Since the day that Auditor General Sheila Fraser publiclyreleased her report on the federal government sponsorship fiasco, PaulMartin has been everywhere — on radio phone-in shows, at press conferences,and at venues across the country. Indeed, for a while, it seemed likely thatthe Martinites would be taking the next logical step and launching The PaulMartin Channel on digital cable — “All Paul Martin, all the time.” Althoughthe strategy may turn out to be relatively short lived (Martin’s spinnersare already touting the need to “move on”), the Liberals’ attempt torepackage Paul Martin as “The most accessible Prime Minister in Canadianhistory”TM merits some serious analysis.

The most obvious reason for Martin’s sudden availability is that he and hisadvisors have recognized how much trouble the Liberals are in. Just as ittook negative polls (showing that he was poised to lose badly to either JohnKerry or John Edwards) to prompt George W. Bush to appear on Meet the Press,Martin had little choice but to confront his accusers. Instead of engagingin futile attempts to hide from the inevitable (figurative) beating, he knewthat he had to get his message out as directly and as often as possible.

In addition, Martin wants to make it appear that he is leading anew team, not the same old Liberal team (of which he had been such anintegral part for nine of ten years). As noted by The Globe and Mail columnistJohn Ibbitson, “From the first day, he tried to portray himself as an agentof change and renewal. That is why, when public outrage greeted theAuditor-General’s report, he effectively quit the Liberal Party himself,abandoning loyalists in Quebec to their fate at the hands of a publicinquiry, telling the public that he was one of them, angry with them.”

Martin even made a virtue of the fact that he had been undermining JeanChrétien’s leadership for years, indicating that this power struggle hadleft him out of the sponsorship loop. “It is no secret that I did not havean easy relationship with those around the prime minister. In short, myadvice was not routinely sought on issues related to Quebec.”

The good news is that no one seems to believe Martin’sprotestations of innocence. On Cross-Country Checkup, for example, virtuallynone of the callers supported his argument that as Finance Minister, hemerely planned how money was to be spent, as opposed to directly overseeinghow every dollar was spent. Moreover, he never mentioned the fact that heactually sat as Vice-President of Treasury Board.

To me, Martin’s exaggerated expressions of anger are reminiscentof the following scene in Casablanca:

Rick: How can they close me up? On what grounds?

Captain Renault: I’m shocked — shocked — to find that gambling is goingon in here.

Dealer at Rick’s: Your winnings, sir.

Captain Renault: Oh, thank you very much. Everybody out at once.

The analogy is particularly appropriate if one reflects on the fact thatabsolutely no one in the Liberal Party is offering to return the estimated$300,000 in squandered funds that was handed back to the Liberals by the adagencies in the form of political donations.

Other than Paul Martin’s Prime Ministership, there are likely to be threemain consequences of this scandal, each equally unfortunate. The scandal hasopened a door for Quebec bashers of all political stripes. In my view, thisis an absurd interpretation of what happened. The sponsorship program wasn’tsomething that Quebec asked for; it was something that was foisted upon theprovince by a federal government. Lacking any better ideas for convincingQuebec voters of the important role of the federal government, the Liberalsfell back on the idea that randomly scattering money around the province(and often into the wrong pockets) would do the job.

As well, the more that people hear about money being stolen, invoices beingfabricated and cheques being “kited” (which was a new term for me when Iheard Martin using it last week), the more that they are likely to losefaith in the ability of governments to do the things that we need governmentto do. That may be good for corporations that feed off the spoils ofprivatization, but it’s bad for taxpayers and those who use governmentservices.

Lastly, voters are losing faith in the political system as awhole and voter turnout is declining at an alarming rate. But, the problemisn’t with Canadian politics or politicians in general; the problem is theLiberal Party, which (like the Mulroney Conservatives) acts like the publictreasury is there to serve their personal and political interests insteadof acting to serve the needs of the public.

Quite simply, it’s time forCanadians to use their votes to elect better politicians.

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Scott Piatkowski

Scott Piatkowski is a former columnist for rabble.ca. He wrote a weekly column for 13 years that appeared in the Waterloo Chronicle, the Woolwich Observer and ECHO Weekly. He has also written for Straight...