The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Scandals and taxes Canadian political scandals in the main deal with the misuse of tax money, as we must always remind ourselves that governments have little money other than that gleaned from its citizens. The sponsorship scandal continues to dog Paul Martin and his Liberal party whose public support dropped to 35% in late February. The Conservatives with 27% are on the rise and the NDP remain stuck at 17%. One Liberal MP quit the party and the caucus appears in disarray in spite of a Martin damage control tour of the country (at taxpayer's expense of course) which included Thompson and The Pas. News reports from the two northern centres downplayed the scandal as the PM played the Prime Minister charisma card for all it was worth. He is also facing the scandal head on and continues to blame Chretien and a small group of government employees for covering up the $250 million fiasco. Martin has fended off the hard questions such as: "How come the finance minister didn't know about a $100 million loss" or "How much of Martin's $12 million leadership campaign funds came from the Liberal ad firms who siphoned off the money?" Paul Martin has ordered a full inquiry but he really is between a rock and a hard place. If he calls an early election before the inquiry he will be accused of a massive cover-up by the opposition. If he waits, things could get worse especially for a number of Liberal MP's who face accusations about their personal involvement. There is a lot of tough anti-Martin talk coming from the opposition such as Peter MacKay's accusation: "We are not talking about blind trust today, we are talking about a blind eye turned by the Prime Minister." There is no doubt about what will be the opposition theme in the election campaign, if there is one. What will this do to the fortunes of Liberal candidates? One such prospective candidate, Reeve Kevin Chudd of Gimli, withdrew from the nomination, citing the scandal as his reason (he couldn't win Selkirk-Interlake anyways). Another is Norway House Chief Ron Evans of the Churchill Riding. Ron is an excellent candidate. He ran provincially for the Tories in The Pas in 1999 and almost beat Oscar Lathlin. He has since declared himself a Liberal Ð at least Federally. Until the Scholarship fiasco broke, Evans appeared to be a threat to the NDP and the new Conservative party, headed in Churchill Riding by Flin Flon's Nazir Ahmed who himself would be a strong candidate for the new party. An observer may wonder why the "minor theft" of $100 million would create a real crisis for the new Prime Minister, compared to a billion dollar loss by "boondoggle Jane Stewart" or the massive amount stolen in the Virginia Fontaine issue or the $2 billion dollar gun registry fiasco of Allan Rock and Anne McLellan. When the issue first broke, Chretien defended the program, saying it was still worthwhile even if a few million dollars were stolen. By the way, Martin does not agree, calling it a flawed way to promote national unity, and saying: "The end never justifies the means." There are probably one or two explanations for the fury. One is that the culmination of the sponsorship scandal with all the rest has finally got the attention of the press and public. Another is that Paul Martin has tried to put a fresh new face on a tired Liberal government, but is having difficulty as a 65 year-old insider who was Minister of Finance throughout all of the misuse of tax money. Opposition critics, questioning the expenditures, are also connecting with the public by pointing out how much $2 billion would help the provinces pay for medicare, and how much $250 million would do to help farmers in the continuing agriculture crisis in the west. For sure Canadians could think of many better uses for how to spend the tax money, or perhaps there should have been further tax cuts, as Canadians remain among the highest taxed workers in the world. To his credit and as he promised, the PM moved to punish those civil servants implicated in the sponsorship scandal by suspending the heads of Via Rail, the Business Development Bank, and Canada Post Ð all of whom were criticized by the Auditor-General in her report. Michel Vennat, B.D.B. chair, really was fired for his role in helping Chretien in the infamous 'Shawinigate' scandal and unfairly firing his predecessor . The scope of the scandal widened as the opposition turned its guns on Environment Minister David Anderson for using $50,000 of sponsorship money for a music festival he supported and also claimed Martin knew about it. As usual Anderson denies any wrong-doing. Will an election be held this Spring or delayed until Fall or next year? Martin has until late 2005 to hold the vote and many Liberal MP's are urging the PM to delay until the Inquiry reports and hopefully shows the present government to be blameless. The opposition shows no signs of easing the pressure with pre-election radio ads attacking Liberal corruption, the gun registry, and the Prime Minister. Every few days, more information comes out about the issue. One thing for sure, if a Spring election is called the dominant issue will be the scandals, a lose-lose situation for the government. Paul Martin might be best advised to take Will Roger's advice: "If you're riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there."
