By Paul albers
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Now that the season of peace and goodwill is over, the Liberals are free to launch the negative campaign they've been itching to start from the beginning. It might be hard to sink lower than ads that burn the flag and subliminally fire a gun in your face, but I'm sure they are up to that challenge.
Whether they can win this election by going negative is another question. If they can't, there likely won't be a Team Martin any longer. The Liberals won't tolerate a leader that can't deliver a majority government. Losing power altogether is unthinkable, and not just because of their culture of entitlement.
The Gomery inquiry showed that the sponsorship scandal was not merely bureaucratic incompetence in a well intentioned program, but a deliberate scheme to defraud Canadians for the benefit of Liberals and their supporters. as damaging as the inquiry was, its scope was very narrow. Justice Gomery was not allowed to examine millions of dollars worth of contracts granted to Earnscliffe Strategy Group, the source of many of Martin's closest advisors. The judge was also prevented from assigning any criminal or civil responsibility.
There is widespread suspicion that the corruption we know about is only the tip of the iceberg and that should all the facts be known, several well known and powerful Liberals would be facing criminal charges and even time behind bars.
Liberals dipped their hands into taxpayer's pockets to fund campaigns in at least two previous elections. The insider trading investigation of the Finance Department is the 33rd RCMP criminal investigation of the Liberal government in the past three years. That's nearly one per month.
If there are serious criminal acts being covered up, then this election could prove to be unlike anything seen before in this country. Would a party guilty of high crimes against the people of Canada willingly go down to defeat running an honourable campaign? Would they restrict themselves to fighting a war of words and ideas when losing power is synonymous with having their crimes exposed, prosecuted and punished? I don't think so. I expect that such a party would have no problem resorting to winning by any means possible, legal or not.
Late in 2004 Ukrainians had their own election. For years Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had been suspected of ties to organized crime and was facing a stiff challenge from Viktor Yushchenko. at a critical time in the campaign Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin, and international observers reported widespread vote rigging during the election. It took a civil uprising to force a fair election, which resulted in Yanukovych's defeat.
Would the Liberals go to that extreme? Would they stuff ballot boxes or disenfranchise conservative voters in other ways? Would they try manipulating public opinion by rigging polls, planting 'news' stories, and spreading outright lies? They and their media allies have engaged in character assassination before. If Canadians are too fed up with Liberal corruption to fall for it again, will they resort to something more drastic? I wish I could say they wouldn't, but I can't rule the possibility out.
This is a party that has already shown it isn't afraid to go to extremes. Just ask Francois Beaudoin. He was put through the ringer professionally and financially for resisting pressure by Jean Chrétien to grant a loan to a friend of the Prime Minister that had a criminal past and poor repayment history. Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill had her home and office raided in an attempt to identify her source for information embarrassing to the government. In speaking of the raids and the threats made against her she said: '…it is still unfathomable to me that an everyday work of reporting and writing can be deemed a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison."
This party was also caught on tape dangling the possibility of a future cabinet position to induce an MP to cross the floor, and Yves Engler spent four days in jail for heckling the Prime Minister during this campaign.
The worse the polls get for the Liberals, and the more crimes they have to hide, the greater the pressure will be to resort to extreme measures. If they are re-elected it will encourage more corruption and make it that much harder for them to draw the line in a future campaign. There are literally hundreds of reasons to vote this government out, and one of them is to make sure that we still can.
Paul albers is a freelance columnist living in Ottawa. He can be reached at: paul.albers@rogers.com
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement