As we get fleeced today...

Today, as we all send our tributes to the castle on the Rideau in Ottawa, would it not be more efficient to simply cut out the middleman and pay it directly to the Liberal Party?

Or better yet, just take your money and burn it. There is a good chance that you'll have as much benefit from this as from sending it to the Feds.

And you'll enjoy it a lot more.

Jean - le crocodile désolé

To weep crocodile tears is to pretend a sorrow that one doesn’t in fact feel, to create a hypocritical show of emotion. The idea comes from the ancient belief that crocodiles weep while luring or devouring their prey. However, crocodiles can’t cry, because they have no tear ducts—they would be useless in an animal that spends so much time in the water. The eyes can produce secretions to moisten the lids if the animal is out of the water for a while, but these are hardly tears.

So it is with the reptilian Jean Chretien, who on April 29 made his first public statement on the Adscam furore since he testified at the Gomery commission in February.

Chretien said that he was "sorry", but only "if mistakes were made":

Recalling his appearance before the Gomery inquiry, Chretien said: "In my statement, I said I was sorry if mistakes were made and I said I have to take the full responsibility of what's good and what's bad when you're the prime minister."

"And I said if mistakes were made, these people have betrayed the nation, betrayed the government and myself and (through) due process, if found guilty, they should be punished," said Chretien, who was in Philadelphia to accept an award from a U.S. gay-rights group.

And that was basically it.

But you don't get the real picture unless you watched the video footage of Jean crying his crocodile tears it was instantly evident that he was very reluctantly mouthing the words. He was hostile, abrupt and terse. His body language screamed "f*ck you"!

At the same time he again defended the sponsorship program, saying it was "good for the country."

Yeah. And for a lot of Liberals.

Paul Martin is "Mad as Hell"

Paul Martin says he's mad as hell that his liberal party stole millions of dollars from the taxpayer.

Now to make up for it, he's travelling across the country (on your dime and for the second time) to prove just how upset he is.

Check out his tour here.

Martin's fantasy collides with the ugly face of reality

Some richly deserved credit for Chretien's accomplishments

Finally, Chretien is starting to get the recognition he so richly deserves. Today's Edmonton Journal carried an editorial ("Let's not forget Chretien's place in Adscam mess") castigating the "little guy from Shawinigan" for letting Martin twist in the wind by refusing to take ownership of his true legacy now coming into full bloom.

In his last years as prime minister, the rap on Jean Chretien was that he worried too much about his legacy. On the contrary, it turns out his true fault was not worrying about it enough, or at least more effectively.

Yes, the ineffectual Paul Martin may lose his government in the sponsorship scandal, but the former prime minister will lose his political honour, and his post-referendum Clarity-Bill reputation for ending the perennial threat of Quebec separation.

And because he's quietly letting Martin take the fall for his mistakes, and because he has helped create the best "winning conditions" Quebec separatists may ever enjoy, Chretien deserves more attention today for the mess, and all the mud history may care to throw.

Five or six years ago, many thoughtful Canadians in English-speaking Canada looked on the plain-speaking "petit gars" from Shawinigan with grudging affection, and wondered why so many Quebecers turned their noses up at him. Today, faced with a daily serving of evidence of a sleazy, gang-like culture among Quebec Liberals under his leadership, we realize it was Quebecers who instinctively had it right, and the rest of us who were gulled by this flawed old-school pol and his broken English.

He's still a lucky guy, though, this Trudeau-era cabinet minister who cashed in for 10 years and three victories-by-default on the wreckage left by Brian Mulroney. Long after the point where Mulroney could do nothing but lie low and wait for Canadians to forget, Chretien in retirement still has a chance to redeem himself.

He could ask for his own six minutes on national television to tell Canadians the mess in Quebec is largely his fault, and that of a political culture that Martin has been doing his inadequate best to change.

He could apologize for stonewalling for years in question period, and for allowing the sponsorship program to continue long after the separatist passions had cooled and thus removed its only justification for existence.

He could admit what everyone else in the country knows, that his rivalry with Martin and his streetfighter instincts clouded his judgment on a matter tied to the national-unity issue -- the one subject on which Canadians have long memories and little forgiveness, as Mulroney learned before him.

