Grit Mud for Gomery

I did not want to write about Adscam and the Gomery Inquiry. Not because it is unimportant, but because there are dozens of good blogs that are tracking things carefully, and are writing thoughtfully about it. But I write to address what the Calgary Grit and Warren Kingsella are saying. Both are reading from their party's talking points, and are trying to call into question the inquiry process because of its cost. Somehow, it is to be expected.

The inquiry is illegitimate in their eyes because it may come to cost more than the amount that the Liberals funneled out of the public purse. Liberalsunder Jean Chretien and while Paul Martin was Minister of Finance, laundered money through a series of Quebec advertising firms, who later returned some of it to the Liberal party in the form of "donations" or by hiring Liberals and Liberal Party workers among their staff. Some of these firms were paid without producing invoices, and some of them were paid more than once for the same invoice they submitted. In some cases no work had been done for the invoice submitted. As Jean Carle --the man who has been described as being like a son to Jean Chretien --has admitted to the Inquiry, invoices for very large sums were simply concocted to hide or fabricate a paper trail in order to pump money out of some government agencies. The Medellin Cartel would be proud of these boys!

When thieves are prosecuted, the process is normally more expensive than the item or items they have stolen. Not all petty thieves have the nerve to steal 50-thousand dollar jewels. But the things that the Liberals are accused of doing go beyond an analogy to shoplifting. They have undermined people's confidence in the honesty of government, and have further eroded the legitimacy needed for politicians to govern and for bureaucrats to manage the state. Justice, a virtue of which Liberals made a cheap slogan for a whole generation, has a price, and it must now be paid.

The proposition that the Gomery inquiry is a waste of taxpayers money because it is costing a lot of money, as much or more than the Liberals seem to have appropriated for their friends, is absolutely fantastic.

They may have moved money from the public purse because they could, and because they thought nobody would find out. But they also did so because they think that they are entitled to it, and that no one will question it. Our Calgary Grit's boasts about the domination of the Liberal Party of Canada and their "natural" place in government is but a mild public face to what they must say behind closed doors. The arrogant disposition is worth quoting here:

The domination of the Liberal Party in the 20th century has been remarkable. It's obviously not just a series of a flukes or the fact that John A MacDonald hung Louis Riel. Since the Great Depression, the Conservatives have had only two breaks from Liberal rule (or, as they say in Alberta, "Liberal oppression"). Well, Joe Clark had a week or two, but I think that was more because Pierre Trudeau needed a vacation and people across Canada needed comic relief.

Our Grit from Calgary is definitely right. He is right about Joe, and he is right about domination. His choice of words is appropriately descriptive. The Liberals dominate Canadians.

Given the Liberal record of dilapidating public wealth, it seems the more strange from our Grit in Calgary and from Kingsella suddenly to be worried about how much the public may be spending on the inquiry. Until we think about the fact that the expenses they bemoan are exposing their friends.