Gomery Inqurery

[calgarydave]

Anyone else read what the publication ban is keeping from us?

 

If this stuff comes out, I wouldn't be suprised if the government will fall and we'll be having an election soon.

[Dan #2]

I saw on the telly that an american has access to all that funk, and posts it on his blog, but i haven't seen it. Might end soon.

[Claire]

I went to the Gomery Inquery two times this week. It's the best show I ever seen ! Gomery is the a great humorist.

 

When the publication ban will be off, you'll get to hear some terrific stuff. It's worth waiting.

[Moonlight_Graham]

Well, frontpage news all over the country has the Liberals completely ripping us Canadians off again and stealing our money for their own corrupt purposes.

 

And yet people still vote for these fucking cunt-wads. I'd vote anybody before these morons. When are we going to make these bastards accountable???

[no yu begin wher i end]

When are we going to make these bastards accountable???

[ecnarf]

^ sad but true

[wonks]

Well, frontpage news all over the country has the Liberals completely ripping us Canadians off again and stealing our money for their own corrupt purposes. 

 

And yet people still vote for these fucking cunt-wads.  I'd vote anybody before these morons.  When are we going to make these bastards accountable???

this news isn't exactly new...it was thought that this most recent minority was punishment for the Liberals. Hell, when I voted Liberal in the last election I knew perfectly well that the outgoing government was corrupt as hell.

 

I'm just terrified of Stephen Harper.

 

Liberal fortunes tied to Harper

PM done if Tories do well in Ontario

 

THOMAS WALKOM

 

It's true that this week's revelations from the Gomery inquiry can only hurt Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals. The apocalyptic headlines surrounding the latest instalment of the sponsorship scandal ("explosive," "bombshell," "smoking gun") do reflect some level of reality.

 

But in battleground Ontario at least, a good many voters made up their mind about both Martin and his Liberals long ago — certainly well before the secret testimony of ad man and alleged fraud artist Jean Brault was made public on Thursday.

 

They are sick to death of the federal Liberals and would desperately like to find some other party they can vote for.

 

And while I suspect that few actively dislike Martin, I'm also picking up a growing feeling of disappointment in him — a sense that he's a fine fellow, an able finance minister, but not someone who's up to the top job.

 

For these Ontarians, the real issue is not how much farther the Liberals fall. Rather it is whether they can ever be persuaded to trust the man most see as the only plausible alternative, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

 

This is pretty much where this province was during last year's election campaign. It wanted to kick the Liberals out of office. But at the last minute, it couldn't bring itself to vote for Harper.

 

If I'm right (and I have to confess that this analysis is not based on scientific polling), then there are interesting implications for the two men.

 

The first is that Martin may not be able to disentangle himself from the sponsorship scandal.

 

True, most of the alleged abuses happened when Jean Chrétien was prime minister. True also that it was Martin who called the public inquiry under Justice John Gomery. People understand both of these things.

 

But in the end, neither matters. People also understand that the same Liberal party has been running the country since 1993. And while those intimate with Liberal politics see sharp distinctions between Martin and Chrétien supporters — particularly in the scandal-ridden Quebec wing — to most people, they are all the same bunch.

 

In any case, wasn't Paul Martin virtually Chrétien's co-prime minister? That's how the then-finance minister portrayed himself. It's an analysis that a good many Canadians bought.

 

Which brings us to Martin's own problem: Now that he's running the show solo, he appears strangely incompetent.

 

Nothing has worked out. He almost lost the election he was supposed to win handily. He was bullied by Quebec and Alberta on the 2004 health deal and then bullied again into handing over vast gobs of equalization money by Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams.

 

Martin has revealed himself as such a target that even Ontario's Dalton McGuinty is trying to cadge an extra $5 billion.

 

As leader of a minority government, Martin has few choices. But when forced to accept the politically inevitable (as he did when he refused to sign on to the U.S. missile defence scheme), he appears vacillating rather than shrewd.

 

He has never managed to explain why he wants to be prime minister. He does not seem to relish even the game of politics.

 

The fact that he changes his mind makes him no different from most leaders (which is why the "Mr. Dithers" label is unfair).

 

But unlike more successful politicians, from Pierre Trudeau to Brian Mulroney, when Martin makes a U-turn, he looks manifestly embarrassed — as if he disapproves of himself.

 

In the case of the sponsorship scandal, the more Martin tries to distance himself, the more he risks playing into the image of his own incompetence.

