What Are You Going To Do About It?

By now, reader, if you have an Internet connection and access to Google, you have a pretty fair idea of what was said on Thursday in Justice John Gomery's hearing room. If true, that testimony portrays the most systematically corrupt government in Canada's modern history.

Until now, there has been a strong tendency in English Canada to dismiss the sponsorship scandal as a Quebec matter, of little concern outside the province where the graft was (allegedly) taken and the kickbacks (allegedly) paid. But when the newest revelations are published, they will force Canadians to confront a harder truth: The scandal may have begun in Quebec. Its consequences reach nationwide.

Over the past two decades, Liberal strength in Quebec--the party's one-time bastion--has weakened to the point of collapse. The Liberals last won a majority of the seats in the province in 1980, a quarter-century ago. Even more damagingly, if possible, the party lost its place in the province's intellectual and cultural life. Honest and idealistic francophone Quebecers migrated to the PQ, the BQ, the ADQ. The Liberals got ... Alphonse Gagliano.

How do you hold together a party without convictions or principles? You do it with money. And that is how it seems Jean Chretien did it.

Chretien has explained that the sponsorship scandal originated as an attempt to "save Canada." That's not very plausible. You don't win referendums by distributing large sums of money to small networks of politically connected insiders. It was not Canada he was trying to save--it was his political party.

But the problems the Liberals have faced in Quebec since 1980 are problems that have haunted them everywhere in Canada since 1993. I never much cared for it myself, but there's no denying that Trudeauism was a strong and coherent idea that inspired intense loyalty from large numbers of Canadians.

But Trudeauism is as dead as the Ghibelline party in medieval Italy. A strong central government? The deal Danny Williams has extracted from Paul Martin would have made Peter Lougheed gasp. Lavish social programs? Federal spending has been cut to the lowest levels since the early 1950s. Redistributionist taxation? Taxes have been piled so high on the middle class that the average family is barely better off today than it was in 1989.

Paul Martin's gaseous rhetoric is the talk of a man whose central idea system has imploded under the weight of contradicting reality. But if he no longer has ideas, he certainly has not lost his will to power. True, Martin does appear to be a less grubby sort of person than Jean Chretien. Certainly he took care to make his money before he entered politics. But the great challenge to the Liberal party under Paul Martin remains the same as it was under Jean Chretien: How do you sustain a national political organization without ideals, principles or vision? And because the challenge is the same, the answer is likely to be the same--unless Canadians force change.

Will they? It is disturbing to observe how little political damage the Liberals have till now suffered as a result of the scandals of the past decade. In Quebec, Liberal support dropped 25% between the election of 2000 and the election of 2004. But in Ontario, it slipped by barely 10%, and in many other parts of Canada--the Maritimes and Saskatchewan for example--it actually rose.

If the Liberals struggle through the current shocker--if they can hold on to their support in Ontario above all--they are bound to draw the logical conclusions. For a time, yes, they will be more careful than they were in Quebec in the 1990s. But only for a time, and not probably for a very long time. Paul Martin's entourage may be better educated than Jean Chretien's, may wear better clothes and have better table manners. But they are just as hungry. And by the looks of them, their tastes are even more expensive.

Boss Tweed, the story goes, taunted outraged citizens in New York City with a sneering, "What are you going to do about it?" It's a question that resonates to this day. Judges and juries may send an individual malefactor or two to prison. Historians may deal harshly with the reputations of even thrice-elected prime ministers. But real change can come to the Canadian political system from only one place: the voters.

If this government falls, if it is beaten, if it is punished: then the abuses will stop. If not, they will continue.

As is ever the case, one-party rule has translated into economic stagnation and political corruption. And as is ever the case, there is only one cure for one-party rule: replacement of the ruling party by another. Unlike the Ukrainians, unlike the Lebanese, Canadians need run no personal risks to effect this replacement. There is no danger, and there is no excuse. It's all up to you. Choose.