The proud Chretien won't do this, of course. Making fun of his detractors and belittling their concerns (and ours) is more his style. Remember the golf balls he pulled out of his briefcase in his appearance before the Gomery Commission? But 'fessing up would be the smart thing, as well as the right thing, to do.

Until he "rolled the dice" on national unity, Mulroney had a significant record of achievement capped off by the two free trade agreements so central to Canada's prosperity today. The same could have been said of Chretien, under whose leadership the foundations for 21st-century Canadian prosperity were further cemented with the budget-cutting exercise in which his political support was key. But instead, we will remember grotesquely padded contracts that continued long after the threat of separatism had faded, and kickbacks to the Liberal party of hefty chunks of those tax dollars.

Perhaps Chretien fears to let Martin off the hook by taking the blame, when he truly believes Martin has brought his current troubles on himself by holding the Gomery inquiry. If so, he needn't worry. As the current polls loudly suggest, Canadians rightly hold the Liberal party as a whole responsible for the mess.

Martin can't escape from the fact he was finance minister when the sponsorship money was being approved and spent, and moreover, a finance minister with more power over the spending of other departments than many of his predecessors. He probably wasn't officially told the sordid Adscam details, but as an intelligent man and Quebec minister, he surely had an inkling -- and yet never caused a ruckus till he had the top job.

No, Martin will still have much to answer for, whatever responsibility Chretien decides to shoulder. It is how Canadians will remember him that Chretien should worry about.

Don't worry Jack, if nothing else the Liberals know how to make a deal

Now playing in Quebec....

From le Cornichon.

"Sorry" doesn't cut it

Paul Martin's televised plea for forgiveness and understanding just might hold some water.....

.....if he hadn't been the most powerful minister next to Chretien in Chretien's three governments.

...if he wasn't the person in charge of all the government's money.

...if he wasn't on all the most senior government planning committees for Quebec throughout the entire Adscam period.

...if he wasn't a Liberal MP from Quebec throughout Adscam's six-year run.

...if he didn't represent a riding in the city where most of the criminality is alleged to have taken place -- Montreal.

...if he didn't know almost all of the people involved, lunched with them, sent them greeting cards, sat shoulder-to-shoulder with them in cabinet meetings and on campaign strategy committees, bumped into them at fundraisers and social gatherings.

It is inconceivable that none of the scandal ever caught his eyes, unless, of course, he was wilfully blind.

Martin either knew what was going on, or should have. "Sorry" is too little, too late.

Chretien sabotaging Martin, the Liberals and Canada. Same old, same old.

I have this recurring image of Jean Chretien sitting back, rolling in the big bucks as a lawyer to top up his $153,641 parliamentary pension, and laughing at the stupid Canadian electorate who elected him with three successive majorities. In particular, he gets the biggest laugh from how how he continues to make Paul Martin's life miserable.

As Barbara Yaffee pointed out in a column printed in today's National Post, the sponsorship scandal was Chretien's creation which he spawned, nurtured and defended to the end, never acknowledging a scintilla of responsibility for any wrongdoing.

What's more, he is refused to distance his successor from the program, despite the fact that it would be in the Liberal party's direct interest to do so. Martin has stated he was out of the sponsorship loop; why won't Chretien back him up?

If anything, Chretien -- through his cynical testimony before the Gomery inquiry and his court challenge of the presiding judge -- has boosted public ire toward the Grits

Looks like Chretien is up to his old tricks. One can only hope that Gomery finds the evidence to stick it to him.

Just stating the obvious

Jean breathes new life into separatism

Rex Murphy has a rant pointing out the huge irony that Chretien's sponsorship program, whose only defence is that it was necessary to save the country from the separatists ("We had to save the country. The devil take the details.") has ended up lighting a renewed fire under that movement.

Since the election right up until this present day but especially since the hearings have been going on in Montreal, the testimony of the Gomery Commission has been commanding soap opera-sized audiences in Quebec, and with each day, the anger at the federal Liberals and by default, support for the Bloc has been increasing. Federalists in Quebec are now at a new low and Jean Charest is wearing a 70 per cent disapproval rating. It has reached the point where Quebec separatism, supposedly for so long enfeebled, decayed, passé, on life support is suddenly renewed. And whence did it get the vital transfusion?

