CanPol: Gomery and a Looming Federal Election

[Drake Tungsten]

The reason that gay marrige is not the same as polygamy is mostly that gay marriage is no different from any other marriage in any meaningful way.

That's an incredibly subjective standard...

[notyoueither]

Why is that?

What is not subjective about saying that only men may marry women?

[Drake Tungsten]

That's not the subjectivity I was talking about. I was talking about your statement that there is no meaningful difference between traditional marriage and gay marriage. If you're going to base alterations to a venerable institution on something, it should at least be something that isn't obviously in dispute...

[Asher]

I'm going to abstain and ignore politics during the next election.

[Drake Tungsten]

I'm going to abstain and ignore politics during the next election.

The abstaining part worked out pretty well for me. Just wish I had done the "ignoring politics" part...

[Ben Kenobi]

Great, Asher abstains!

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
You could just as easily say the NDP hate social justice because they are pro abortion.

No. Social justice is about economy.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Great, Asher abstains!

Keep it up and I'll vote NDP!

[cinch]

I haven't seen any posts about Kilgour yet... Perhaps I am just blind.

Anyway, that's another interesting development...

I really have no idea who I'll vote for next election. As long as the Conservatives stay social reactionaries, there is no chance I'll toss a vote their way. I don't mind the NDP, but Layton does very little for me and I often think that there's a much better way the Left could be run.

Maybe I'll just hope that the Liberals purge the bile... At least a little bit, anyway.

[Ben Kenobi]

Keep it up and I'll vote NDP!

I dee double dare ya!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by cinch
I haven't seen any posts about Kilgour yet... Perhaps I am just blind.

Anyway, that's another interesting development...

I really have no idea who I'll vote for next election. As long as the Conservatives stay social reactionaries, there is no chance I'll toss a vote their way. I don't mind the NDP, but Layton does very little for me and I often think that there's a much better way the Left could be run.

Maybe I'll just hope that the Liberals purge the bile... At least a little bit, anyway.

I mentioned Kilgour and other possible Liberals to walk a couple of pages ago.

I would agree about Harper and some of his crew except that the damage they could do is considerably less than the damage that could be done by continually returning a party to power that has been caught red-handed with tens of millions of tax payers' dollars in their greedy little fists.

Harper might be able to pass a bill on traditional marriage that the Supreme Court would promptly toss. There is very little likelihood that he would dare use the notwithstanding clause. If he did, he would promptly be tossed at the next election.

I agree though, it is not a savoury choice.

[notyoueither]

Some interesting perspectives from the outside.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4429231.stm

Scandal anger mounts in Canada
By Lee Carter
BBC News, Toronto

As sensational revelations continue to pour out of a Canadian government corruption scandal inquiry, public anger is mounting across the country against the governing Liberals.

The larger question will be whether that anger will translate into calls for a new election less than a year after Canadians last went to the polls.

On Thursday explosive testimony from the previous week, by an advertising executive, was released for the first time, when the judge presiding over the public inquiry lifted a publication ban.

The inquiry is investigating how millions of dollars were paid by the Liberal government in the late 1990s to advertising firms in the province of Quebec, after Canada's auditor-general concluded that little or no work was performed and the money was largely unaccounted for.

'All the way to the top'

Under the leadership of the former Liberal Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, the so-called sponsorship programme was supposed to promote national unity in the primarily French-speaking province.

According to the allegations released on Thursday, Jean Brault, the owner of the Groupaction advertising agency at the centre of the scandal, claimed that illegal campaign contributions worth millions of dollars were also channelled back to the Liberal party through an intricate system of false invoices and cash payments.

And at the end of the week, a Groupaction employee alleged that some orders to the advertising agencies came directly from the Canadian prime minister's office.

Mr Chretien, who has already appeared before the enquiry, denies any wrongdoing.

His successor, Paul Martin, told the inquiry that although he was the country's finance minister at the time, he knew almost nothing about the programme and the missing millions.

Tantalising ban

Mr Martin came to office vowing to get to the bottom of the scandal.

But with each new revelation, public anger with the government seems to grow.

The opposition parties will be trying to gauge just how disaffected Canadians are with the Liberal's teetering minority government in the days ahead

The story was made all the more tantalising by the surreal sight of a media champing at the bit, but being unable to report any details for several days, because of Justice Gomery's publication ban, imposed because he felt it could prejudice a future criminal trial.

Instead Canadians heard such phrases as "explosive revelations considered so damaging they could topple the government" blaring out from their nightly TV news, without any details.

No smoking gun

Kady O'Malley, a journalist for the Ottawa parliamentary newspaper The Hill Times, says the media may have got carried away and become a victim of its own hype.

"You've got to wonder whether journalists' imagination were going a little crazy as they imagined colour photos of Paul Martin handing over big bags with dollar signs on them to Groupaction," she said.

"While there's definitely a lot of meat there and new things we didn't know before, the testimony generally supports what we've heard already."

Ms O'Malley also believes the opposition parties did not get the one piece of evidence they were looking for.

"If they thought there was a smoking gun linking the current prime minister, they were probably disappointed." she said.

'Soap opera'

The part of Canada where the scandal has been the number one issue for political debate is French-speaking Quebec, because that is where all the alleged corruption took place.

As most of the testimony has been in French it has been virtually treated as a ghoulish nightly TV soap opera by many in the province.

After all, the sponsorship programme was introduced to quell the separatist sentiment that led to a 1995 Quebec referendum that came within a hair's breadth of choosing secession from the rest of the country.

Benoit Dutrizac is a TV presenter for the French-language station Tele-Quebec.

He said people in the province are disgusted by what they are hearing from the public inquiry.

"To see all this quarrelling and money being wasted, I think they're really fed up with all this cheating and lying."

