The Heart of the Matter

I received the following email today.

Dear Mr. the Mad,
We are not being bribed with our own money, rather public money is being
spent on worthy social programs. The budget will not go into deficit
because of this. The current liberals have cleaned up the fiscal mess left by PET and made worse during the reign of the JAW, whose dirty linen may yet be reached if this inquiry goes to the heart of the matter.

Sancho Panza,
Squire to the Knight of the Woeful Countenance

My answer is as follows.

My dear Squire Sancho:

It is a bribe. O' yes it is. And it is done with our hard earned money.

As a policy wanker I know how long and arduous is the route to proper program funding approval within the bowels of HM creaky ships of state. It is a route peppered with great despair for the originators of programs, a deep longing for sanity, and the certain recognition that progress, if achieved at all, will be measured in inch pebbles, not mile stones. While I often long for a policy machete sharp enough to cut the bureaucratic Gordian knot, I also know a back alley crapshoot when I see it.

Enter Paul Dithers and Smiley Jack. No due diligence in that back alley summit. $4.6 billion of public money was coughed up in a snap of the fingers. No analysis, no consultation, no appraisal of options and alternatives. No review of how to implement, or what might be problematical. No plunge into deficit? Maybe not, maybe so, but what are the opportunity costs involved?

Let us be clear. This is expediency-in-action-writ large, not good governance. The sole motive force for this deal was a desperate bid for survival by the Grit kleptocracy until next spring, when the electorate (they fervently hope) will have moved on to other more mundane matters.

The disgusting trail of corruption may well lead all the way back to Brian the Jaw. As I recall, we the people reduced his successor (Kim the Pink) to two seats in our
House of Commons for lesser crimes and misdemeanors. Have some consistency here. Let us reduce the successor of The Chicoutimi Strangler to a pair of votes in parliament for a term. Fair is fair.

Have we no pride as a people? The Liberal Party has been squeezing our golf balls on a grand scale. It is clear that the looting has been systematic and endemic in the Quebec wing of that party. They have lost the right to govern us. Away with them.

Your friend,

John the Mad