion, but the whole ignoring ring protests too much. Martin, of course, realizes his stay in office this round has the slimmest of chances, but he clings to them, while yet readying himself and his party for the possiblity of losing the budget vote. He would prefer to lose on that issue rather than on the revelations of his role in the Adscam scam, now before the Gomery Commission.

The Tories (as the Conservatives are nicknamed) have declared, in the words their House Leader Jay Hill, "We believe that Parliament is finished."

One prospect daunts analysts. Martin could call for a vote on the budget and win. Or, he could call for a vote on the budget and somehow lose, in which case he could go to the polls and come out with another leading minority vote that would put him back in power until December when the full Report of the Gomery Commission is expected. If the Gomery Commission doesn't give Martin a clean bill of health, which seems hi-ly unlikely, then Martin is committed to resigning. And in that case, Canadians would be back at the polls for the third round.

Martin should resign now. He's failed.

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