You know, we here at the Breadbin always believed the government to be composed largely of criminals.
True, most of their "criminal" activities have been, historically and strictly speaking, entirely legal. (It helps when they write the laws, doesn't it?) And voters in Ontario, especially, have come to expect larceny and pickpocketing on a grand scale...actually to reward it.
When the next election comes, pray God we don't do it again. Because if we do, they might as well start hiring hitmen to whack people. Using taxpayer monies, of course.
Why not? If Jean Brault is to be believed, our money's been misused for just about every other nefarious process imaginable.
Minor caveat: Jean Brault himself faces fraud charges. Liberals will therefore insist his testimony before the Gomery inquiry is suspect in every detail.
I think not. For one thing, Brault supplied a library of documentation to back himself up. For another, his account of shady dealings is anything but self-serving: Brault certainly did nothing to minimize his involvement. I'm inclined to trust the man.
This sponsorship scandal has been a-building for over a decade, adding layers and schemes and muck galore. It has thoroughly infected the federal Liberals, to the point where provincial Liberal leaders are frantically distancing themselves from the national wing of their own party. (Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty has held discussions with both Stephen Harper and Belinda Stronach, while the Liberal leader in Alberta is actually considering a name change for his party.)
They tried, in the time-honored Liberal tradition, to shut this inquiry up when it started to get uncomfortable. But even Teflon Jean couldn't make his golf balls stick. When they couldn't silence the judge, they decided to sail that fabled river in Egypt all the way to the sea of voter apathy.
Denial became difficult rather quickly, though. Because they were asking voters to believe they were completely ignorant of millions of dollars gone missing; that they had no knowledge of ten years of concentrated malfeasance emanating from their very offices. It'd be like walking into your bathroom and missing an elephant in there.
It started with a dubious proposition somewhere well back in the Chretien era. "Let's buy Quebec's allegiance", the thinking went, "and let's do it by plastering the province with Maple Leaves and Government of Canada symbols." Ignoring the fact that they were systematically insulting the intelligence of every Quebecer, they enlisted the help of some Liberal-friendly Montreal ad agencies. (Oops! Chretien insisted those ad agencies were federalist, not partisan.)
But if Groupaction, the ad agency most under the microscope, wasn't Liberal-friendly before all this started up, it sure got to be in a hurry. Really Liberal-friendly.
They paid some money, see, to tip some sponsorship business their way. The government responded in kind, quadrupling their contracts over eight years.
To keep the money rolling in, Brault had to roll some money out. He hired Liberal party insiders and paid them exorbitant sums to, well, to do nothing, really. Sizeable personal donations were required from Groupaction personnel to keep them in the green, culminating, according to Brault, in a straight kickback of ten percent of sponsorship funds paid to his company. In addition, cheques were cut for Jean Chretien's brother and niece. The bribery, extortion, and blackmail got to be pretty thick on the ground after awhile. If there wasn't enough money to pay the monthly squeeze, no problem: just falsify a few invoices and charge the government for a bunch of work never done. Thus the money flowed back and forth in a perverted and incestuous French kiss lasting over ten years. They only reluctantly removed their tongues from each other's mouths after our esteemed Auditor-General, Sheila Fraser, stumbled across somebody's loose end, got suspicious, and started feverishly yanking.
Adscam should have serious consequences for the Liberal Party of Canada. The West, long weary of constant Liberal pandering to Quebec, is basking in vindication. In la belle province, an action originally intended to subdue the separatists has them licking their chops at the prospect of another referendum instead...at the very least, the Liberals can kiss any Quebec seats goodbye for a generation.
Their only hope: us sheep in Ontario. And some of us, at least, are still here. Somebody by the name of Claudia from Barrie, Ontario, wrote in to Global National to say "No matter what they do, my beloved Liberals have my vote. They are the party for me."

I wonder, should Claudia be sterilized? Or simply deported?