Wednesday, April 13, 2005

SPONSORSHIP: SO I WAS WRONG

Last year, when the sponsorship scandal first broke, I wrote a post in which I argued the whole thing was not that big a deal. Certainly, it appeared that the Liberals had acted somewhat improperly and I was perfectly agreable with holding a public inquiry but I felt the country could have been focusing its primary attention elsewhere. I did not vote for the Liberals in the last election but that had nothing to do with Adscam, and even though I didn't vote for them, I was relatively pleased with the minority Liberal government outcome of the election.

My opinion has now changed.

Last year, I did not pay much attention to the sponsorship issue and I assumed that the Liberals had acted improperly by some people's (mostly Conservative's) standards. It now appears, and I am making preliminary and not final conclusions, that the Liberals not only acted improperly but absolutely illegally. I recognize I'm a little late to the entire party, but it is now becoming clear to me that the sponsorship program constitutes a massive, illegal betrayal of the public trust.

As a result I will not be pleased this time if the Liberals are re-elected to only a minority. The Liberal Party has been too long in power and the sponsorship debacle is an example of the type of things that happen when a political party becomes arrogant in its power.

I do not particularly care if Martin and Chretien did not have an amicable relationship or even if Martin knew absolutely nothing about what was going on. Martin was a senior cabinet minister during the entire sponsorship affair and under the principles of cabinet government it is entirely appropriate to hold him responsible. The cabinet is a collective executive authority.

I believe the Liberal party should be defeated generally, and I believe that every member who served in cabinet during the period of the sponsoship program specifically should be defeated. It is unfortunate that Jean Chretien has escaped censure at the polls. It reamins to history to judge his record. Fortunately, I am on my way to becoming an historian.

Posted by Matthew @ 11:39 p.m.