the Gomery robbery

Spring continues apace. No rain for the past few days..sunny and mild weather. Gotta love it. What I love even more, though, is watching the biggest Canadian political scandal unfold in front of our very eyes. This is the first time since I came to Canada 25 years ago that I'm actually glued to the TV set every night and often during the day, as well. Revelations come out every day about government pork barrelling, influence peddling, scamming, cheating, money laundering and plain old stealing - these are misdeeds that would do the Sopranos proud.

In a nutshell for those readers of this blog who do not hail from our fair Dominion: the Liberal governement of newly minted Prime Minister, Paul Martin (P.M.P.M.) appointed Judge John Gomery to look into alleged fraud perpetrated by our former P.M., the world renowned intellectual, Jean Chretien. Turns out that Chretien handed out huge contracts to Quebec advertising companies. This was ostensibly done to finance a federalist campaign in order to keep Quebec from separating (an idiotic idea to start with - as if you can keep a province from separating by putting up billboards) The ad firms pocketed the money, lined their own pockets to the tune of millions of dollars AND, it seems, funnelled a lot of the cash-ola back to the Liberal Party of Canada. A neat money laundering scheme that put taxpayers' money into the coffers of the Liberal Party of Canada. What can I say? This is worse than the CBC, hehehe.

The parade of greasy looking Quebec ad executives - they all look like car salesmen to me - and buddies of the former P.M., the whole cozy arrangement makes for truly fascinating viewing. It never ceases to amaze me: the novel ways that governments will come up with to steal our money. Taxation is the only sanctioned theft in existence. You'd think that the least those crooks could do would be not to squander your money on their petty schemes, not to mention lining their party coffers with it!

I am just beside myself with glee as the Liberal Party of Canada self-destructs. It's time to give someone else a chance - the someone else in this case being the Conservative Party. It is not clear to me that they will do a much better job of running the country in the long run but at least in the short run they can clear the Aegean stables of the manure the Liberals have accumulated over the past decade. It is also a fairly safe bet that they will back off some of the more hair-brained Lib schemes such as a national day care program and the Kyoto fiasco. If Mr. Harper, the Con leader, is supposed to be the scary monster with the hidden agenda - according to Lib spin - I say, "bring him on!" Nothing much scarier than the car salesman types (sorry about offending all hard working car salesmen everywhere!) parading on our TV screens daily. Their agenda was not hidden at all but was pretty scary nevertheless: it was nothing less than to subvert our democracy!