The Gomery Pile...

So...got any answers yet?
You'd think, after two Prime Ministers testified at the Gomery Inquiry, we'd be a little further along the path of finding out why millions of taxpayers' dollars went missing. Then again, since these were Liberal Prime Ministers both, it's no great shock that we're still in the dark.
Oh, who am I kidding? Politicians of every stripe take a top-secret series of courses within three weeks of arriving in Ottawa. The curriculum includes the following:

MEDIA SCRUM 100: Answering questions in such a way as to dispense absolutely no information, without offending anyone; how to camouflage opinions; how to appear to have two or more opinions on any given issue at any given time.
POLITICS 103: Damage control: "Passing the Buck--How Far Can It Be Thrown?"; Politics as War, or, The Other Side Are All Heathens!; Taxpayers And Their Bottomless Pockets.
DEPROGRAMMING 224: "Common Sense--Myth or Fantasy?"; "How to Spend Other People's Money And Put A Smile On Their Face"; the difference between your old budget (written in stone) and your new one (written in water).
POLLS 368: "Reading the Wind"; trial balloons, the concept of plausible deniability.

Jean Chretien acheived top marks in every one of these courses and a dozen others besides. The man's a political genius with the heart of a machine. And he's got balls...golf balls. Lots and lots and lots of them, all nicely monogrammed by Very Impoertant People. They prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that...well, they prove something, anyway. I'm not sure what.

The judge really dropped the (golf) ball on this one. He should have been merciless in keeping Chretien to the topic at hand, namely, the missing monies, where they might have gone, who knew about it and when they knew it. The hijinks pulled by Chretien should have been enough to earn a hefty contempt of court fine. There's no doubting the truth of it: le petit gars de Shawinigan has nothing but contempt for Gomery, for the inquiry, and for the Canadian taxpayers funding it. Chretien 's actions are of course above the law...the man is a law unto himself. He very strongly believes that nobody should have the right to question him, because He Knows Best.
Martin came across quite differently on the stand, today. There were no theatrics and no visible scorn. Not much else, either. He knew nothing. Whatever he did know, it wasn't of consequence. He's either lying or painfully incompetent. Possibly both.

Nobody seems to be asking the real questions here--the underlying ones that have been with us since Confederation. Millions of dollars were spent trying to keep Quebec in Canada. If you add up all the money that's ever been spent doing that, you get a figure that really is quite staggering--it makes AdScam look like three coins in the fountain.

WHY?

Don't get me wrong, for territorial integrity, natural resources, and--yes--culture, Quebec is an asset to Canada. But is that asset worth the money we've spent trying to secure it? How many billions on bilingualism? How many sops by Quebecois Prime Ministers to Quebecois ridings? How many sweet little side deals, the kind Paul Martin calls 'assymetrical federalism' and the rest of us call the tail not just wagging the dog but spinning it around in circles?

Surely I'm not the only one asking these questions. And Jean Chretien can get all misty-eyed and say it was all for national unity if we wants. Not unity, Jean. Impunity. Unfortunately, you've got it.