The other scandal

By now, the Martin story line on (name of scandal withheld) has been more or less settled. No longer a matter of a few rogue bureaucrats, it is now acknowledged to have been a "political" operation, in which the bureaucrats were merely the "mechanics." (As opposed, say, to plumbers.) While the Prime Minister concedes he was aware of "rumours" surrounding the program for some time, he preferred to believe it was merely a matter of some "administrative failures", until the Auditor General's 2002 report confirmed how corrupt it really was. How could Martin, whose political machine reaches into every corner of Liberal Canada, not have known? Because, he says, when it came to making policy in Quebec, he was kept out of the loop by Jean Chretien and his advisers, owing to their well-known personal and political differences. "It is no secret that I did not have an easy relationship with those around the former prime minister," he said at his Thursday news conference. "My advice was not routinely sought on issues related to Quebec." This is an incredible story, both in the sense of "astonishing" and "unworthy of belief." It is simply not credible, however estranged the two men had become, that Martin could have been unaware of what a fetid stew of personal and political corruption the sponsorship program was. After all, it is not as if this came out of the blue: after the scandals surrounding Shawinigan, HRDC, the Transitional Jobs Fund, the "parallel, private government" of Liberal party officials signing off on industrial grants, to say nothing of the long history of sordid doings at the regional development agencies, it would be more surprising to find that a program set up to distribute federal funds east of Ontario was not corrupt than that it was. He had to have known:Everybody knew. At best -- at best -- he is seeking refuge in that old political lie, that mere patronage and pork-barrelling, ie spending public funds for personal political gain, is a relatively minor matter, to be distinguished from outright criminal wrongdoing, ie spending for personal financial gain -- though the first typically costs the public purse far more than the second, and to no less corrupt purpose. But let's take him at his word: that his relationship with the Prime Minister had broken down completely, that their differences, notably over Quebec, had come to such a pass that the senior minister from Quebec not only had no say in making policy on the single most important file in federal politics, but was kept entirely unaware of what that policy was. From which we must conclude that those election ads in the last campaign, featuring the two men smiling and strolling together were ... a lie? What Martin is suggesting is that, although he neither supported the Prime Minister's continued leadership nor his central policy plank, it was all right for him to remain in Cabinet all that time, pretending that he did. Until at last he is called to account for the decisions taken by that Prime Minister and that Cabinet, at which point we are told that he was part of some other government -- not just now, but then. This is the final cost of the Chretien-Martin feud: not just the years of uncertainty and drift, even paralysis, but the utter mockery it has made of Cabinet government itself -- of the notion that Cabinets are to be held collectively responsible for the decisions of the government. If a minister remains in Cabinet, it must be taken to mean that he supports the broad outlines of the government's policy. Whatever private reservations he may have about the details, he is bound to publicly express his confidence in the course the government has pursued. If he cannot abide by these conditions, he is obliged to quit the Cabinet. He cannot have it both ways, remaining in Cabinet so long as it suits his personal ambitions, but disavowing any responsibility for what went on there the minute the heat is turned up. Otherwise it would be impossible to hold anyone to account. Perhaps it is true that Martin, the number two man in the government, was as marginalized and alienated as he claims. If so, he should have quit, there and then. That he did not means he is obliged to take his lumps, even if he didn't know what was going on. For then he would be guilty both of negligence, and of having deceived the public -- wilfully ignorant, yet pretending to be otherwise. But it remains more likely that he did know. If he knew, he should have done something to stop it. And if he could not stop it, he should have resigned.