Why an Election Now?

May 4, 2005

So why the need for a federal election now? There are so many reasons, but for the purposes of this column, I’ll stick to the three main ones:

1. The Liberal Party of Canada is corrupt and therefore should not be running the country.

2. The Liberals are plunging the country into financial ruin.

3. There’s a good chance that the Gomery Inquiry won’t get a chance to report if half of the Liberal Party is successful in shutting it down for good.

The Canadian electorate is fully capable of passing its own judgment on whether the Liberals remain fit for public office. Sworn evidence at the Gomery Inquiry, as well as supporting documents, have already indicated corruption at the highest levels in the Liberal Party of Canada.

The Liberals claim that since none of them have actually been convicted, they’re still fit to govern. Canadians have higher standards than that, and governments have been brought down for even a whiff of scandal, let alone sworn testimony. Paul Martin was perfectly willing to call an election last year, before Justice Gomery could hear from a single witness. Why the need to wait for the final report now?

Meanwhile, the Liberals are raiding the public treasury. Since pleading to keep his job on national television, Paul Martin has gone on a $7.5-billion spending spree with the assistance of the NDP. It’s ironic (and insulting) that the Liberals are using taxpayers’ money in an attempt to buy their way out of a vote-buying scandal.

Mr. Martin himself admitted the next election will be about Liberal corruption. He doesn’t deserve a 10-month election campaign financed by your tax dollars.

There’s no guarantee Justice Gomery will even be allowed to report. The other half of the Liberal Party is right now before the Federal Court trying to get Justice Gomery fired. What happens if they’re successful? What happens to the PM’s deal to call an election 30 days after the Gomery report? He won’t say.

However, Mr. Martin has a great deal to say about the Conservative Party. The Liberals’ mudslinging, fear-mongering campaign has been officially re-launched. The PM likes to allege that Conservatives are supporting the separatists. Yet it’s thanks to Liberal corruption that separatism is at an all-time high in Quebec. Conservatives want Canadians to go to the polls to vote against the corruption of the Liberals and the separatism of the Bloc.

Nothing is beneath the Paul Martin Liberals. They’ve offered sitting opposition members plum federal positions, including an ambassadorship to Conservative MP Inky Mark (he refused). They’ve resorted to filibustering their own legislation in order to avoid a vote of non-confidence. That’s after shutting down opposition debate, actively contravening parliamentary votes and the PM refusing to show up for Question Period. I agree with Mr. Martin’s statement that parliament is dysfunctional … he’s made it that way.

Given everything we now know about the way the Liberal Party is operating – their corruption and how they’ll attempt anything to desperately cling to power, why would we leave them in office for another 10 days let alone 10 months?

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