Paul Martin Addresses The Nation Canadian Politics - Sponsorship Scandal

[Wyllt 0]

Read his Address to the Nation Here

 

This is primarily for Canadians, but others may be interested as well.

 

Last night at 7:00pm Prime Minister Paul Martin Addressed the nation about the sponsorship scandal. For those of you who don't know the sponsorship scandal is something which is being investigated by an independant inquiry here in Canada. What happened was that the previous Liberal Government headed by Jean Chretien gave millions to several Liberal friendly advertising agencies for the sole purpose of generating commissions for those agencies. Paul Martin was the Finanace Minister at the time.

 

Paul Martin went before Canadians and claimed some of the responsiblity and said that justice would be sought and served. He also claimed he knew nothing about the Sponsorship Program while he was Finance Minister. Martin made a promise that once the Gomery Report (Gomery is the justice in charge of the inquiry into the scandal) was issued he would call an election within 30 days to take the issue to Canadians to see if the Liberals still deserver the role as the minority government.

 

I believe Paul Martin when he says he will pursue the guilty members of the Liberal Party, and even when he says that any money that made it into the party's coffers will be returned (although I believe this with considerably more sceptisism). What I think will happen though is that not a single Martini (Martini is the nickname given to Martin supporters during the battle between Chretien and Martin for the Leader of the Liberal Party, or essentially the Prime Ministership since a Liberal victory should have been a forgone conclusion if it hadn't been for the sponsorship scandal) will fall during the inquiry. I think Martin is (employs) (a) brilliant spin doctor(s) capable of ensuring that any incident that looks suspicious to his loyalists will be deflected, while every incident that looks suspicious pointing towards a Chretien loyalist will be brought to the full attention of Canadians. Martin has always been good at massaging the press to print what he wants them too, if you doubt it look into what was printed during the Martin v. Chretien battle, and what happened to Shiela Copps.

 

I hope to god he is lying about knowing about the Sponsorship Scandal. Not because I want to see him go down in flames. I am not a Martin fan, however I do respect him and I think he was one of the best Finance Ministers to ever hold that office. I think he is too conservative for my tastes, I am a liberal* and I think Martin is a Liberal in name only and he is on the far right of the political spectrum within the Liberal party (which still leaves him with many great liberal beliefs I know). I hope he is lying because otherwise he is just an incompetent fool. You see this is a clear cut case of damned if he did, damned if he didn't. Martin was Finance Minister and it was clearly his job to know where the money went. True Chretien and Martin were in a heated battle over leadership, but they had been since before Chretien even took office, so what changed. Sure Chretien was probably keeping Martin in the dark about many things, but come on we are talking about alot of money, it should have triggered some red flags in Martins mind. I would respect him if he admitted he knew but could do nothing about it since Chretien was keeping him on a very short leash, which is probably the case. Martin just wants to keep his nose clean on this one, but personally I wouldn't mind if Martin admitted to knowing about the program, the only way I would be upset is if Martin was a participant. Though I admit it would hurt him if he admitted to knowing but did nothing, but I would have hoped he at least tried to investigate what was going on, otherwise he was not doing his job that Canadian taxpayers paid him quite hansomly to do.

 

As to the election I know that many of the oppositon parties have slammed Martin for not calling an election now, but I say to them, why don't you want to wait for the report? Before the last election most were calling for Martin to wait for the inquiry, now they don't want to wait? Sure Martin is carefully trying to avoid both issues being on the table at the same time, but still if it is a damaging report bring it up in debates during the race, why call an election before all the evidence is in?

 

Luckily the NDP (always my second choice party) has been calling for the report to be completed before and election call, so at least one party is still votable. Not that I would vote Conservative even if Steven Harper (Cons leader) personally told me he would wait until the results and that he would do all my house hold chores for the entire term of his Prime Ministership. I don't trust the new Conservatives one bit. They can't hide the fact that they are more Reform/Alliance than PC, and the Reformers were scary, and the Alliance was terrifying.

 

Harper says he will put it to the country, but he is itching for an election, and has been since Liberals were given a minority government. He knows though that he can't force one without the Bloc and/or the NDP, plus if he forces one when the country wants to wait he will be hurt badly and the NDP will be the ones who gain the most. The Bloc have nothing outside of Quebec, and can't since they are a Quebec separatist party, so where would the votes go? Certainly not to the Liberals during such a scandal, some might actually go to the green party, but who really takes them seriously? NDP will be big winners, probably not enough to form a government, but certainly enough to be the powerhouse in a minority Liberal Government.

