Politics: Canada: Bag is out of Cat: Gomery clears Martin, fawlts Chrétien; Klein: buck stops at Martin, formerly C's FinMin

Brian Laghi presents an analysis of The Gomery Report in The Globe & Mail, his presentation headlined, "Martin's exoneration gives him a chance to show leadership' (November 2, 2005).

Although it's a bit early to gauge whether the public agrees, Judge Gomery's report on the sponsorship program exonerated Mr. Martin, allowing the Prime Minister to begin talking once again about the big ideas he promised to bring to Canadian political life. Now, he's got to prove that he wants to.

Two months after he became Prime Minister, Mr. Martin's government was rocked by the report of Auditor-General Sheila Fraser, who identified widespread abuses in the Sponsorship program. The scandal has dogged Mr. Martin ever since, contributing mightily to the loss of the Liberal majority in last year's election.

But it has also forced Mr. Martin to create an improvisational style of governing that has led to accusations of an administration adrift. Survival has meant making off-the-cuff deals with the New Democratic Party [socialists], and reacting to events -- such as the recent removal from their homes of an Ontario aboriginal band -- rather than getting in front of them.

Whether the public will agree with Judge Gomery that Martin is clean and in the clear of Adscam [French: "la scandale des commandites" = literally, the scandal of the limited liability companies which received the monies spewed out by the Sponsorship program], as Laghi notes, is the prime question governing the fate of the Prime Minister.

My thawt is: when the pollsters go stats-hunting and the votes at the polls are counted after the next Federal Parliamentary election, we shall learn that aggregately the public doesn't give a damn. Gomery has signalled that we can get by, with Paul Martin; we need not trouble our consciences that Martin is tainted by the scandal that poured millions into Quebec following the Referendum on the province's independence. The "Yes" vote failed to win a majority, and the "No" side won the vote, to whatever extent illegal financing by the Federal Liberals played its role. The new monies, in part, seem to have helped keep the lid on in the post-Referendum period, in a very sullen province where independence failed by a slim margin.

What does le scandale des commandites mean for Canada? As another headline above yet another writer's column in the same newspaper (a pay-for article, sad to say) puts the matter, "By the time we vote, this'll all be dust in the wind."

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Don't miss! - Russ Kuykendall's "Ministerial responsiblity vs. responsiblity à la Judge Gomery
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• Buck stops with Martin, says Klein, as reported in The Edmonton Sun by Darcy Henton, Nov 2, 2005. In a veiled reference to Opposition Leader, Stephen Harper, as "the devil they don't know," Klein insisted that in Alberta, any leader who presided over finances when such a misappropriation of funds and accompanying cover-up took place, would have had to run off somewhere and hide from the public's wrath. Nevertheless, Klein also thinks that the vote-heavy provinces of Ontario and Quebec are used to excusing wayward political leaders in all sorts of matters.

They seem to get away with this kind of thing in Ontario and to some degree in Quebec," he said. "I guess the people there will vote for the devil they know rather than the devil they don't know."

Apparently no one expects any punitive repercussions for either Martin (as Finance Minister during the period of the scam) or his predecessor Jean Chrétien (who presided over the whole fiasco, and that's precisely what l'affaire has turned out to be, just another fiasco of politicos getting cawt with their hands in the cookie jar). No great moral disaster, no disqualifying concupiscence.

Indeed, Martin is already sailing nicely along. In two days, he opens the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Plato del Maro, Argentina, where His Glibness will effuse while the Bush / Chavez contestation transpires either nicely or in a conflagration (after all, Venezuela's Chavex is quite a Drama Queen).

• Klein thinks Prime Minister should resign, says CBC Calgary in an unsigned dispatch that reprises and supplies details on what's already been featured above in regard to Gomery's report and its aftermath. The article goes a bit futher as well:

Martin has forwarded Gomery's initial report to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to see whether charges should be laid, and expelled 10 people from the federal Liberal party.

Martin also said the Liberal party will repay $1.14 million to taxpayers.

John Williams, the Conservative MP for Edmonton-St. Albert, says Martin isn't going far enough to repair the damage caused by the Sponsorship scandal.

"We have to let Canadians know that this government is doing everything they can to save themselves and doing very little to run the country in a good and efficient manner," Williams said. "And if they can understand that everything this party does is for the benefit of the Liberal party and not for the benefit of Canadians, then I think they'll, as I said in the house earlier today, throw the bums out."

