Politics: Canada: Political party rankings frozen in favour of Liberals, dang!

About 10 days ago, I recall seeing stats on the relative rankings of Canada's federal parliamentary poiitical parties - by now, even refWrite's American readers know the gang by name ... Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, and Bloc Québecois. Maybe I ran across variations on the theme in the time since; so I went searching in my URL bank (what is called with considerable assininity "bookmarks") - and sho'nuff I came across the live link of my title in this blog entry.

The ranks for federal parties then was

Libs ......38%
Tories ...25%
NDP ..... 15%
Bloc Q .. no proportion given, another asininity ...

"The Liberal lead of 13 points was up from 7 points in a September poll by the same firm," Strategic Counsel - according to Randall Palmer's "Canadian opposition threat to government dwindles," Reuters (Octobr 19, 2005) picking up a Globe & Mail item of the same day.

Palmer goes into the details of how the Liberal Prime Minister, Paul Martin, and his party cohorts have consistently outmanoeuvered Tories, socialists, and Québec nationalists. Indeed, I would underscore that Martin has done so despite there being that Sword of Damocles hanging over his head - the forthcoming and forthcoming and forth-yawn-coming report on Liberal party chicanery that has been investigated by the Martin-appointed federal Commission of Judge Gomery (drawn for the task from the Québec Supreme Court).

The scandal involves millions of dollars absconded by phoney and slush payments from Federal coffers to advertizing firms in Québec. ostensibly to pay for pro-federal Canada's side in the referendum contrived by the Québec nationalist separatists of the provinical party, Parti Québecois - yes, with which the federal party, Bloc Québecois, has considerable ideological affinity. The Adscam debacle (in French, le scandale des commandites [scandal of the limited liablilty companies]) enraged Québec at the time, in part because it gives the impression that the Liberal Party in power in Ottawa had bawt the "Yes" win that kept la belle province in Canada. But, as I 've ;pointed out before, not all the Liberal largesse from the people's funds actually did pay for any advertizing of any sort - much of it was simply billed for no task completed nor even undertaken, no work or service or goods whatsoever, just slush money to the firms. Of course, there seems to have been a transmission of a considerable of such slush back into the coffers of - not the Federal Canadian government - but the coffers of the federal Liberal Party of Canada. These are the contours of the scandal that should have long ago brawt down the pitiful government of the crafty Martin and his minions.

However, the disgrace is not on Martin and his fed Libs for their survival instincts and skillful self-protection. It's the socialists and the Q nationalists in the Fed Parliament who disgraced the country by not joining with the Tories in casting out the scammatics. But: pause, if you will, because the errant parties looked at the public opinion polls and the decision they made seems to have been governed by the conviction that the public simply didn't want another election so soon, and could live with whatever skulduggery in which Martin and his fed Libs may have been involved. The press tends to play the angle that no matter how stinky Martin is, Stephen Harper's Conservatives are even less trusted to head a government. The socialists, meantime, are working to insinuate their influence into the Liberal program; but a recent round of negotiations toward that end left the NDP leader, Jack Layton, bruised by Martin's No! The issue was the NDP's attempt to extract a promise from the Martin Libs to deny Fed funding to any province that permitted a "two tier" health care system (where "two tier" stands for mixed delivery by government non-profit tax-financed and for-profit health facilities and doctors).

Whatever the stats for party ranking, refWrite supports a two-tier system where every doctor has to give at least one full day of medical work gratis to clinics for the poor. No doctor should be permitted to entirely opt out; at the same time, no doctor should be forced to serve only within government facilities. How waiting lists can be evened out and speeded up is a further matter, but should not obviate against the need for a two-tier system. - Owlb

For an early hi-intensity francophone view "Le Scandale des commandites, un crime d'État," by Jean-Marc Rioux, Québec-Politique, March 24, 2004.