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Originally Posted by james t kirk
Not really.
Martin was the finance minister yes. He was dealing with a budget of 200 BILLION dollars. We are talking about 120 million here. That's .06 percent.
So if you make 100,000.00 per year, that's like you losing track of 60 bucks that your wife stole out of your bank account to pay for the motel room to screw her boyfriend while your back was turned.
Does that make you incompetant to manage your finances? or your wife?
Martin was not the guy signing the cheques. He was not the nuts and bolts guy. He was there basically coming up with budgets for each department. How that department spends that money is up to them. He doesn't see every single cheque that goes out the door.
Galiagno was the Minister in charge. I have NO doubt that he was receiving direction from Chretien. I honestly believe Martin didn't know about it cause if he did, he would have used it to screw Chretien in a heart beat.
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It is one thing to 'lose track' of 60 bucks, proportional or not, $120,000,000.00 is a considerable chunk of change.
I think a more apt comparison would be if my imaginary wife, who is my accountant, managed to let her boyfriend steal 60 bucks out of my bedside table. It doesn't really matter if she knew about it or not. Money (perhaps that I collected from co-workers to buy a new watercooler) was "lost" or given away to someone that shouldn't have been there is the first place. My wife is in bed with someone else; is it worse if he stole it or if she gave it to him? Perhaps as a reward we should elect the wife to rule over my extended family- she was always trying to one-up me at big family dinners.
The Gomery Inquiry has shown links between beefed up contracts going to personal friends of Paul Martin. While Paul Martin can't deny the money paper trail, he says he barely knew the company owner. Although a letter has been shown in evidence where Martin comments on golf games and how attractive (the company owner, taking a 20% commission)'s wife is. We aren't talking about a casual 60 bucks for a hotel room, we are talking about a political slush fund with kickbacks to Liberals members. We are talking about criminal activity.
Further, I am not a federal government. The source of my funds aren't arbitrarily taken as taxes. Beyond those taxes, I don't have to be held accountable for a penny. However, regardless of how far down the bureaucracy goes, public funds should be traceable, even in amounts, say, less then 120 Million. If Martin and the Liberals can not be held accountable, then why do we bother with elections at all? Any government that can be put to a non-confidence vote can not be effective. I know the Conservative's are largely responsible for it, but Martin has recently refused a trip to Holland in honor of war dead and vetrans because he needs to be available for a vote. I think that is shameful.
I'm also aware of Martin's political ambitions and that there is no love lost bewteen him and Jean. However, I would say that both Chretien and Martin were well aware of what was going on. But neither can rat out the other without implicating himself and destroying his legacy/current career.
To speak further about percents and figures, the Layton and the NDP, with I think (and my figures could be wrong), 19 out of 309 seats, represents under the current system, about 6%. Because the Liberals are in a precarious position, Layton has forced a NDP friendly budget and will have strong influence for the remainder of the time this minority gov't stays in power. While I am not opposed, for the most part, to NDP ideals, 94% of the country is.
Therefore, I think the current government is completly ineffective, not representative (and yeah, I know that we have a parlimentarian, not representative system), and frankly, a little bit embarassing.
I also conceed that Harper is in large part responsible for make the gov't ineffective, and I'm also a little scared of what would happen if the Conservatives got into power. I don't have a solution to the current platforms of the current parties, but something needs to change sooner or later.