 

I suspect most people believe him when he says he knew nothing of the affair.

 

But the logical question then is: How could that be? How could a person who was finance minister, a senior Quebec Liberal and the second most important figure in government be so clueless as to have no idea of what was going on in his own backyard?

 

Theoretically, Martin could win the next election. Voters in this province may hold their noses one more time. But this will happen only if Ontarians continue to think they have no other choice.

 

If Harper is able to present himself as that choice, as a rational human being rather than a chilly neo-con fronting for a party of loons, Martin is finished.

 

Over the last few months, the Conservative leader has been making a credible start on this front. It's this that should alarm the Liberals, not Gomery.

 

edit: I know it's really long, but the bolded part basically shows why Harper won't be able to win the next election as easily as some people seem to think.

Edited April 9, 2005 by wonks

[Seanathon]

Well that's pretty much why I voted liberal last election too. Most likely won't be in the upcoming election, but I won't be voting for Harper either. NDP all the way? ;)

[wonks]

I'm still voting Liberal because I know the NDP can't form a good government.

[Moonlight_Graham]

Yes Harper is scary. Yes the NDP are scary in the exact opposite kind of way. Canadian democracy sucks right now.

 

I hope the Conservatives get rid of Harper and find someone more towards the center.

 

Liberals = New York Yankees?

 

The Evil Empire? ;)

[supercanuk]

One of those, stick with the devil you know situations. The more likely alternative is not any better, and in fact, worse. And the best possible scenario ( NDP ) will not happen, especially this election.

[Matt]

To me, the N.D.P. is not the best scenario actually. The truth of the matter is, they would ruin our economy thus losing dollars to help fund their social programs. See when you raise the business mans taxes, more often than not, he does not pay for it, but the little guy does. The business man has control of the cost of his goods and/or services. So this leaves the little guy with less buying power which forces lay offs to cover the cost that is no longer coming in. This also reduces the general publics buying power further which means more lay offs, this cycle will most likely repeat until a reccession is reached, and could possibly even lead to a depression. So as less tax dollars coming in to pay for social programs and a now higher cost of living instead of helping the little guy, his situation has actually been worsened.

[wonks]

yeah, I'm with Matt on this one. The NDP have a nasty habit of running economies into the ground. It happened in Ontario with Bob Rae, and it happened in BC.

[supercanuk]

Yah but i think every province has a problem with one of the main three political parties, becuase lets face it, they've all screwed up. Yay Anarchism.

[Bizud]

To me, the N.D.P. is not the best scenario actually. The truth of the matter is, they would ruin our economy thus losing dollars to help fund their social programs. See when you raise the business mans taxes, more often than not, he does not pay for it, but the little guy does. The business man has control of the cost of his goods and/or services. So this leaves the little guy with less buying power which forces lay offs to cover the cost that is no longer coming in. This also reduces the general publics buying power further which means more lay offs, this cycle will most likely repeat until a reccession is reached, and could possibly even lead to a depression. So as less tax dollars coming in to pay for social programs and a now higher cost of living instead of helping the little guy, his situation has actually been worsened.

Free market is a joke, dude. If there was any truth to your statements the economy of, for example, Norway would be in the hole instead of booming, and the United States wouldn't have more debt than any other nation. You can have high taxes without "wrecking the economy," most of Europe does.

 

yeah, I'm with Matt on this one. The NDP have a nasty habit of running economies into the ground. It happened in Ontario with Bob Rae, and it happened in BC.

 

Yeah, way to name two examples of NDP regimes that experienced economic hardship, don't mention any other NDP governments that didn't experience similar hardship, and don't even comment on other parties' records at all. In fact, every party has more or less the same record in that department, actually - the only party with any serious "bad" economic record is Liberals (across the board, federally and most provinces), who have generally run more deficits and higher deficits. The NDP/CCF, provincially, have generally the best record of reducing debt (esp. Saskatchewan). The health of the economy other than that has very little to do with who's in power at the time (if anything, it probably has more to do with who was in power two or three years prior, but even that's pretty minimal). The whole "Socialists can't manage economy!!!" thing is just the obvious and predictable reaction of the business class to a credible leftist/labour-based party having the nerve to stick their nose where they don't belong. Look outside this continent for examples disproving it, they're not hard to find. Despite how progressive we all like to think we are, it's only compared to the US that Canada doesn't look like the business-controlled society it is, and the falsehoods the media is all too happy to circulate about the NDP ("fudge-it budgets," etc) are just part of that.

