Are we there yet?

Like an anxious nine year old waiting to get to the destination on a road trip, the Canadian public grows weary of the never ending examination of the Adscam scandal, without any sense of progress to be seen.
Since Prime Minister Martin vowed “to get to the bottom of this”, we’ve watched a parade of middle managers, slick looking ad execs, bombastic bureaucratic minions and combative ex cabinet ministers weigh in with their two cents worth.

And all we’re left with thus far is the belief that somebody, maybe everybody, isn’t telling us the truth. Pick your witness, everyone covers their butt, no one comes clean and we just sit back and wonder how we let things get to this state.

The Prime Minister at the start of our journey said that Canadians wanted to hear from Mr. Guite and so did he. Well Chuckie spoke and for the most part tried to drag Martin’s name and office of the day into the pit of political interference, all the while claiming innocence of any wrongdoing.

His two days of testimony a classic example of sandbagging. Mr. Guite did his best to deflect any criticism of his work, at the same time as he pointed the finger at the Prime Minister and his inner circle from the days of Finance.

Martin’s closest aide of the time Terrie O’Leary has responded to Mr. Guite’s broadsides, basically advising one and all that his recollections of events of the day are rather suspect.

It was a theme that seemed to run through the committee as they wrapped up yet another interminable week of posturing and pontificating. For the first time since this dog and pony show got under way both Liberal and Conservative members agreed that perhaps Mr. Guite’s testimony was a tad self serving and really hasn’t addressed the issue of the sponsorship scandal. In fact all that Guite did was to deflect attention from himself and the Chretien era onto the shoulders of Prime Minister Martin. By taking the approach of recounting moments of interest by Martin’s team at Finance on matters pre dating the sponsorship scandals, Guite has taken two days of testimony to gain a measure of revenge on Martin.

Rather than getting to the bottom of the scandal at hand, we instead are treated to a skirmish or two in the Liberal party civil war. Each day of the hearings seemingly resulting in yet another drop in the popularity of the Liberal party in the polls, giving Martin and his handlers a huge migraine of a headache in deciding whether to face a testy electorate or not.

The hearings which have drifted on and off message for weeks now, have occasionally deteriorated into nothing but partisan sniping and televised electoral posturing. They were saving the country by spending millions, at times we heard rumour of drugs, witnesses afraid for their lives, you never knew where the road would turn, only that it seemed endless. Finger pointing is the order of the day, an observer to CPAC wonders when they’ll break to go do some finger painting in the corner, right after their cookies and milk.

Sadly all this exercise has shown is that, elected MP’s will always return to their partisan roots, to expect that this would lead to any kind of closure was to live in a fools paradise. It will be interesting to see what the final bill will come to for this display of democratic principle in action. Perhaps later on we can have hearing into the expense of the hearing; it’s almost the Canadian way.

As Paul drives us down the road we’re hoping we get there soon. Then again, maybe that was the strategy all along, a lengthy exercise in self interest never actually coming up with any answers. Instead we end up with more and more questions about the regime of the past. As if we haven’t been tortured enough, they now plan on calling back many of the key witnesses, like ghosts they’ll haunt us a little more. Alfonso, Sheila and Ran we need a little more, regale us with your tales of woe.

When the scandal broke we were up in arms over the revelations, looking for heads to roll. Since that burst of activism we’ve long since lost our outrage. Nine weeks have gone by and we have nothing. As we sit eyes glassy with day after day of testimony running together, we think enough. The weather is warming, the sun is shining and summer beckons not too far down the road. Do we really want to waste our time anymore on what we cynically believe is just business as usual?

For the Prime Minister there may be no better time to jump into an election and clean the slate. The Prime Minister is most likely hoping that on Election Day we think back to the testimonials from the old hands. He can claim to have tried to get the facts but hey, too many of the old timers hold to the old ways. He’ll offer up new faces, new agendas and new ideas. A populace tired of this drive will gladly take the rest stop. It may be a gamble, but its one that may work.

The above item is taken from my Boondoggle blog, for more items and links about government check it out.