Minimus Maximus

I may be willing to play devils advocate and say that not all Liberals knew about what was going on in the sponsorship program, but to believe that "only a few rouge elements" were at play here is an ostrich style approach to the whole affair. If any of Braults testimony is true it shows a larger conspiricy than those few rouge elements. There are too many connections between Libs and the missing money to say we can absolve the entire party of guilt. That said it draws me to the conclusion that these "rouge elements" still exist within the Liberal party. Maybe its the westerner in me, but the entire concept of having to sell Canada to Canadians by erecting plaques in Italian town squares and renting box seats at sporting events for the libs and their buddies is lost on me. Maybe promoting Canada to foriegn investors, but not promoting Canada to Quebecer's. Its like promoting doughnuts at a fat kid convention. In the end this program has caused deeper divisions in this country, not unity. I kind of wonder what the libs have in store to promote Canada to westerners(can you say Albertascam?).

Any one who has worked for a large corp. and seen top level managment in action knows this to be true. Some CEO's are very hands off and delegate project directives to managers who are trusted to carry out these directives on the level. Some are micromanagers who must control everything. The information on Chretien is that he was hands off. With the size and scope of the federal gov't it is very possible Martin and/or Chretien did not know anything beyond the initial directives of the program. The argument that all Liberals were in on this just doesn't wash, wish it did but it don't. Without concrete evidence, painting all of the Liberal party with the same brush is akin to the 6th grade teacher who makes the whole class stay for detention because little Johnny threw a paper airplane at her while her back was turned, and nobody will rat on Johnny. The problem is that someone is guilty at some political level.

The real issue is that the conservatives, and their supporters, need something like this to ever have a shot at forming the government. When your policies are so far out of whack with what Canadians want, over zealous mudslinging is your only kick at the can. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I never said I was a Conservative, and your statement about the real issue being the cons needing something like this in order to form a gov't is just what Liberal apologists come up with in order to deflect critisism from the fact that they may have had something to do with this. Also dont forget, some people dont agree with you. How the hell can you speak for what Canadians want. Some Canadians are right leaning, some left(even some right down the middle), so to say any parties policies are out of whack with what Canadians want is just BS. This is a learned behavior from too many years of the same party in power. Remember, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutlly. So before you respond to a snipit of a larger post, read the entire post. If you want to have a big boy discussion on this topic with me based on mutual understanding and freedom of expression, by all means let me know after you reach puberty.

Sparhawk, I agree that Martin may not of known about any of the inner workings of the scam itself, and I dont think that all Libs are guilty of having knowledge of what really happened. I am not quite that cynical. However, the Liberals were the ones to benefit from the scam aspect of the sponsorship affair. This to me implies that it must have gone further that Gagliano, my personal opinion. Testimony did point to political connections and the fact that monies did end up in Liberal coffers(tracable or not). This is not to say that only the Liberals are capable of corruption, but that in this case there is a finger with thier stink on it pointing in thier general direction. I may not like the Liberals, but I dont HAAAAATE them.

We will never know how far up knowledge of Adscams workings went as documentation was not kept in order to be able to determine its origins. It may of went right into the PMO it may not have. Martin may have known or he may not have. If I was the PM and considering such a scheme I would make sure it could not be traced beyond the beaurocratic level. We would be fooling ourselves if we did not believe this did not go further that Gagliano.

I tend to think that a great deal more that 2% of Canadians care about this issue. It will be in the media spotlight again soon enough, and the Libs will again try to distance themselves from it by claiming that it was perpetrated by a few rouge elements within the rank and file. As far as Martin being the one who called for the inquiry, he simply had no choice. With the 2004 election looming over his head and the media coverage of Adscam during that period of time, he did what any good Lib would. Call for an inquiry and then before any truly damaging information got out call for the election. This became part of his running platform, "look I was the one that called for the inquiry, so if you(meaning us) want a change from those dirty Chretien Libs, vote for Martin"( after all Martin is a wire brush that will scrub clean all of the wrongs that Chretien perpetrated on our dirty little souls.)