this week justice gomery issued his findings as to what happened to taxpayers' money in the sponsorship program. what? a scandal in canadian politics? no way! earlier this year, the commission listened to chretien's buddies claim they were either too senile or too drugged up to recall what went on when they worked in the government. classic.

so the judgment is that since the program was run out the pm's office, he knew or should've known public money was flowing into liberal friendly companies. but of course, chretien plans to challenge the report in court and the public is bound for onslaught of jean's aloofness. i've always loved his ability to answer questions, make statements without giving an actual answer the proof is in the proof!

really this was a scandal unlike others, however, the public's inability to fully grasp its scope was the difficulty of understanding what actually went on. granted, they were covering a story which was developing however the number of individuals, bureaucratic lingo, complex webs of lies could not make for easily packaged soundbytes for the evening news. for most part, news coverage of the comission remained vague at best to either avoid confusing people into not caring or they themselves didn't have the knowledge how to the angle the precedings.

so in the end, all we known is liberal friendly communication companies were overcharging, making up billing statements, the government officials not involved kept quiet fearing for their jobs, and others, like paul martin, had not clue what was going on.

the timing of the report is critical as to whether the present liberal minority government will survive the end of the year. in february, martin promised to call an election following john gomery's report but now the promise has been put off till gomery issue his second report three months from now.

then you've got stephen harper running around the country for the past 18 months "ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, the government wasted money"and well, as big of an issue as it is, isn't going to get the conservatives into power. where do they stand on anything other than banking that the sponsorship scandal is the only thing concerning canadian voters? how about health care, rising oil prices, us-canadian trade disputes. and well, the conservatives are hesitant on bringing the government down before the end of the year not to disrupt the near-coming christmas holiday. in other words, we have to get our shit together because we've got nothing.

paul martin himself isn't out of the hole himself. sure, the story seems to be the old corrupt liberals have been swept out of the bowels of government and the morally superior martin team have cleaned the system. but it's still the same name and harper will undoubtebly pound such thoughts into the voting public.

gille duceppe just wants to get quebec the fuck out of the confederation and the sooner the better.

and yet again, layton anchors the balance of power.