For all of the attention that has been placed on the sponsorship scandal and the subsequent release of Part I of the Gomery Report, the corruption, theft, fraud and money laundering that took place in Quebec hasn’t seemed to hurt the Liberals’ re-election chances.
a CPaC/SES nightly tracking poll has seen the Liberals go from the high 30s to the low 40s in support. although it is early in the campaign and the increase in Liberal support since the election was called is statistically meaningless, these polls indicate that the sponsorship scandal is having little effect on the voters.
a recent Ipsos Reid poll confirmed what should not come as any surprise. When asked "What do you consider the most important issue in the federal campaign?" 29 per cent of respondents answered "health care". This was more than double the 12 per cent of those who felt that "corruption" was the most important campaign issue.
The sponsorship scandal is not being played up in the current campaign, at least outside of Quebec. and for good reason. The Liberals quite naturally don’t want to talk about it. If the Conservatives spend too much time dwelling on corruption they will have less time to get their message out. Paul Martin will then be able to go back to the accusations that they have a "hidden agenda", a tactic that worked so well in 2004. and the more the NDP speak about the sponsorship scandal, the more people will remember that the most corrupt government in Canadian history is the on again off again best friend of NDP leader Jack Layton.
If the sponsorship scandal, with its kickbacks and theft of millions of dollars from the Canadian taxpayer wasn’t enough, the Liberals are now embroiled in a new scandal. Evidence has emerged that some Canadians were given prior notice of Finance Minister Ralph Goodale’s announcement that the rules on income trust would not be changed and that tax credits on corporate dividends would be increased. In the hours preceding the announcement there was a flurry of heavy trading of income trusts and dividend paying stocks. a spokesperson for the Canadian association of Retired Persons (CaRP) told CTV News that they had received advanced notice of the announcement from the Minister’s office. CaRP later backtracked but CTV stands by its original story. There is also evidence that Goodale had met with some investment dealers prior to the announcement being made public. Stocktrends.ca has reported that there was a 3400 per cent increase in the trading activity of Medisys Income Trust prior to the announcement made by the Finance Minister. Medisys Income Trust is owed by Paul Martin’s personal physician; a major player in the thriving Quebec private health care industry.
The Liberals deny everything and rely on the fact that the heavy trading was simply coincidence--the standard defense of everyone who is accused of insider trading.
The reality is that no matter what Liberal scandals emerge or have occurred in the past, they have very little impact on the voting intentions of many Canadians. These same Canadians, many of them in Ontario, would happily live in Zimbabwe as long as they weren’t white farmers and Robert Mugabe would personally guarantee that they could visit a doctor without paying every time they weren’t feeling well.
There are enough wimps in this country that will vote Liberal no matter how corrupt the party is as long as they are given their precious health care by the government. These are many of the same people who cheer the Prime Minister when he accuses the United States of not having a global conscience. They are proud of Canada’s role in the world and its adherence to the principle of one-world government, but couldn’t care less that the world’s media portrayed the start of our election campaign as the fall of a corrupt government.
The Liberals are not guaranteed an election victory. It’s a long time until January 23 and who leads the next government will largely depend on how Stephen Harper and the Tories perform between now and election day. But in the end, the fact that the Liberal government of Paul Martin is corrupt will have no effect on the outcome.