Let Liberals, NDP put the public first (Barf alert)

Toronto (Red) Star ^ | 11/08/05

[Heartofsong83]

Let Liberals, NDP put the public first Nov. 8, 2005. 01:00 AM

Whatever the latest opinion poll may show, it's a safe bet Prime Minister Paul Martin would rather lead his Liberals into an election today, having been exonerated of personal wrongdoing in the sponsorship scandal, than at any time in recent months.

Angry as Canadians are with Jean Chrétien's $332 million fund to sell Canada in Quebec and the abuse that flowed from it, Martin emerged in the clear from Mr. Justice John Gomery's scathing report. Meanwhile Ottawa's budget surplus may hit $12 billion, the economy is booming, the jobless rate is at a 30-year low and wage gains are outpacing inflation.

Still, many Canadians are convinced Martin bears some unnamed responsibility in the scandal, and the resulting spasm of public anger and mistrust has pushed Stephen Harper's Conservatives ahead of the Liberals by a nose in at least one poll, giving all three opposition parties a sense that they can profit from an early election.

Whether that anger is sustainable is debatable. Voters already have had one healthy kick at the Liberals, denying them a majority in the June 2004 election. The main sponsorship culprits are no longer in government or the party. Passions may cool in the chill of a midwinter campaign.

Regardless of when an election is held, the nation could end up with a Parliament that looks more like the present one than anything else.

So New Democrat Leader Jack Layton may be doing no one any great favour by threatening to withdraw his party's support for the government in a confidence vote that could come as early as next Wednesday.

That would mean an election well before Gomery delivers his final report on Feb. 1, and well before the public has time to digest it. That report will lance the sponsorship boil by putting forward proposals to prevent any party from repeating Chrétien-era wrongdoing. Given that Martin has vowed to call an election within 30 days of the final report, it's hard to see what can be gained by rushing to the polls a few months earlier.

The opposition may face the voters' ire if they are seen to be forcing an election not on some principled disagreement with the government, but out of sheer opportunism.

Canada's distracted Christmas and New Year's season and the harshest winter months that follow are not the best time to invite a serious debate on the details of government ethical policy, the Kyoto Accord on climate control, the intricacies of health-care reform or tax policy.

Canadians would be better served by the Liberals and New Democrats spending the winter in a productive session, working together on the files that matter: reforming public ethics, improving health care, the environment, cities, housing and higher education. To his credit, Layton made skilful use of the NDP's leverage last spring, getting the Liberals to spend $4.6 billion in these areas. That rightly put the public interest first.

The federalist parties could also profitably use the next few months to offer the voters real policy alternatives, instead of overheated rhetoric.

Ethics will be a big part of the next campaign, winter or spring. But so will leadership, vision, economic management and social policy. It isn't going to be all-sponsorship, all-the-time. Canadians need to hear more from each of the parties, and from Gomery, on all of the files that matter before they cast their ballots.

[Heartofsong83]

Articles like this are the main reason that the Conservatives are not as high as they should be in Canada...

[RightWingAtheist]

It's hard to believe that there are people who take uninformed, knee-jerk ideological editorials like this seriously and base their own opinions around them...but there are.

[Heartofsong83]

I'm sure those pathetic Librano$ are hoping so, and such will rally the left-wing Liberal and NDP bases...hopefully it will backfire, it is the Red Star after all...