Paul Martin
by Lon Allen at
Dystopiad.com
- December 2005 -
After twelve years of successive Liberal governments, big business is smiling - not as wide as they would be under a Conservative government but smiling nonetheless: profits have risen to an unprecedented 14% of the GDP, while the rich and upper middle class have pocketed most of the $100 Billion in tax cuts the Liberals unveiled in 2000.
Not even close for the working class - while the official unemployment rate is the lowest in decades, millions of working people are having a tough time just making ends meet due to stagnating incomes, rising inflation, and a proliferation of minimum wage and low-paying jobs. Not to mention years of funding cuts and privatization of public services and social programs by all levels of government.
Also hypocritical is the government's position on the Iraq war. While the Liberals under Jean Chretien decided not to have Canadian troops formally join the coalition in Iraq, they assisted the U.S. occupation in other ways, including a naval expeditionary force in the Persian Gulf, and sending Canadian Armed Forces personnel to Afghanistan.
In recent weeks, it has also come to light that Canada's peacekeeping and country rebuilding role in Afghanistan is being eroded in favor of eventually replacing U.S. troops in propping up Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government. We are already seeing the results of this policy shift by way of bodybags returning to Canada. As Canada's involvement grows, so will the body count. So much for Canada's 'Global Peacekeeper' status.
Since the invasion of Iraq, Canada continues to provide assistance to the U.S. by giving aid and diplomatic support to the puppet government the U.S. has established in Baghdad, as well.
PM Martin has also announced plans to legislate a ban on handguns in Canada - I assume this is a sister project to the wildly spectacular failure of the National Gun Registry program. Way to go Paul - take handguns off the streets and put them back into the hands of criminals where they belong.
Anyway, this is supposed to be more about corruption than incompetence - not always in government, but always in close proximity, it seems.
Below are some of the recent and ongoing government-related scandals that have surfaced recently and the thread or theme that runs through it all seems to be one of greed - apparently, these folks have no difficulty proving themselves to be the self-serving pack of weasels they are.
Everybody knows about the Sponsorship Scandal so, rather than go into any great detail, I would just refer you to your daily newspaper and you can draw your own conclusions.
Then there's the matter of David Dingwall's severance package. Dingwall, president of the Royal Canadian Mint, resigned his post within hours of his lavish expense bills being discovered.
It didn't end there, though - the government claimed Dingwall was legally entitled to a generous severance package even though he voluntarily quit and suggested they were legally obligated to pay him. However, Revenue Minister John McCallum could not cite the law that applied to Dingwall's case. This doesn't sit well with the Canadian public - especially those who quit their jobs and not only didn't get a severance package, but couldn't even qualify for Employment Insurance Benefits! The obvious double standard is typical and none of the parties can claim innocence here.
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew is defending his decision to take his chauffeur with him on two foreign trips even though he didn't drive him anywhere. He claims the chauffeur was required for security purposes; but unnamed Liberals quoted in the media described Pettigrew's excuse as "lame."
The chauffeur recently took a leave of absence from his job but Pettigrew maintains it was unrelated to the controversy.
It's also recently come to light recently that government cabinet ministers have become jetsetters and are taking unfair advantage of their access to the government's fleet of Challenger jets. According to CPAC and Le Devoir, since Martin came to power, ministers have taken $335,000 in "questionable" flights when commercial airliners could have been used. Trips taken to their ridings by Deputy PM Anne McLellan and Finance Minister Ralph Goodale were highlighted in the CPAC story.
There also seems to be something brewing involving a Canadian firm working in Africa that gets funding from CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). CIDA is saying little - other than it has referred the matter to the RCMP for investigation into possibly criminal matters.
Also, the federal government and Hewlett-Packard are suing the bureaucrat named in a scandal where $146M was spent for computer maintenance subcontract work that was never done.
A top Canadian diplomat in Beijing has resigned after reports surfaced that he was being investigated for allegedly seeking bribes ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 in exchange for visas from already rejected Canadian student visa applicants.
A former PCO (Privy Council Office) administrative assistant got a year of house arrest for stealing $16,000 with forged phoney travel advances and a $2M loan from the softwood lumber assistance plan was given to a prominent B.C. Liberal who happens to own a lumber mill.
A B.C. Liberal accused the government of skirting competitive bidding rules by allowing fake invoices for small flag suppliers as part of the Heritage department's efforts to hand out one million free Canadian flags; and reports of wild spending of funds earmarked for a native addiction center in Manitoba called the Virginia Fontaine Addictions Foundation.
Of course, there's the obvious, ongoing conflict-of-interest issues surrounding Martin's family-owned shipping firm, CSL (Canadian Steamship Lines); and a Canada Customs and Revenue Agency employee has been arrested for allegedly seeking up to half a million dollars in bribes from companies seeking tax breaks.
And then there's the Public Works official charged with allegedly writing $250,000 in government cheques to himself while working at RCMP headquarters before he retired.
I'm not sure why, but politics seems to infect everything it comes in contact with leaving an expensive mess that the taxpayer usually pays for one way or another. The problem is, whenever the offending party is given the boot, the replacement simply picks up where it's predecessors left off and the cycle begins all over again.
How long will this nonsense go on? Who knows, perhaps when we stop being an army of whistlers marching past the graveyard and start paying attention.
One thing is pretty certain - nothing will change unless we make it perfectly clear to Martin, Harper, Layton, and the rest of their crowd that we're onto, and tired of, their bullshit and they had better start thinking seriously about delivering up something better. Replacing governments doesn't end the game, it just changes the players. Our leaders, whatever their political stripe, need to upgrade and take to heart their often-mentioned but seldom-practiced code of ethics; although I suspect turning this mess around may be like turning a battleship around with a wooden paddle.