Dump this rotten crew of ministers
Barry Cooper and David Bercuson
Calgary Herald
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
The real measure of the new prime minister will be how quickly he
rids the nation of the rotten crew who have misgoverned Canada this past
decade. The country is currently suffering from the chokehold imposed on
it by an ageing Prime Minister long faded from whatever glory he once
could command. Today he seems capable only of swanning around the globe
one last time at taxpayers' expense for no purpose but to delay the
transfer of power.
Canada long ago should have had a new prime minster and Chr�tien's
staying until the very last grain of sand tumbles from the top of the
hour glass is yet one more sign of the style with which he has governed
the country for so many awful, shame-filled and shameful years.
Virtually single-handedly, Chr�tien has created a crisis that has
come perilously close to constitutional paralysis. He is blocking the new
prime minister from assuming power while he and his heavyweight ministers
exercise their fantasies as if they will control the public purse
forever. If anything could embarrass a Liberal, surely it must be the
manner of Chr�tien's taking his leave.
But Chr�tien is not alone to blame for the outrageous situation the
country is now in. The fish may rot from the head, but there are
henchpersons enough to share the responsibility. Take, for instance, the
comedy unveiled in the capital last week when the Transport Minister,
David Collenette, long known for his great affection for playing with
trains, promised $700-million of new funding for Via Rail Canada.
Collenette can muse about public spending, but he knows as well as anyone
that the next government will have no obligation to carry forward his
intentions. Just as with the stroke of a pen Chr�tien once cancelled the
maritime helicopter contracts entered into by his predecessor, which
thereby cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of wasted dollars and
imposed an extra decade of that flying piece of junk known as the Sea
King on the Canadian Forces, so is Paul Martin free to disavow the
pseudo-commitments of his predecessors.
Collenette's announcement was derided in the Martin camp because as
a Chr�tien loyalist, he is more likely to be running a model railroad
next spring than to be minister in charge of Canadian
transportation.
In response to the criticism from the Martinistas another star of
the Chr�tien team, Martin Cauchon, "warned" them that they will
have to answer to Canadians if they block badly needed investments, such
as Collenette's trains. Cauchon is an expert on badly needed investments,
having presided over the shredding of a billion bucks on the national gun
registry. Unrepentant regarding his part in this national fraud, he then
arranged to throw good money after bad, again in the direction of the
registry.
Repentance may be in short supply in the office of the Justice
Minister, but there seemed to be plenty of it floating around in the
circles frequented by other senior Liberals last week. For several weeks
Allan Rock had been hounded by the press for refusing to admit that he
had done anything wrong by sharing the hospitality of the Irving family
on their private jet and at their private fishing lodge. Rock clung to a
sliver of deniability until it disappeared when his Cabinet colleague,
Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw, unexpectedly apologized to the House
of Commons for the same act. Clearly in possession of a different moral
compass than the ever moralistic Allan Rock, she saw it was inappropriate
to receive a gift from a corporation that owns much of Atlantic Canada.
Only then did Rock utter a halfhearted apology.
Last Monday yet another Liberal minister rose to confess his sins.
Minister of the Environment, David Anderson, another poseur of rectitude,
clearly believed his portfolio in no way overlaps with any of the
corporate activities of the Irving family (despite the fact that an
Irving barge sits leaking at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River).
Anderson said he visited the fishing stream to study Atlantic
salmon.
In the meantime, the comic contender for the Liberal leadership was
doing her own farewell global tour. Knowing full well that she will not
survive the change of government, Sheila Copps is doing her best to spend
her department allocation before the fiscal year and her own tenure run
out.
These old Liberals are so far from a sense of shame that they are immune from embarrassment. We will learn soon enough if Martin is man enough to clean the Augean stables of a decade of detritus.
_______________________
Scott MacLean
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
ICQ: 9184011
http://www.nerosoft.com