While Conservative Leader Stephen Harper called Tuesday for an immediate election, Williams says he doubts there will be one before Christmas.

So, in our little survey we have on the scene, the following characters - Gomery (Judge), Martin (Prime Minister, former Minster of Finance, Liberal), Chrétien (former Liberal Primed Minster), two Tory MPs - Williams and Leader of the Opposition, Stephen Harper. What about the other two parties in the House of Commons?

• Layton squeezes Grits. Oh yes, "Grits" is an old nickname for Liberals, if you don't know or perhaps have forgotten; and "Layton" is the name of "Just call me Jack" Layton, Leader of the fourth party in the Commons, the neo-socialist New Democratic Party.

Jack has kept the minority government of Paul Martin in power. Martin's Liberal Caucus in the Commons just doesn't have enuff votes to hold the reigns without outside help. In exchange for concessions and deals, Layton has been happy to keep Martin at the helm of government and the Liberal Party has thereby remained in power, even as a minority. Citing a National Post report, Maisonneuve's Philippe Gohier on Nov 2 summarizes the complexities nicely:

the NDP has given Paul Martin’s Liberal government until tomorrow to come up with a plan that would limit the private sector’s encroachment in health care if it wants to retain the NDP’s support in parliament. Should the government refuse to do so, Jack Layton’s party “will have to make a decision accordingly.” That decision may very well be to join the Bloc Québecois and the Conservative Party in toppling the Liberal minority. Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe told reporters yesterday that “the best way to have a judgment is go for an election. I'm ready to go in an election ... any time.” Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper echoed Duceppe’s statement, saying he is “willing to submit to the judgment of the Canadian people at any time, including right now,” but also cautioned that he would not attempt to force an election without the support of both the Bloc and the NDP. In order for the government to fall, the Liberals would have to grant an “opposition day” in Parliament during which a confidence vote could be held and presumably lead to the defeat of Martin’s minority government. The Liberals have already stated they would not be granting any opposition days until the week of November 14—at which point the defeat of the government would force an election during the Christmas holidays, an unlikely and undesirable situation. Duceppe has appealed to Martin to grant an opposition day as early as this week.

Gohier goes on to spell out the neo-socialists' bottom-line:

Published polls consistently show NDP support stagnating in the upper teens and thus, unlike the surging Bloc, Layton has little interest in an election. He is gambling that his party can gain credibility by forcing the Liberals’ hand and effectively dictating federal policy. But Martin may choose to simply ignore Layton, as well as Duceppe and Harper.

The surging Bloc Qiébecois, Federal party of the Québec separatists, or les indépendantistes as they would prefer to be known, or as les souverainetistes," the third party in the Federal House of Commons, led by Gilles Duceppe.

• Chrétien strikes back against scathing Gomery Report, reports Allison Dunfield and Terry Weber,The Globe & Mail, Nov 1, 2005. The once-almighty Jean Chrétien stands alone, with all the Martin forces in the Federal Liberal Party stumbling over one another to make sure the distance between them and Jean is far and deep. Clamouring on the sidelines are the Tories, the neo-socialists, and the separatists.

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien struck back against the conclusions of the Gomery report on the sponsorship scandal that partially blamed him Tuesday, saying he would seek a review of the findings in federal court.

Mr. Justice John Gomery's first report, released earlier in the day, which had a mandate to examine how the scandal came about, placed some of the responsibility for the sponsorship scandal on Mr. Chrétien. It did not, however, place blame on Prime Minister Paul Martin's current government.

Mr. Chrétien denied that he was to blame for the scandal, saying that Judge Gomery had made errors.

"Mr. Justice Gomery determined that the office of the Prime Minister administered the sponsorship program. There is no evidence before him to support that allegation." [Chrétien] said he would be making an official submission within 30 days.

Jean fites on. But Gomery's report shows little intimidation by the feisty fury. who today was said on CTV News to "look like a man without a friend."

"The Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff [Jean Pelletier] arrogated to themselves the direction of a virtually secret program of discretionary spending to selected beneficiaries, saying that they believed in good faith that those grants would enhance Canadian unity."

Whether or Martin's government falls this week or hangs on until February, when an election does occur, and again whether or not Martin is returned to office by an electorate that proves still wary of Stephen Harper's Conservatives, the Adscam affaire surely will mark a watershed in Canadian politics, and it will take a while to measure the full impact. Things will not be the same; the Liberal Party will not be able to throw its weight about, without regard to the consequences. - Owlb