From the increasingly bleak portrait of arrogance, mischief, alleged kickbacks, and sloppiness that are the unfailing hallmarks of the sponsorship program. In other words, the cause of separatism has found itself again, breathes new hope, holds a sword over the federal Parliament because of what? Because of the very program whose only possible defence was that it was necessary to save the country has re-awakened the most imminent dynamic of this country's disillusion. So the grand reckless architects of the sponsorship program have now this to consider: The only grounds on which the wretched program could even pretend to a defence, saving the country, is painfully exactly the opposite of what has actually been achieved.

If Canada goes through the anxious torments of yet another referendum in Quebec, let us all thank the great geniuses who let the contracts to paint the billboards, host the soccer games, and plaster the race tracks. They have given new life to Canada's national nightmare. Well done, folks.

Take a bow, Jean. Your legacy will endure for generations to come.

The pot calling the kettle black

So Alphonso Gagliano, the former Don of Chretien's Quebec Family, went on record yesterday predicting the end of Canada after Quebec separatists win the next referendum in the province -- and he says the country will have Paul Martin and his inquiry to blame. He said Martin has badly damaged the Liberal party in Quebec and predicts the Bloc Quebecois will "sweep" the province's 75 seats in an upcoming election.

"The next provincial election, unless there is a miracle, the PQ will win and they will call a referendum right away," Mr. Gagliano said. "And 'goodbye Canada.' This is the end, thanks to Paul Martin's leadership."

What a crock. If anybody has destroyed the Liberal Party and endangered Confederation it is Chretien and his rum-running self-serving pirates.

What an irony. Chretien's program purportedly conceived to "save" Canada ends up being the cause of its disintegration.

What a legacy.

Can Paul Martin pull the trigger?

Writing in the Globe and Mail (April 15, 2005, "Can Paul Martin pull the trigger?") former B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Gibson has put the proverbial cat among the pigeons. It's time to pin the tail on the donkey.

Harry Truman, one of the better U.S. presidents, had a sign on his desk: "The buck stops here." On all great questions within his area, he took responsibility.

Since Dec. 12, 2003, the same sign has been on the Martin desk. But before that? The buck stopped not "here," but there -- at the desk of one Jean Chrétien. That is where the Gomery train should arrive.

Prime ministers set the tone for their governments. These corrupt and sleazy dealings could never have happened unless the perpetrators sensed a certain laxity or tolerance at the top. Failings in accountability fall to a Prime Minister as well. And this could not be more certain than with respect to a program personally established by Jean Chrétien.

Mr. Martin made a mistake when he was sworn in. He should have at once made public the Auditor-General’s report that brought this scandal to the surface and referred it to the RCMP.

It couldn’t be tabled in Parliament as the rules require, Mr. Chrétien having cleverly shut it down days before. Never mind -- give it to the Speaker, give it to the public. Early disclosure is not a hanging offence. And the former PM would have been left carrying his own soiled baggage.

Mr. Martin can still make this argument, but will he? It would reopen a bitter civil war in the Liberal party. Never mind -- that war would be short, and then over. Lop off the rotten branch, then renewal. Either this, or risk an end as a footnote to history.

Jean knows the value of true friendship. About $250 million.

Corriveau receives the highest honour any Chretien henchman can aspire to

Chretien uses his balls to illustrate his legacy...

The noose tightens....

Slowly but surely, testimony from the Gomery inquiry is finding more and more links to Chretien.

Today, former Groupaction Marketing employee Alain Renaud said Chuck Guite, the bureaucrat who ran the federal sponsorship program in the 1990s, said Jean Chretien's office approved sponsorship deals later sullied by scandal. He confirmed an unspecified number of contracts crossed the desk of Jean Pelletier, the chief of staff to Chretien.

Renaud testified that Guite often said contracts would be approved only after getting the green light from the country's highest political office.

He also testified that he heard one of Jean Chretien's friends make a pitch directly to the then-prime minister for a culturally themed sponsorship contract.

Its starting to look more and more like Chretien was more hands on than he has been prepared to admit. This testimony is significant as it provides evidence of Chretien's direct involvemnt in the distribution of sponsorship monies, something he expressly denied during his testimony in February. And the more directly involved he was, the more likely it is that he knew of the abuse. However, that link has yet to be made. Stay tuned....

The Liberal Party: only professionals need apply

"I know nothing!"

Is there anybody in this country that still believes Jean Chretien knew nothing of the monumental abuse of public funds by the Liberals involved with the sponsorship program? Our former PM’s self-serving assertion he knew nothing defies reality and common sense.

