For the first time in recorded history Canadian Liberals are not only actually fighting with each other, but doing so openly. The battles between Prime Minister Paul Martin and former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien have now come out into the open, with the latest a salvo from Chrétien pit bull Warren Kinsella taking a bite out of Martin.
This week more truths are coming out of the Gomery Inquiry and the fortunes of the Liberals keep sinking. We have now found out, that you could be in charge of a Québec ad agency, receive millions of dollars of federal funding and yet be stricken with Alzheimer’s disease.
All parties are claiming that they are not contemplating going to the polls yet are pulling their election machinery into place. The Conservatives gave that indication a while ago when they named Peter Van Loan (Estonian-Cons York-Simcoe-Jõekääru) into a key campaign role. It has to be remembered that Van Loan played a major, yet quiet part in bringing together the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance. He is considered to be one of their " top guns " when it comes to campaigning.
The media had to be taught how to count by the Toronto Sun’s Senior Associate Editor, Lorrie Goldstein when the media had used the poll figure of 28 % to put Martin as the least likely to be responsible for AdScam leaving out the fact that 45 % thought Martin was " somewhat " responsible for AdScam. Adding the two figures give Martin a 73 % responsibility rating. Martin was going to use the 28 % number with which to go to the polls.
Currently the Conservatives are sitting at around 5 points ahead of the Liberals in the polls, but Harper is playing it calmly. This is a number that the media cannot fiddle with.
Maybe Martin should not have gone after Chrétien with the Gomery Inquiry ... but we've already been there, haven't we?