There are two reasons why plausible deniability isn’t working for Prime Minister Paul Martin. The most important reason: It is decidedly un-prime-ministerial, the mirror image of the kind of person we don’t want for a national leader. We hope the highest post in the land will be held by someone with an unimpeachable sense of personal honour.

No matter what their political inclinations, Canadians want someone in that most important office who actually seeks out problems, who demands of those around him that he know everything. Why? So he can provide genuine leadership and make the country better.

But the other reason Martin now faces the serious problem of implausible deniability is that he has simply used it too many times. It is meant to be used judiciously. It is precisely that rare usage that makes “not knowing” plausible. Make a habit of it and suddenly it becomes a fatal flaw.

The sponsorship scandal is, for Martin, the denial that reached implausible critical mass. Almost no one believes he “didn’t know” because, well, it’s unbelievable.

The most egregious case in a long line of denials goes back to the tainted blood scandal of the early 1980s.

Martin was on the board of the Canada Development Corporation from 1981 to 1986 — almost the exact time frame in which the HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C tragedy played itself out.

The CDC had a controlling interest in Connaught Laboratories whose blood products, made in part from tainted blood from U.S. prisoners, turned out to be a root cause of the tragedy.

It wasn’t until 1999 that Martin’s involvement was revealed in the House of Commons. His response to the question of what he knew about the tragedy at that time was revealing. He said: “It never came up.” For the thousands who suffered it begged the question: Why not?

The likely answer: Plausible deniability. Martin was a powerful Liberal businessman whose board responsibility was oversight of Connaught and a dozen or so other companies.

By 1983-84 the newspapers were full of stories about tainted blood and HIV/AIDS. Connaught was the principal supplier of blood products in Canada. Martin never once asked if Connaught was part of the problem.

During his time as finance minister, Martin’s department received repeated and urgent requests from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) on two issues involving serious flaws in the tax laws and huge losses in revenue.

Only the finance department could change the legislation. One was a gaping loophole in the GST law that virtually begged people to defraud the government — which they did, to the tune of hundreds of millions.

Elinor Caplan, minister responsible for the CCRA, pleaded with finance to change the law that allowed companies to deduct fines for environmental infractions as a business expense.

In both cases finance did nothing. Did Martin know? If he did, he refused to act. If he didn’t, then it is fair to assume someone made sure he didn’t know.

In the spring of 2003, Martin’s company, Canada Steamship Lines, engaged in some of the most notorious union-busting in Australian history. It was so brazen that state governments, other shipowners, and even CSL’s own customers, were critical. CSL expanded a loophole in Australian law so it could use foreign flagged ships in strictly coastal trade, allowing it to fire its unionized workers. Martin’s response was, “All I know is what I read in the papers.”

If he didn’t know, he should have. He had regular meetings with his CSL management through an unusual agreement negotiated through Ethics Counsellor Howard Wilson. Martin’s “I didn’t know” sounded, once again, like “I didn’t want to know.”

When the government first reported back on a question raised in the Commons about how much government money had gone to CSL since 1993, it reported a figure of $137,000.

This turned out to be an absurdly low figure; $161 million was the correct one. It is inconceivable that Martin would not have known just how ridiculous it was.

Martin’s response? “(I) did not really know about the answer until later, when further facts came out.”

Really? And what were Martin’s ruthlessly efficient political operatives doing all this time? Why didn’t they bring this to his attention immediately? Because they have a plausible deniability understanding with their boss?

There are many more examples. The extraordinarily vicious takeover of the party, the sabotage of Sheila Copps’ career, and the continuing hounding from nomination contests of people Martin doesn’t want in his caucus, have all been done in the Prime Minister’s name.

Martin says these are local matters. But this is again literally unbelievable given that it is his political staff who are responsible — unless a plausible deniability covenant was in play.

Bad habits are always hard to break but Martin’s long-term addiction to plausible deniability will be especially difficult to overcome. But overcome it he must, or it could be his downfall.

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Murray Dobbin

Murray Dobbin was rabble.ca's Senior Contributing Editor. He was a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for over 40 years. A board member and researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy...