April 8, 2005 at 11 AM
Free the Testimony
Justice Gomery has partially lifted the ban on Jean Brault’s testimony. Mentioning nothing about the leak to an American blog, Gomery said only that Brault’s testimony seemed not to have much to do with his impending fraud charges after all. Oops.
So it turns out that the decision to impose a ban was a cautionary measure. “I imposed the ban as a precaution to prevent a possible prejudice.” It’s nice that Gomery came to his senses, but is that any sort of precedent for justice proceedings? Why hold court proceedings in public at all if you’re so worried about prejudice?
Putting aside the legal questions for a moment, it’s worth having a good, hard look at Brault’s testimony. You can watch an unhealthy portion of it at CBC’s web site, and if you’re not sure whether it’s serious, just have a look at the size of The Globe and Mail’s headline He claims, in no uncertain terms, that senior Liberal officials in the government schemed to channel government revenue to the party’s treasury, in order to fund its three election campaigns in the 1990s. The short version is that the Liberal government paid outlandish sums to selected marketing companies for doing little or no work, and then demanded that they in turn donate money to the Liberal Party.
Long-time readers of Attaboy will know that I’ve never been the Liberals’ biggest fan, but this is all truly outrageous. This government should never have been re-elected, especially not three times. What makes it an even greater pity, though, is how the opposition parties in Canada have never offered, and continue to fail to offer, a good enough reason to be elected themselves. This new evidence will doubtless go a long way towards shaping the next election campaign, where I predict the other parties will all go on and on about how they’re not the Liberals and they won’t cheat the public out of millions of dollars.
That’s all well and good, but wouldn’t be a fantastic thing if one of the parties actually used this occasion to launch a real platform? What would you do different? Corruption is not going to stop with a new party in power — government corruption is older than government itself. Legislate measures to ensure it can’t happen. Explain a better way to combat Quebec separatism or promote Canadian federalism (as the Liberals claim they were trying to do) that doesn’t involve bribery and isn’t open to fraudulent exploitation.
It may not be clear to English Canada, but this will be a turning point in Quebec. The Liberals already shredded their credibility in Quebec before the last election, which lead to the Bloc Quebecois winning two-thirds of Quebec’s seats and produced the current minority government situation. If the sponsorship scandal was a gas leak, then this testimony is the match to light an explosion of separatist sentiment. Canadians should consider this, when they decide who is worthy of their support.
Previously: A Blogger’s Defense
Subsequently: On Bread and Loaves Thereof
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