 

Finally, though the Conservatives and Bloc will clearly make the most gains out of this, I think a lot of votes will swing to the NDP, especially if the Liberals are disgraced enough and Harper comes out strongly against same-sex marriage. Especially if the NDP do well in BC's upcoming election.

Edited April 10, 2005 by Bizud

[Matt]

The economy was doing fine in B.C. until the N.D.P. came along, they ran deficit budgets, and by their own admission admitted they could not afford to pay for all the social programs, one year, at the rate the costs were mounting up. To say the N.D.P. had anything to do with it three years prior does not work, because the three years in between have to well managed period, and the Liberals were the ones who made the cuts. Now that more money is coming in, the Liberals are putting more money back into the programs. The booming economy under the Liberals, not wasting money on such programs as Fast Cat Ferries, but creating actual job opportunites, are what made a balanced budget possible. It was the B.C. Liberals, not the N.D.P. who made the biggest payment towards paying off the debt in B.C. history.

 

The Federal Liberals have worked on job creation, but I think most importantly it is time to pay off the debt. The more money we are not spending on interest from past loans every year is more money we can spend on social programs. The federal Liberals also balanced the debt, where as the N.D.P. have never had a majority federal government to date, so they could not be responsible for the Liberals balancing the budget there. If anything Mulrooney helped with that, but would we credit his mistakes as help towards the Liberals? Maybe he helped spur them into the position to have the power to balance the budget, but he certainly did not do it himself when he had the chance.

[Bizud]

When you can't pay for everything, you raise taxes or you borrow money. Under no circumstances should services be cut. Priorities. Decent social programs are human rights; low taxes are a luxury.

 

The economy was doing fine in B.C. until the N.D.P. came along, they ran deficit budgets, and by their own admission admitted they could not afford to pay for all the social programs, one year, at the rate the costs were mounting up. To say the N.D.P. had anything to do with it three years prior does not work, because the three years in between have to well managed period, and the Liberals were the ones who made the cuts. Now that more money is coming in, the Liberals are putting more money back into the programs. The booming economy under the Liberals, not wasting money on such programs as Fast Cat Ferries, but creating actual job opportunites, are what made a balanced budget possible. It was the B.C. Liberals, not the N.D.P. who made the biggest payment towards paying off the debt in B.C. history.

 

The fastcat fiasco was a dumb move, but really, look at the economic records of parties besides the NDP, and you'll see that they're all about the same; it's just that the media holds the NDP to a greater standard, for obvious reasons; the people who own the media vote for who again?

 

Finally, the Liberals have yet to make a single payment towards the debt, they've only forecasted to do that this year - and that's after running the biggest deficit budget in modern BC history (2001-02).

 

The Federal Liberals have worked on job creation, but I think most importantly it is time to pay off the debt. The more money we are not spending on interest from past loans every year is more money we can spend on social programs. The federal Liberals also balanced the debt, where as the N.D.P. have never had a majority federal government to date, so they could not be responsible for the Liberals balancing the budget there. If anything Mulrooney helped with that, but would we credit his mistakes as help towards the Liberals? Maybe he helped spur them into the position to have the power to balance the budget, but he certainly did not do it himself when he had the chance.

 

Most of that has nothing to do with anything I said, so I'll just say this: The debt could have been long paid off if we'd crank taxes. Look at Norway. They have much higher taxes, much less in the way of natural resources, a prosperous economy, zero debt, and the highest quality of life according to the UN.

[Matt]

Listen to this? It mentions how they have paid down the debt at one point. $1.7 Billion towards the debt. $125 million saved a year in interest costs.

 

And raising taxes or taking debt is un-acceptable because it leaves less for future generations. It's the reason were in this situation now.

[Bizud]

Yeah, the payment is on the current budget, guy.

 

So, no mention of the Norwegian example, then. Okay, chief.

[Matt]

Did you ever think that perhaps that they raised tax to such a level that competively the business could not raise the price? Or perhaps they raised the prices at the rate of wage increases, something North American business' have failed to do in the past.

[Bizud]

Yeah, that's...exactly it, actually. It's called market socialism. If corporations try to raise their prices because they're upset at having to pay a fortune in taxes, they won't be able to compete with smaller businesses who aren't being taxed at the same levels.

[Matt]

Actually many people would be layed off here to cover the costs of money that is lost. This would have more people out of work, needing help from the government. The more people the government has to help, the less money there is to help them with.

Edited April 12, 2005 by Matt