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COMMENTARY
April 13, 2005
Connexions
Curiously enough the Liberals have woven the legal rope from which they may soon be hanging. As I've learned from several commentators and lawyer friends their anti-gang legislation delivered in a pre-election publicity scramble eight years ago and now written into the Criminal Code as section 467 may prove the means by which even the slipperiest and most exalted characters could be brought within sight of a jail. It has always been hard to make a criminal fraud charge stick. It requires the assembly of a chain of evidence such as can seldom reach the top of an organization. It is much easier to get the little people who actually touched the money. But section 467 provides the means to go for the top from the bottom. Once we have any three characters convicted as parts of a criminal conspiracy lower down we have a bona fide criminal organization the mere taint of association with which then begins to pull down the rest. The Crown need only prove that the people at the top knew what the people at the bottom were doing. So far so good. But police and prosecutors have been loathe to touch the section from the fear that it is not Charter-proof; and a Charter challenge could dissolve years of their painstaking work. So should it come to the crunch and the Brault allegations stand up in court the Attorney-General of Canada a certain Irwin Cottler -- supposing him still to be in office -- would find himself in a lose-lose quandary. If he wished to proceed against any of his old political cronies who by this time might stand convicted in the public eye the case could fall apart on technicalities. If he wished not to proceed he would appear to be protecting them. The Brault revelations may play out in supplementary ways. There are aspects of the case that have yet to be examined. Perhaps the most interesting is the role played by separatists in bringing this story to light. It would seem the revelations we are now hearing while they may be true enough in themselves are being made by men whose own sympathies are with the Bloc Qu?b?cois. What will we find behind their testimony? My guess is a certain amount of shadow-boxing between Liberals and Bloquistes whose common interest has been in sustaining each other each as the other's necessary adversary in the "national unity" political game. Frankly if I were a Liberal today -- my reader will find this hard to imagine -- I would be very eager to get out of power. The party needs to rebuild from scratch and it were better for them to have the Conservatives floundering over methods of prosecuting their innumerable bad eggs. Prime Minister Martin may think he is man enough to mount the boldest damage-control operation in modern Canadian political history. But I don't think even his predecessor could pull off bluster on that scale. Sir John A. Macdonald alone was up to such a task in the much different political environment of the 19th century. And even he had to cool his heels in opposition for one full term while some dweeb named Alexander Mackenzie proved to everyone's satisfaction that he could not govern. The personages of the Liberal backrooms may be cynical enough to think Canadians will let them get away with anything. I suppose given our recent history there is a chance they could be right. I'm looking around Ontario however and I don't like their chances. We came within an inch of deep-sixing them last June don't ask us again. Only one connexion remains to be made in the public mind about our perpetual ruling party. It is the connexion between what has been emerging in the Gomery Inquiry and the issue of same-sex marriage. It is a connexion that the leader of the opposition Stephen Harper is beginning to make. The picture of moral squalor may be viewed through either lens -- and a large majority of the electorate is about as enthusiastic for the destruction of the institution of marriage as it is for Adscam. This is a government that has in the arrogance of power lost sight of the elementary standards of decency that still pertain among a considerable portion of the Canadian electorate. Unbeknown to the Liberals we are still capable of being grossed out. The fact that at least two Liberal MPs are currently musing about crossing the floor should help bring this home to them. One of the non-mysteries of life is how corruption spreads -- not merely from one person to another but from one area of activity to another. It may seem pure coincidence to some that the party that is ramming same-sex marriage down our throats is also the party of Adscam. And call me a neanderthal for mentioning it: but I am confident it is exactly what's on the mind of many of the Liberal Party's own supporters. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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