The first report from Justice Gomery is due to be released in less than two weeks. according to the Toronto Star, the report will exonerate Prime Minister Paul Martin of any wrongdoing and pin the blame on former PM Jean Chrétien and some of his close cronies.
In Canada we are blessed with a leader who is totally believable when he says that he knows absolutely nothing about the fraud, theft, forgeries, money laundering and general corruption that was happening all around him when he was Minister of Finance. Former Liberal MP and america-basher, Carolyn Parrish had Fearful Leader dead on when she told the Globe and Mail that "he’s almost like a deer caught in the headlights".
The sponsorship scandal known as adscam will not affect the next election. Most Canadians have accepted the fact for some time that their tax money was wrongly and illegal diverted to Quebec advertising agencies and this fact was already taken into account during last year’s general election when the mighty Liberals were reduced to a minority. In the absence of a smoking gun proving wrongdoing on the current prime minister’s part, anything Justice Gomery writes will have little effect on Canadians when they next go to the polls.
"a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money".
The late Sen. Everett Dirkson (R-Ill)
The reality is that the amount of money that was squandered by the Liberal government during the sponsorship fiasco is beyond the comprehension of most Canadians. The government is always spending $5 million on this and $3 billion on that and it is difficult for ordinary Canadians to truly relate to these amounts. But when it comes to smaller sums of money that are misused by the government, their buddies and employees, people find it easier to relate these sums of money to their own experiences.
It’s no doubt hard for some people to walk into a Tim Horton’s for a coffee without remembering that they have also bought a Timmy’s for the former head of the Royal Canadian Mint, David Dingwall. Not only did they help to pay for his coffee, but so did the person who is serving the coffee; in Toronto, most likely an immigrant who got up at 4 o’clock in the morning and took two buses to get to his or her job. Dingwall earned a salary of $277,000 a year, yet doughnut shop employees, servers and Ph.D-holding cab drivers were required to pay for his coffee, doughnuts, chewing gum and who knows what else.
For many Canadian families, spending the $25-30+ that it costs to order pizza delivered in is not an insignificant amount of money. Yet there’s the Honourable Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Pizza Joe Volpe, spending in excess of $200 on pizza at the taxpayers’ expense. This is justified because he’s an important guy and discussing government business. No more immigrants unless Joe gets his pizza. Remember Volpe the next time you order a pizza.
The latest Liberal spending scandal to emerge involves the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It has been revealed that public servants in the ministry have squandered taxpayers’ money on such things as billing for meals while attending events that included meals and staying in foreign countries after business has been concluded and billing the government for their vacation. In one case, a public servant spent $6,000 on hotel rooms and meals to be with his spouse while she gave birth. Isn’t that touching? What other employer would provide that perk to an employee?
Of course there is one law for public servants who have been and will be dealt with severely by Paul "I’m mad as hell" Martin and another law for favoured political politicians and hacks like Volpe and Dingwall. as evidenced by Martin’s praise of David Dingwall in the House of Commons, when it comes to the big guys, the end justifies the means. They are entitled to their pizza, coffee and chewing gum; they do good work.
While not every political hack or public servant is guilty of paying no regard to other people’s money, what has been revealed so far is undoubtedly the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
The sponsorship scandal did not, and will not, bring down the Liberal government. But maybe--just maybe--David Dingwall’s chewing gum will.