[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]
"How could you have respect a man who was responsible for budgets that stole millions of dollars from tax payers? Personally i think anyone who votes liberal has to be off their rocker (unless your local liberal candidate is someone highly respected that you feel ought to be in government regardless of party leadership).

The Gomery Commission showed that Martin was only responsible for producing the budget. He had no discretion as to how the budget was actually spent, i.e. which ad firms were chosen to run the program.

[/ QUOTE ]

In terms of Gomery, I blame the Liberal party as a whole (the culture of "entitlement", as Gomery put it), and not Paul Martin in particular. There's no evidence that he knew of anything that was going on with the sponsorship deals in Quebec. I find it much harder to believe that Chretien knew nothing of what was going on, but that's an argument for another day.

However, the fact that Martin is not personally responsible is irrelevant. The Liberals need to be punished for what they did. This wasn't one or two bad apples in the party -- this was a scam that involved dozens and dozens of members of the Liberal party. To re-elect them would be sending the wrong message as to what Canadians are willing to tolerate from their elected officials.

In 1993, after many scandals came to light, Canadians overwhelmingly voted against the Progressive Conservatives and basically destroyed the party. I don't undestand why it doesn't look like the same thing will happen to Liberals in 2006. They might not win the election, but they won't be reduced to 2 seats like the PCs were in '93. It's sad, really.