Prime Minister Paul Martin’s feigned act of “moral responsibility” and “moral authority” doesn’t wash with me and I hope it doesn’t wash with you, either.
Or with millions of voters.
This is the man who, theoretically at least, signed all federal government cheques, or gave the ‘OK’ for all spending, and the man who was also the top Liberal political minister for Quebec.
So, either he knew what was going on back then, and isn’t telling the truth now, or he didn’t know what was happening under his watch, which means he was incompetent.
Either way, he should take the fall.
Martin’s claim that he is an utterly responsible and conscientious individual in all matters is a charade.
Just weeks ago he was dancing around in, again, feigned outrage, insisting he was going to defend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for Canadians no matter what, against Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s supposed devious plans to undermine the charter and take their rights away from Canadians.
What a sham.
Harper was planning nothing of the sort, and Martin knew it, too.
All Harper was doing was protecting traditional marriage and insisting the charter said nothing about homosexual marriage, which it didn’t.
Martin was twisting the entire scenario.
Harper was taking no rights away from anyone.
So, Martin’s stance was blatantly dishonest.
Back during the last federal election campaign when the Conservatives were moving up to seemingly overtake the Liberals in many seats in Ontario, Martin pulled the same rotten stunt.
Premier Ralph Klein had foolishly made some comments about health-care reform, the direction of which wouldn’t be revealed until after election day, and Martin claimed Harper was in the know about Klein’s plans to allegedly cripple government health care.
Harper knew nothing about Klein’s murmurings, but Martin twisted everything, making voters scared of Harper’s supposed plots.
The growing Conservative vote in Ontario started to collapse immediately.
Going back to the 2000 federal election, Jean Chretien pulled the same health-care scare on Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day, and the Alliance campaign fell apart, too.
The Liberals will pull off any low, dishonest trick to win power and stay in power.
Recent political history is covered in their devious, and conscience-lacking, stunts.
They are trying to pull one now in urging Harper not to pull the plug and cause an election.
Be responsible, and wait, they say.
These self-serving individuals simply want the winds to blow away the current scandal hoping in a few months the polls will start moving up for them.
Back in the 1960s when Lester Pearson was prime minister and Robert Stanfield leader of the Progressive Conservatives a somewhat-similar situation erupted.
The Liberals faced a possible non-confidence motion in the House of Commons and obvious defeat.
But they persuaded the ever-decent Stanfield an election at that time would be bad for the country, and as a gentleman Stanfield should not defeat the government.
He fell for it.
Soon after, Pearson was gone and Pierre Trudeau arrived on the scene, and Stanfield and the PCs were devastated in the 1968 election.
Had Stanfield not fallen for the Liberal con job, he would have been prime minister, and Trudeau would have been a relative nobody in our history books.
Stephen, trigger an election and let’s boot out these clowns, con men and charlatans.
Copyright ? 2005 Paul Conrad Jackson.
Click here to read Paul Jackson’s full and fascinating biography. Paul Conrad Jackson is one of Canada’s most distinguished and thought-provoking journalists. He is currently senior political commentator for the Calgary Sun and other related newspapers, after being both Editor and Associate Editor for a number of years. Mr. Jackson has interviewed such world famous political figures as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev, John Diefenbaker, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau, Yitshak Rabin and Benjamin Netanyahu.
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