Separatism 'waning'

Mr Dutrizac said people in the province are also upset about how they might now be perceived by the rest of Canada.

"Canadians from other provinces probably see Quebeckers as opportunists, liars and thieves. That hurts me. I'm sure that Quebeckers see these French-speaking witnesses at the enquiry every day and feel embarrassed."

The Canadian media has even been debating whether the scandal will lead to renewed anti-federalist sentiment in the province.

But Mr Dutrizac says that separatist sentiment is declining, despite the scandal.

"The last time I checked about 40% of Quebeckers wanted a new deal with Canada," he said

"But frankly, nobody cares about that any more really. I think people want to hear real solutions to real problems."

Meanwhile the slightly more unreal world of Justice Gomery's public enquiry continues.

He is expected to make his final report in November.

It may however look like a crumpled footnote, if Canadians end up going to the polls between now and then.

Anybody know anyone who blames this mess on Quebec or the people who live there?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/04/12/canada.scandal.ap/index.html

Canada's Liberals scramble to save government
Tuesday, April 12, 2005 Posted: 7:18 AM EDT (1118 GMT)

OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- Canadians call it their Watergate -- a kickback scandal that has badly damaged the Liberal Party and now threatens to bring down the government of Paul Martin.

How long Martin can remain prime minister is anyone's guess. The halls of Parliament were rife Monday with speculation about whether new elections were around the corner.

The separatist Bloc Quebecois could introduce a confidence motion by Thursday, though the more powerful Conservative Party was hedging, knowing most Canadians are not keen on new elections.

Martin reiterated that he had nothing to do with the ethics fiasco, in which Liberal Party members are accused of having taken kickbacks from advertising agencies hired to promote federalism in the rebellious French-speaking province of Quebec.

"Not only do I have the moral authority, I have the moral responsibility," to keep the government afloat until the full inquiry into the scandal concludes in the fall, he said. "Canadians are entitled to ask someone to step forward and I'm the prime minister of this country. I can assure you that anyone who has been implicated is going to be punished."

Canadians don't seem to buying his argument. A poll published by the Toronto Star on Monday showed the Conservatives would easily win fresh elections if held today.

The poll indicates that only 25 percent of those questioned last week would vote for the Liberals. The Conservatives were backed by 36 percent, up 10 points from a survey taken in February.

The poll, conducted by EKOS Research Associates, surveyed 1,125 Canadians over voting age between last Thursday and Saturday and had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

"There is a depth of anger there. The Liberal Party is in deep, deep trouble," said Richard Simeon, professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

The scandal, based on a secret program that dates back to the 1990s and the Liberal Party leadership of former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, erupted anew last Thursday when a judge probing the alleged misuse of public funds lifted a publication ban on testimony by a Montreal ad executive.

The executive, Jean Brault, who faces fraud charges stemming from the now-defunct program, told the federal inquiry that senior Liberals forced him to secretly divert more than $818,000 to the party's Quebec wing in exchange for sponsorship contracts. During his six days of testimony, Brault spoke of hushed-up payments to Liberals in restaurants, money being given to a brother of Chretien, and reluctant contributions strong-armed out of employees.

Brault said he got $141 million in government business for his firm.

Chretien and Martin have vehemently denied any personal knowledge of wrongdoing.

The so-called "sponsorship scandal" outraged the public when it was uncovered in 2002, after the auditor general determined that $82 million from a $204 million national unity fund went to Liberal-friendly advertising firms.

The program was developed to promote national unity in Quebec following the narrow defeat of a separatist referendum in the French-speaking province in 1995. Advertising agencies with Liberal ties allegedly received millions of dollars in exchange for little or no apparent work.

The scandal led to a deep rift in the Liberal Party, in particular between Chretien and Martin.

Amid shouting in the House of Commons on Monday, a red-faced Martin told lawmakers he was the one who dissolved the program, convened the commission to investigate the project and filed lawsuits against 19 ad agencies to recover government funds.

Martin may still have to take the fall even if it is determined that he had no knowledge of the misuse of government funds.

"The problem with corruption, when it occurs -- and Watergate was a good example of this in the United States -- it undermines confidence in not just the people who are involved, but in the institution that they represent. That's the real worry," said Wesley Cragg, head of Transparency International Canada, a global anti-corruption coalition.

Anybody heard anyone call this Watergate?

[Wezil]

Originally posted by notyoueither

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/04/12/canada.scandal.ap/index.html

Canada's Liberals scramble to save government
Tuesday, April 12, 2005 Posted: 7:18 AM EDT (1118 GMT)

OTTAWA, Canada (AP) -- Canadians call it their Watergate -- a kickback scandal that has badly damaged the Liberal Party and now threatens to bring down the government of Paul Martin.

. . .

"The problem with corruption, when it occurs -- and Watergate was a good example of this in the United States -- it undermines confidence in not just the people who are involved, but in the institution that they represent. That's the real worry," said Wesley Cragg, head of Transparency International Canada, a global anti-corruption coalition.

Anybody heard anyone call this Watergate?

Nope. Although, we must be calling it that or CNN wouldn't report it.

Has anyone ever heard of this Wesley Cragg guy, or his organization? I wonder at CNN's sources.

[Wezil]

News just in: Pat O'Brien (Liberal - London-Fanshawe) is staying in the Liberal party.

He tried to find some personal integrity but just couldn't pull it off.

Oh well, makes it easier to cast my vote against him next time around.

[Seeker]

He tried to find some personal integrity but just couldn't pull it off.

"It just isn't ... me"


Of course the scary thing is if this is only an example of Lib Party corruption, how many other kickback programmes over the years have there been that never got caught?

Makes you think about all those vague allegations over the years are probably true now...

Guess this is what happens when it turns out your only ideology is power.