Taken from a story by John Crosbie (Toronto SUN)
When PM Paul Martin now spins the need to wait for audits by the Gomery commission, he ignores the fact that you can't audit records that aren't there and that money laundering launders the paper trail so the crooked money doesn't appear in the books.
Crooks don't write cheques. Bags of money left in restaurants don't have
file numbers.
The real issue is whether Canadians, having had a Liberal government for so
long, now find that no one in the governing Liberal party, whether led by
Jean Chretien or Martin, is prepared to accept responsibility and
accountability for anything the Liberal government has done in the past or
will do in the future.
Will Canadians, after 138 years of democracy, accept such behaviour or
condemn and punish it?
Remember, Chretien regretted nothing and excused the outrageous behaviour,
patronage and corruption now revealed before Judge John Gomery, as necessary to keep Canada united. If this did keep Canada united for a few short years, the grave danger today is that this Liberal corrupt behaviour could result in the victory of Quebec separatists.
Canadian citizens and voters have to make clear whether they are prepared to tolerate such corruption in public life, or whether they are, as some think,
apathetic.
Chretien accepts no responsibility for any of these events, nor does Martin,
even though Martin was the finance minister from Quebec and agreed to
setting up the original $50-million discretionary national unity reserve for
Chretien's use in 1996.
After that, Martin heard no evil, saw no evil and spoke no evil until the
auditor general's report forced him to react.
I believe Canadians want the truth. They can have this by electing a new,
non-Liberal government.
The Martin government now attempts to defend itself by suggesting all
wrongful activities were conducted by a few people, unnoticed or unseen by
the party leaders.
But how can Martin think he has the "moral authority to govern" when he has
been in conflicts of interest, when he advanced his own interests with
respect to Canada Steamship Lines' use of Barbados as a tax haven, saving
CSL (his company) many millions of dollars in Canadian taxes?
BUREAUCRATIC ERROR?
Why did the government state that CSL benefited only $137,000 from
government business while Martin was finance minister and later have to
correct this to $161 million? Not a coverup, Martin said, but a bureaucratic
error!
How did it happen that Lansdowne Technologies, owned by CSL, was dropped off the list of declared assets in Martin's blind trust after 1995, while it
continued to receive millions of dollars in government business? Another
oversight?
If Canadian political life is to be improved, the electorate has to take an
active interest in the present state of Canadian politics and correct the
present one-sidedness.
The solution to the sponsorship scandal and the present Liberal corruption
lies in the hands of ordinary Canadian voters. As Bertram de Jouvenal wrote
recently, quoted by Beryl P. Waisman of Montreal, "A society of sheep will
give birth to a government of wolves."
Will Canadians leave in power a government of wolves or will they restore
competition, honesty and integrity to public life?
When PM Paul Martin now spins the need to wait for audits by the Gomery commission, he ignores the fact that you can't audit records that aren't there and that money laundering launders the paper trail so the crooked money doesn't appear in the books.
Crooks don't write cheques. Bags of money left in restaurants don't have
file numbers.
The real issue is whether Canadians, having had a Liberal government for so
long, now find that no one in the governing Liberal party, whether led by
Jean Chretien or Martin, is prepared to accept responsibility and
accountability for anything the Liberal government has done in the past or
will do in the future.
Will Canadians, after 138 years of democracy, accept such behaviour or
condemn and punish it?
Remember, Chretien regretted nothing and excused the outrageous behaviour,
patronage and corruption now revealed before Judge John Gomery, as necessary to keep Canada united. If this did keep Canada united for a few short years, the grave danger today is that this Liberal corrupt behaviour could result in the victory of Quebec separatists.
Canadian citizens and voters have to make clear whether they are prepared to tolerate such corruption in public life, or whether they are, as some think,
apathetic.
Chretien accepts no responsibility for any of these events, nor does Martin,
even though Martin was the finance minister from Quebec and agreed to
setting up the original $50-million discretionary national unity reserve for
Chretien's use in 1996.
After that, Martin heard no evil, saw no evil and spoke no evil until the
auditor general's report forced him to react.
I believe Canadians want the truth. They can have this by electing a new,
non-Liberal government.
The Martin government now attempts to defend itself by suggesting all
wrongful activities were conducted by a few people, unnoticed or unseen by
the party leaders.
But how can Martin think he has the "moral authority to govern" when he has
been in conflicts of interest, when he advanced his own interests with
respect to Canada Steamship Lines' use of Barbados as a tax haven, saving
CSL (his company) many millions of dollars in Canadian taxes?
BUREAUCRATIC ERROR?
Why did the government state that CSL benefited only $137,000 from
government business while Martin was finance minister and later have to
correct this to $161 million? Not a coverup, Martin said, but a bureaucratic
error!
How did it happen that Lansdowne Technologies, owned by CSL, was dropped off the list of declared assets in Martin's blind trust after 1995, while it
continued to receive millions of dollars in government business? Another
oversight?
If Canadian political life is to be improved, the electorate has to take an
active interest in the present state of Canadian politics and correct the
present one-sidedness.
The solution to the sponsorship scandal and the present Liberal corruption
lies in the hands of ordinary Canadian voters. As Bertram de Jouvenal wrote
recently, quoted by Beryl P. Waisman of Montreal, "A society of sheep will
give birth to a government of wolves."
Will Canadians leave in power a government of wolves or will they restore
competition, honesty and integrity to public life?
