A telling comparison

November 29, 2005

I’m no expert in Canadian government, but I live a few hours from the border, watch CBC, and keep an eye on Canadian politics. And yesterday, with the fall of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, was a blockbuster day. For American political purposes, the events offer a telling comparison.

After months of political instability, the government of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin fell Monday evening when three opposition parties united to topple him with a no-confidence vote in the House of Commons.

Martin’s center-left Liberal Party had been dogged by a corruption scandal. It will now face voters in an expected January election that could end 12 years of Liberal rule in America’s largest trading partner — after a campaign over the Christmas holidays that the prime minister argues most Canadians don’t want.

The opposition Conservatives, the leftist New Democrats and the separatist Bloc Quebecois joined forces to bring down Martin’s government, which had lost its majority in an election last year. Monday’s final vote was 171-133.

And what, you ask, was this corruption scandal that led to the demise of Martin’s government? In what is often called the “sponsorship scandal,” Martin’s Liberal party paid advertising firms $85 million for political campaign work in Quebec. Unfortunately, the contracts went to firms that had political ties to the party — and they took the money without doing any real work. Voters were disgusted and Liberals took a hit in the June 2004 elections, which ultimately led to Martin’s fall yesterday.

Also take a moment to consider some context. Liberals inherited a budget deficit, which they proceeded to eliminate. The Canadian economy is strong and its national unemployment rate is at a 30-year low. For that matter, Martin — who played no role in the corruption controversy and was cleared of wrongdoing — not only issued a dramatic apology on behalf of his government, his party also paid back the money that was misspent.

And yesterday, the Prime Minister who has been fighting for his political life saw the end of his rule.

Now, there’s plenty of interesting angles about Canada’s parties and positioning for the upcoming election — my friend Michael Stickings is covering this nicely — but I can’t help but notice a difference in standards. Paul Martin fell yesterday because of a minor corruption scandal that he had nothing to do with. George W. Bush, in a different system, is directly involved in several devastating scandals and Congress won’t even convene a hearing. Worse, Bush offers no apology and makes no effort to make amends.

Where’s our no-confidence vote?

I have no confidence.

  • Stories like this is why I read the CB report. This story and his analysis should be front page today..this is startling stuff. This will blow over completely unnoticed in this country and that’s sad. When I bring up stuff like this in conversations with people they all look at me like I’m making this stuff up. This is earth shattering shit and nobody knows it’s happening. This story should spark the march/sit down on Pennsylvania avenue..but alas..people are too glued to J Lo and Survivor and can’t be bothered.

  • Think of the contrast with the Clinton administration,
    though. He was attacked viciously and
    relentlessly for eight straight years for every
    conceivable act – remember haircutgate? – and
    he was eventually impeached for lying about an
    affair. His presidency is forever tainted as
    sordid and corrupt in the public’s mind, and
    Bush campaigned, successfully, on restoring
    honor and integrity to the White House. And
    even Democrats bought this, and many still
    do.

    What, in fact, did Clinton ever do wrong? I’m
    still shaking my head.

    Then there was Nixon, where a girl scout
    prank eventually brought him down – okay,
    Nixon’s real character emerged during the
    coverup, but the event itself was trivial.

    No, Bush’s presidency is the teflon
    presidency of all time. For some reason,
    politics, the media, the press and the
    people have all lined up in some impossible
    astrological-like configuration, and the
    bastard just won’t go down. There’s never
    been anything like it.

  • Just to clarify from across the border here, it was under Martin’s predecessor, Jean Chretien, that the sponsorship scandal ran. Martin and Chretien never got along, and despite the fact that he was (I think) the Finance Minister at the time, he was mostly exonerated by the inquiry.

    What is more interesting is that the cash was used as kickbacks to companies which helped in the promotion of Federalism in Quebec, back when the Bloc Quebecois had called a referendum on seceding. Of course, they didn’t have a war as an excuse, but hey, we’re Canadians. It’s the best they could come up with.

    Also to note that the paltry millions that were taken can’t compare to Halliburton, but in a country of 30 million people, that’s a lot.

  • Thanks for the kind words, Steve.

    The Gomery inquiry has been front-page news in Canada for many months now. There’s even a federal minister — former Magna CEO Belinda Stronach, who crossed the aisle from the Conservative benches to join the Liberals over the summer and to keep Martin’s government alive — who will be responsible for working on the government’s response to Gomery, that is, for implementing Gomery’s recommendations and for fixing the system. (Actually, there are at least three federal ministers who may be working on it, depending on the outcome of the election.)

    Now, our politics are certainly smaller in scope than America’s. We’re not at war, after all. And we spend much of time talking about federal-provincial relations and meat-and-potatoes stuff like job training, health care, and education. And there is certainly more of a centrist consensus (a liberal consensus, given that our liberalism is centrism) here than in the U.S., where ideological divisions are especially acute at the moment. But it does seem that we hold our leaders to relatively high standards of ethical conduct. There was something masochistic about the fascination with Gomery, but both the scandal and the inquiry will lead to improvements to our democracy. I can assure you of that.

    How would Bush fare up here? Not well. But how would he fare in any parliamentary system, where he’d have to stand up in the House every week for Question Period? Pity Tony Blair, after all, who is about to face a serious parliamentary inquiry into the pre-war period, that is, into who knew what and when. If you’re interested, I have a post on that here.

    I generally like Tony Blair, all things considered, and I generally approve of his liberal interventionist approach to foreign policy (let’s face it, there are times when military action is necessary). I don’t like his stubbornness on Iraq, and I don’t like his cozying up to Bush at all — and those of you who are more anti-war than I am will no doubt have harsher things to say about him — but at least he had the courage to stand up for himself and the character to defend himself week after week in the House of Commons.