 

I hope Martin is prepared to attend Question Period today, the opposition are itching for thier chance to properly respond to his speach. Generally a statement such as this should have been done in the house and not in his office to the press. But Martin was smart in one respect and went straight to Canadians, knowing full well that in Question Period his statements would be drowned out by the oppostions yelling, and that 99.9% of Canadians have never watched Question Period so he would be relying on the press to publish his remarks along with thier comments, the only way to get his message out undiluted is to adress the nation in the manner he did.

 

So all you Canadians (and international Political followers alike) out there, what is your take on the PM's speach? Do you think the speach was just a political hail mary to try to save his floundering popularity? Will it work? Will the opposition be satisfied with a Jan 2005 or Feb 2006 election (which would be when the Gomery report will be released). Can the Liberals recover from this scandal or will they take a nose dive a la Kim Cambell's PC's. Kim Cambell was Canada's first female Prime Minister, she took over for Brian Mulroney and was made PM without an election since Cryin' Brian left before the election, when the election hit I believe only three or four seats went to the PC's and the party was crushed so terribly that they temporarily lost their official party standing. In all fairness to the right honerable Kim Cambell, the defeat of the PC party was only partly her fault, Cryin' Brian was one of the least popular PM's by this point and Canada was just itching to ditch the PC's thanks to NAFTA and the dreaded GST, but Cambell came out swinging hard and missed every attempt to bring the PC's back into the public mind.

 

 

*Note: I use the small "l" liberal since I am not a member of the Liberal Party, but rather believe in liberal ideals. In my writing when I use capital "L" I am refering to the Liberal Party and the lowercase "l" when refering to liberal ideals.

[xboxrulz 0]

well, since I'm still too young to vote, I liked the Green Party rather than Liberals, I knew they had something very wrong up their sleeves, and guess what? A scandal :@O well,xboxrulz

[whyme 0]

Pity no one takes too much note of this, I thought it was too extreme for Paul to go on prime time television, a sponsorship scandal is a problem that the Liberals need to deal with, not Canadians. Martin is stalling for time, and hoping that the Gomery inquiry will slowly fade away. Anyways, we here in BC already have enough to worry about with our May 17th Provincial elections. (GO NDP!)

[dark 0]

HiIt is rare when the canadians make the worldwide news but they did on that one. I guess there are really crocked people everywhere.Things should blow off quickly though.Patrick

[Wyllt 0]

well, since I'm still too young to vote, I liked the Green Party rather than Liberals, I knew they had something very wrong up their sleeves, and guess what? A scandal :@

 

O well,

 

xboxrulz

133207[/snapback]

Glad to see a youth taking an interest in Politics. Canadians are netoriously uninterested in politics, and for this reason I think the Canadian voters are partially responsible for scandals like this, we vote the crooks in with little thought, it takes very little effort to majorly change the face of a political party in Canada because there are so few people who are willing to do it.

 

Just because you are too young to vote doesn't mean you are too young to become active in politics. Most parties have a youth memebership policy which allows for people under the voting age to join and get involved in the party. I don't know if the Greens have this but you can always go to thier website and ask.

 

Hi

It is rare when the canadians make the worldwide news but they did on that one. I guess there are really crocked people everywhere.

Things should blow off quickly though.

 

Patrick

 

I sure hope things don't blow over too quickly, I would like to see this sorted out properly, and not swept under the rug.

 

Pity no one takes too much note of this, I thought it was too extreme for Paul to go on prime time television, a sponsorship scandal is a problem that the Liberals need to deal with, not Canadians. Martin is stalling for time, and hoping that the Gomery inquiry will slowly fade away. Anyways, we here in BC already have enough to worry about with our May 17th Provincial elections. (GO NDP!)

 

Why was it too extreme? I think Canadians should hear from the PMO like this more often, I know it came dangerously close to intrupting Survivor (which I am addicted to and would have a hard time turning on Paul Martin instead of those castaways ), but still it is nice to see the PM actually addressing an issue. Although this is a Liberal problem more than a Canadian problem, but the Liberals are the governing party, which makes it a Canadian problem, because I don't know about you but I want to know how crooked the crooks we put in office are.