National Post - April 22, 2005
Posted on 04/22/2005 5:13:28 AM PDT by GMMAC
Martin's pleas won't sway voters:
Arrogant Liberals will soon get the drubbing they richly deserve
The Edmonton Journal
Fri 22 Apr 2005
Page: A18
Section: Opinion
Byline: Lorne Gunter
Last spring, following the release of the auditor-general's report on the sponsorship scandal, Prime Minister Paul Martin commenced a cross-country tour to staunch his Liberals' precipitous fall in the polls.
Reporters nicknamed it the "mea culpa tour." It didn't work. Each day Martin was on the road, Liberal fortunes slipped.
In the same vein, Martin's nationally televised address Thursday evening should be known as the "please don't beat me speech."
It was pathetic -- pathetic because the prime minister would go to the country via television when there is no national emergency. (Sorry, Liberal crises aren't national ones, no matter what Liberals think.) Pathetic that he would go on television to defend himself and his party when he often no longer shows up in the House of Commons to face the opposition in question period. And pathetic for what he said.
Like a whipped puppy seeking reprieve from a cruel master, Martin seemed to be pleading with Canadians, "Please, please, please don't take the prime minister's job from me."
I might feel kind of sorry for him, if he hadn't done everything he could for more than a decade to force Jean Chretien out of office so the job could be his now.
And if he hadn't been the most powerful minister next to Chretien in Chretien's three governments.
Sorry, Mr. Prime Minister, your admission Thursday evening that "I am sorry ... that I wasn't more vigilant," just doesn't cut it.
You knew what was going on, or should have. You were in charge of all the government's money. You were on all the most senior government planning committees for Quebec throughout the entire Adscam period. You were a Liberal MP from Quebec throughout its six-year run. You represented a riding in the city where most of the criminality is alleged to have taken place -- Montreal.
You know almost all of the people involved.
You may not have discussed sponsorship contracts with them over lunch, but you lunched with them. You sent them greeting cards, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with them in cabinet meetings and on campaign strategy committees, bumped into them at fundraisers and social gatherings.
You might be entirely free of taint yourself -- never having accepted a dollar of sponsorship money or lobbied for a cent on behalf of others. Still, the dirty money swirled around you like dust in a whirlwind.
Some of it must have got into your eyes, unless, instead of you not being vigilant enough -- as you now claim -- you were wilfully blind.
You said "Public money was misdirected and misused." You claimed, "That's unacceptable."
Mr. Prime Minister, public money is misdirected and misused when it is wasted on useless programs; when, for instance (true story), the checks on applications are so lax that inmates in prisons and seniors wintering in Florida are paid millions in home heating grants from Ottawa.
When two billion dollars are pumped into a useless, malfunctioning gun registry, when a billion is directed into meaningless make-work projects, when hundreds of millions are poured into corporate loans that are never meant to be repaid, when tens of millions are used to give Canadians flags in the vain hope such empty symbolism will unite the country -- that is "misdirected and misused."
What happened in Adscam was theft. Public monies didn't go astray, they were stolen. That's not "unacceptable," it's criminal. And if any of the allegations being heard by Mr. Justice Gomery prove true, these were crimes being committed by people in your own party, people in close proximity to you. And if you once chose to ignore what they were doing, how can Canadians now trust you to clean up what until recently you refused to see?
Please, Mr. Prime Minister, please spare us all the sanctimony about what you have done to get to the bottom of this mess.
You resisted nearly three dozen opposition calls for a judicial inquiry before finally setting up the Gomery commission to save your political skin in the wake of the auditor-general's scathing report in February 2004.
You stuck with it when others in your party -- in your very party, Mr. Prime Minister, others you haven't even reprimanded -- were trying to shut it down this past January and February. Why? Because Stephen Harper threatened to trigger an election if you did and at the time you wanted very much to avoid an election because the same-sex marriage debate was at its height.
And you stick with it now only because closing it would be political suicide.
What's more, last spring your own MPs -- MPs acting on your orders, not Mr. Chretien's -- blocked all efforts by the House of Commons public accounts committee to get to the truth Judge Gomery is now hearing, then they voted to wrap up hearings before the most damaging witnesses could be heard -- all so you could call last year's election before your party's fortunes deteriorated further.
No, Mr. Prime Minister, you are not the diligent boy scout you would have us believe, caught up in someone else's wrongdoing.
You are a typical Liberal doing what typical Liberals do: putting party ahead of truth and country.
And it will soon be time, despite your pleas, for voters to deliver the drubbing you so richly deserve.
Lesson to Conservatives Everywhere:
This is what happens when moderate conservatives and strict conservatives stick together --- they can destroy liberalism.
When we fight amongst ourselves (ex:"Santorum must pay") we open the door for the rise of liberalism.
I hope that what the writer predicts will come true.
Have you noticed that the liberal US TV news media hasn't said one word about this major story in Canada? Maybe it's because it doesn't reflect well on Liberals/liberals.
I think this writer totally overestimates the intelligence, integrity and patriotism of liberal (democrat) voters. The prime objective of the lefties in Toronto and BC is to destroy the democracy and replace it with a quasi-Cuban, anti-American regime. Both Martin and Cretien were(are) thieves, anti-Amnerican/pro-socialist thieves, but that doesn't mean the Liberals will abandon Martin when there are so many Yankees to be hated.
"I'm to blame... I failed you... I wasn't doing my job... So vote for me again!"
I'm beginning to wonder if a diet so rich in schadenfreude is possibly harmful to one's health!
Meanwhile, pass me another deep-fried Liberal!
You are a typical Liberal doing what typical Liberals do: putting party interest ahead of truth and country.
Please let me know if you want on/off the Adscam ping list.
What Martin did last night help the CPC big time. People who didn't know anything about Gomery when watching the Martin on TV will say "gosh, this must be that bad".
I agree. Political suicide.
Yes I have noticed that. I must remind Mr. O'Reilly.
Not the part of B.C. I'm from. There are NO liberals sent from the Okanagan Valley that I'm aware of. We have sent the very best. Now Vancouver is another story. I notice that Martin is attempting to "buy" some B.C. votes with promises of money for this and that. I hope they tell him to shove it where the sun doesn't shine. It's not his money to give away anyway.
This "empty suit" spoke for all of 6 minutes too!! He's so brave huh? BARF!!
"Not the part of B.C. I'm from. There are NO liberals sent from the Okanagan Valley that I'm aware of. We have sent the very best."
We need a provinces (how about "canton") within a province and make sure all taxations belong to the provinces.
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