    Again, imagine Bush facing the heckles of opposition parties and the rebels within his own party. Imagine Bush and Blair switching places for a week or two. And imagine how different things might be.

  • Its stories like this, plus the vision of Bush flailing about during a Question Period, that makes me think a parlimentary system may actually be better than our system. I know there are lots of pros and cons, but it sure seems like a parlimentary system results in a bit more accountability.

  • Separation of powers doesn’t mean much in our system with our two-party system and a congress that’s never read the constitution and realized that they, not the president, are supposed to be in charge.

  • Obviously the lessons learned here are:

    1. Admit nothing.

    2. Deny everything.

    3. Make counter-accusations.

    Obviously, if your objective is to remain in power, this is what you have to do. It helps to have a complaisant media to be your co-dependent in that regard as well.

  • “Where’s the no confidence vote?”

    I hate to say it, as I consider the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution sacred documents, but maybe the founding fathers didn’t get it quite right. Most of the democracies that came after ours had important structural differences in how the executive branch was chosen and unchosen, and the weaknesses of our own system become glaringly apparent at times like these.

    Forgive me.

  • I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to read this thread like this. We often, north of the border, get bombarded with neo-con tirades about Canada. We need to be reminded that this is truely a nation divided in our modern times.

  • “I’m no expert in Canadian government, but I live a few hours from the border……”

    Definitely keeping Miami at arms length, eh?

  • I”m a Canadian in Toronto.

    Paul Martin was the Fiance Minister while the largest theft of tax dollars in Canada’s history took place.
    Chretien was being pushed out as Priminister by Martin through membership misdealings in a rigged liberal party election.
    The liberal party switched leaders of the party and therefore we got a new liberal for a leader of the country.

    The only reason these scummy liberal theives got caught was that one of guys who’s job it was to collect the stolen money from the complict companies caught kicking it back to the liberal party threatened violence.

    He was also a known mafia enforrcer and Chretiens crooks were not playing like the new crooks installed by Martin.
    ie , Chretiens advertising companies didn’t want to kick back any more now that Martins advertising crooks wrere scooping all the illigal contracts.
    When Chretians advertising companies who had been kicking back millions to the Liberal Party said “we should’nt have to pay anymore since we don’t get the contracts any more”, the kickback collector told the ad rep he would kill him.
    He actually broke down and cried on TV under oath in a hearing we had in Canada he was so frightened.

    Martin asigns a liberal judge appointed by the liberals to the bench don’t you know, (after 28 requests from the opposition) to do a very limited in scope “investigation” of wrongdoing and glosses the whole thing over.

    Nobody goes to jail nobody convicted of a crime and 100 million goes missing and the Liberal party pays nothing back.

    Our country is about to explode if these criminals get back into office.

    Socialism is for suckers!

  • Please ignore richfisher’s post above, we are having an election up here in Canada, so the partisans are out in full force now, even the uninformed ones.

    Judge Gomery, the judge who is heading up the inquiry, is in fact a Conservative, not a Liberal as stated by the poster above. And the Conservative party endorsed the Gomery’s first report.

    Thanks for the story Carpetbagger, you make some really good points in your article.

  • I have a question for your American readers:

    How would you like it if Bush got to appoint your Senators who would then serve until they were 75, got to appoint justices to your Supreme Court in secret without any confirmation hearings, told Republicans in Congress they would have to vote the party line or sit as independents, and hand-picked candidates to run in Congressional districts overriding the wishes of the local party organization?

    I suspect you would be horrified.

    That is the real story of Canada’s “democratic deficit” which Paul Martin “promised” to fix, but has instead done all of the above. It is this broken democratic model that puts too much power in the hands of one individual that allows things like the sponsorship scandal to happen.

    Thank God, our opposition parties finally got up the nerve to throw the bastards out.

  • Dear Sir: I understand you are a former Clinton speechwriter. I might disagree with you, but at least you can write.

    Here’s the very first post of Paul Martin’s speechwriter’s brand new Blog…

    “6:36 AM – Wow, look at me! I’m in “cyberspace,” where no one can hear you scream. Or maybe they CAN hear you scream but they don’t pay attention because they’re too busy looking at naked ladies. Either way, stop screaming, would you?

    I for one am betting this so-called “Internet” is really going to catch on. It’s neato. Take, for example, these things knowns as “blogs” – you’re soaking in one right now! These blogs are great because they allow people with special insight to instantly convey their astute observations and sage opinions to a knowledge-starved world.”

  • Hi , I do not share the same opinions as you Mister . You refer a small mistake of corruption the Liberal Scandal . What a joke Sir ?
    Watergate was some informations stolen from the other party . How many persons went to gail for that and Nixon was force out of Office for it .
    Here , the Liberal party stole monies from the Government in order to pay for reelection . And Prime Minister Martin , Obtstructing justice , form a Royal Commission which have no power whatsoever but to ask questions and write a book about it . And Martin than ask RCMP to investigate and press charges . THIS WAS A CRIMINAL ACT . Why did Paul Martin did not ask RCMP to investigate at the first place . Was He affraid ? Gomery was hire by Martin Of course he exhonorate his BOSS . Martin was the right hand man to Jean Chretien . Chretien knew something but not Martin . Martin Lied but no big deal !!!
    HERE A BIG QUESTION NOW FOR YOU SIR :
    Why the Prime Minister of Canada is Above the Law ?
    Why the RCMP is under his command ?
    Where is the Supreme Court of Canada , under Prime Minister command also ?
    WE NEED A CHANGE and it is not by helping them but by exposing them that we might have it .

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