I know I'm a left leaning liberal bordering on communist (according to some) but I have something to say about this whole AdScam thing and about the Gomery report in general. I'm glad the report was done and of course it spared Paul Martin but what nobody is saying is this...I didn't think AdScam was that big a deal. I thought it was sneaky and financially misleading but I also thought it was quite smart. I feel like nobody is taking into account the context of the times. The country was being pulled apart at the seams. Quebec was teetering on the edge of Canada and Jean Chretien was responsible for hauling them back over to solid ground. Not an easy job. So the ingenious little guy from Shawinigan finds a way to funnel money to Quebec (thus helping his party maintain it's position in the province), appear to help Quebec-Federal relations and get the money back at the end of the day. Jeez.
I think Chretien is a good man and I think he made an important comment during his "screw you all" speech following the release of the report. Because of his government we aren't counting body bags or struggling to find enough soldiers to send to Iraq. We are talking about the Ad scandal. I'm not saying that AdScam was okay, it wasn't. It was Canada's money and we should have known about it....BUT...most people don't ever know what their money is being spent on and for the most part they don't care. It's only when Joe Blow tells him to care that he's up in arms about his tax dollars. The Chretien Liberal government made a mistake. Show me a leadership that hasn't.
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I also can't get too worked up about it -- shouldn't have happened, should have been caught soon, I get it. But I sort of assume the government is wasting my money, honestly. There are some wider issues that come out of it -- cronyism (proving to be problematic for Bushie to the south, too, from FEMA to the FDA), why we'd still be facing a cliffhanger if there was another Quebec referendum tomorrow, etc. I think we should pay more attention to that than to parsing the numbers endlessly. Either way, it's not going to affect how I vote -- I've got bigger fish to fry. I figure I'm in a safe Liberal riding anyway (Bill Graham).
That said, I do find something Carrie pointed out to me rather amusing -- in his attempt to shut Martin out of power by keeping him in the dark about sponsorship, his pet project, Chretien spared him. Regardless of what I think of either man, I appreciate the irony there.
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