Martin: "I will call a general election"

It's rare for a Canadian Prime Minister to get in front of the cameras and speak directly to Canadians. The last time it happened it was 1995, Chretien was on the tube, and Quebec was on the verge of separating and forming its own country. Last night PM Paul Martin hit the television with a plea for more time to investigate the sponsorship scandal that will most likely cause the hegemony of the Liberal party to crash and burn. What came out of last night's television address was a mouthful of textbook PR from Martin including seemingly heartfelt apologies. He said he would like Canada to wait until all the facts have been put forward by the Gomery Inquiry and would call a general election within 30 days of the final statement. With the trial set to wrap up in December an election would be called sometime in January and Canadians would be heading to the polls most likely sometime in February 2006. So Martin wants more time to make himself look clean, an impossible task. He's head of a party that has been in power too long with too much ease. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Even if Martin's hands are clean of any involvement in the sponsorship scandal, he was still Minister of Finance when $100 million went missing. If not directly guilty then perhaps directly negligent.


The Gomery Inquisition

So Martin wants to call a general election next year, Harper wants to call a general election next week, Duceppe continues to be a general flake, Layton wants to cut a budget deal, and as of this morning, Chretien is sending his goons to shut down the Gomery Inquiry altogether. Just give it up already. Give us the truth, give us the vote, and clean house. Politics is corrupt and $100 million is a lot of money but in terms of GDPs and national budgets it's not all that much, and in the long run it's not going to ruin Canada. It may ruin the Liberal party however, something that all three opposition leaders were clear to point out. The scandal is clearly a Liberal problem, not a Canadian one.

Now I don't think Martin is a bad guy. I think he has ideas and he wants what is best for Canada but the truth is his party needs to be revamped. Cleaned out, overhauled, built up on a solid platform rather than the leftist-centralist- rightest-whateverist engine they've been running on since the early 1990s. But then . . . where's the gusto? Where's the passion, the charismatic excitement of the politicians of old? Matthew Good described the party statements as "Four cardboard cut outs address[ing] the nation, their words, spelled out on teleprompters, were like echoes . . . is this really the best we can do?" This is something I've been wrestling with for some time. Canada is a nation with so much potential and so much spirit, with people that love their country and love the world they live in and want to see what's best for it. Where are our leaders, our visionaries? Why is Canadian politics so goddamn stagnant all the time?

Yes, the Liberal party will probably fall, but what will it be replaced by? Frankly I'm scared of Stephen Harper. It's mostly his eyes, but also the fact that a Conservative leadership would be a complete jolt to Canadian politics, virtually killing all the social programs that have been propped up on government money for so long. I'm also not too keen on getting further into bed with the American Republicans. It wouldn't be any more handjobs under the covers, no, it would be fullout, gangbanging, videotaping neo-con action jackson. But I can't see Harper winning a majority government and there's no way the Liberals and the NDP are voting along with the Conservatives on much of anything. Parliament would fall and we be off to the polls again and it may jump back and forth like that for years. Maybe the Conservatives can run the tight ship that would put things back in place. Maybe not. As much as NDP is probably the party I associate with most, they're never going to win a national election and for good reason. NDP works great locally, provincially, but not on a national level. And again, I don't see any inspiration in Layton.

Perhaps a term out will give the Liberals time to clean up and clean out. Still, Canada needs a leader. Oh yeah, and proportional representation.