What is going on in Canada?

I have been seeing a lot of stuff in RW blogs and such about some supposed scandal in Canada. Obviously, I cannot beleive it.

Can anyone explain to me what is really going on and why?

non-partisan description of the issue:

INDEPTH: SPONSORSHIP SCANDAL
Federal sponsorship scandal

CBC News Online | April 21, 2005



http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/groupaction/

Paul Martin who supposedly listed an oil company in his 2003 holdings that got started with $1 million from Saddam Hussein. I don't know many details but there was a thread on the LBN forum just over an hour ago. Here's a link...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1416430

Hope this helps

a referendum vote ended up in lots of places. I think it was $100 Million. And the vast majority of that went to advertising firms, to pay Quebec stars to wear the Canadian flag to events, you know - survival of your country stuff.This all took place under the old Prime Minister. The new one became party leader by pushing the old PM out of power... and the old one left him a nice big steaming pile of scandal on his priministerial chair.

Anyway, after the last referendum in the mid 1990s, and before the change of prime minister... money was flowing to cultural type events all over the country but mostly to Quebec. Nothing inherently wrong with that. And then some pigs came along and started troughing. And it looks like some of the money ended up back the in Liberal Party Coffers and even the coffers of the Quebec separation party (????). We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars here. Can you believe that? Out of maybe 100 million a few hundred thousand may have ended up in party donations (who was the person who gave the money to the Quebec separation party?).

A real insult to Quebecors.

Then the investigation seems to be asking question about the current PM's tenure as Finance Minister and what did he know? Well he says he knew nothing and that is not hard to believe. But now they have added to the scandal the contracts that went out to government consultants and of course the Liberals had a few favorite advisor's who got much of the business.

The neocon numbers have gone up. And they are desperate for an election today. The PM apologized last year, started the investigation and now apologizes again. And he is on a press junket to apologize some more. He says the election should only be held after the judge issues findings on the whole 1 1/2 year long investigation. But he has a minority government and it will fall if this latest budget bill does not go through. He has the support of the NDP (socialists/liberal party) and has just lost the support of the block Quebecois (separatist party). The Conservatives (new neocon party) need the election today. The PM is missing all of 3 votes to pass this budget and then he is likely fine till the judge delivers his findings. There are likely 3 independants... but who will they vote for?

We just had an election less than a year ago. Most people do not want another. And election to penalize about $5Million in funny money stuff would cost about $250 Million. This PM (and his current cabinet) had nothing to do with the illegal transactions.

David Frum (who you know as Mr "I made up the term axis of evil" but we in Canada know as the demon seed of one of our favorite journalists) just recently wrote a piece that went into how Canada will be taken over by the US and that is what the election should be about and not health care. (The Neocons in the USA desperately want us to dismantle universal health care...because it works). So we can see that the plan is to terrorize the socialists in Canada and divide the left with some being terrified of the impending American invasion and some in the left being more pragmatic and saying "like it didn't start 100 years ago? "

Mostly the neocons know that if the election is on social programs and health care, they loose. So the game is on to try to re-frame the election into anything but "who will best protect our beloved health care & social programs in this changing world" for the neocons. And then big Pharma in the USA doesn't have to worry about busloads of seniors going to Canada (or the example of healthy poor people). And the neocon agenda of bankrupting our government, crashing and burning everything social, and the US corporate invasion can take hold.

Otherwise, Canada will continue to make the USA look really bad.

Evidently the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois are working together to bring about a new election, only months after the last one. The Liberal minority government is likely to be replaced by a Conservative minority government, but whereas the Liberals can usually count on SOME help from either the New Democrats or the Bloc (since both are more progressive than the Liberals themselves), Conservatives are likely to be going it alone in a minority government, which will likely precipitate ANOTHER election before too much time passes.

Canadians don't much cotton to the ever-rightward lean of the new Conservative Party, and despite the moderate noises they've been making, they can't change their spots. I think they hope to take power back for the first time since the early '90s with the help of the Bloc, but don't see that that's ALL the help they'll receive, since the Tories and the Bloc are like oil and water ideologically.

And getting rid of Martin (a CEO PM, much like Bush!) can't be all that bad a thing. Who knows, maybe this is another opportunity for Sheila Copps to get back in, run again for the leadership, and clean house for the Liberal Party. My fingers are crossed....