1. Chretien has stated that the sponsorship program was of the utmost importance, as it was conceived in order to “save the country”. How could the man in charge of that country know as little about the program as he professes to?

2. Chretien comes from Quebec and prides himself on having the pulse of that province. How could his extensive machine there have no idea of what was going on?

3. Jean Brault, whose dramatic testimony at the sponsorship inquiry has rocked the country, donated $30,000 to Chretien's 1993 campaign in the hopes of landing future federal contracts. Surely Chretien would have taken notice of such a notable donor.

4. Chretien’s older brother, Gaby, solicited a $4,000 donation from Brault by agreeing to submit a false invoice. And Brault says he was brow-beaten into hiring Chretien's niece by a friend of the prime minister. Somehow, Chretien’s close relatives have a close connection with Brault, yet Chretien knows nothing about the millions flowing into companies owned by Brault and other Liberal loyalists?

5. Former Groupaction employee Alain Renaud said he had the ear of Jean Pelletier, Chretien's chief of staff from 1993 to 2001. Renaud said Chretien's one-time riding organizer, Michel Beliveau, was the point man between himself and Pelletier, a good friend of Chretien, whenever Groupaction sought more sponsorship contracts. In other words, Chretien's inner circle may have had control over sponsorship dollars now tainted by allegations $1.1 million was redirected into Liberal coffers. How could this salient fact escape the virgin ears of the man at the top?

Chretien’s sanctimonious denials are reminiscent of the self-serving mantra made famous by Sergeant Schultz, the fearful camp guard on Hogan’s Heroes, who knows what's going on but sees "nussink"!

Seargent Schultz and Chretien: separated at birth?

A Fleecing We Will Go

I found this witty little poem on PolSpy, a great Canadian political blog.

A Fleecing We Will Go

Chretien had a little scam
Little scam, little scam
Chretien had a little scam
His slush funds they did grow

And everywhere that Chretien went
Chretien went, Chretien went
And everywhere that Chretien went
The money it did flow

He gave it to his friends one day
Friends one day, friends one day
He gave it to his friends one day
Which was against the rules

Quebecers were so outraged
So outraged, so outraged
Quebecers were so outraged
No one treats them like fools

And so Paul Martin cast him out
Cast him out, cast him out
And so Paul Martin cast him out
But scandal lingered near

Angry voters milled about
Milled about, milled about
Angry voters milled about
‘Til Martin did appear

Where did all that money go
Money go, money go
Where did all that money go
The angry voters cry

Why I’ll have Judge Gomery tell you so
Have Judge Gomery tell you so
Have Judge Gomery tell you so
I’ll have judge Gomery tell you so
Paul Martin did reply

Why Chretien wants to remove Gomery

Chretien's legacy to Canada unveiled

As Jean Chretien wound down his term in office, he was frantically searching for his "legacy" to the Canadian people. Unbeknownst to him, it was just under his nose all the time.

(From Polspy, who said it best).

It was always the same story, he told the commission: The Liberal Party needed money. If you wanted the business, you had to pay.

Brault says most of the kickbacks were cash; that’s the way his Liberal handlers wanted it, he said, so it couldn’t be traced.

On one occasion, Brault says he handed $25,000 in cash to Joseph Morselli, a top organizer for former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

Brault wanted the bidding for some ad contracts with the Justice Department delayed. He says Morselli told him the delay would cost $100,000.

The first payment was $25,000, dropped off at a fundraiser for Gagliano, at a restaurant in Montreal’s east end.

Brault claims he also put at least five Liberal party workers on Groupaction’s payroll. They were paid with sponsorship money to do work for the party.

Other Liberals allegedly got cheques too, disguised as consulting fees, for doing nothing. One of them was former prime minister Jean Chretien’s brother, Gaby.

Brault claims Chretien handed $4,000 to a Liberal candidate. — CTV

So now you know Chretien’s legacy. Government corruption, waste and scandal. The ‘Little Guy from Shawinigan’ is a thieving sack of shit.

That’s some legacy. Keep that in mind next time you see a picture of the Liberals giving Chretien a standing ovation in the House of Commons the day after his Gomery testimony.

If there’s any justice in the world, Jean will end up as Bubba’s bitch in the Edmonton Max.

Chretien showing his true colours.