What Will Your Answer Be?

A couple of weeks ago, even as the Honourable Belinda the Betrayer PC MP, crossed the floor of the House of Commons into the camp of the Liberal Party, grit strategists realized they lastill lacked sufficient votes. Her defection would not prevent future non-confidence motions in the House of Commons from succeeding, so the Grits shuffled the patronage deck and dealt out some face cards for the consideration of the dynamic duo, known as "Mr. And Mrs. Grewal MP squared."

The Grits never thought Mr. Grewal bright enough, or perfidious enough, to tape their tawdry conversations, but he did and the transcripts are not pretty. Now all the Grewal tapes have been released and the maggot-filled heart of this government is laid bare to the media and public.

In response, the Prime Minister and his minions have redeployed the Holy Obfuscator of Bytown (HOB) from its recent use at the Battle of Gomery Gulch. Unlike our helicopters, tanks, frigates, air transports, and infantry battalions, the HOB is the one weapon system that the Liberals are prepared to maintain in peak working condition, at whatever the cost.

The HOB has it's afterburners on now as I write, blowing greasy black smoke over Parliament Hill to obscure the fact that a senior Liberal cabinet minister and the PM's own Chief of Staff were engaged in talks intended to buy the Grewal family votes in the House of Commons. The greasy smoke is very distracting, but if you hold your nose and pay attention, you can see the talks for what they are.

If the Gomery Commission reveals to the people the slimy Grit bottom feeders slurping at the public trough while kicking-back public monies to the political party that fed them, the Grewal tapes reveal just how far up the food chain the Liberal way of doing business extends. The PM says not very far.

"Let me make this very clear," he [Martin] said, "that when I was told about this, the possibility of him crossing the floor, I made it very clear that no offers were to be made, and no offers were made."

Well, any reasonable person who takes the time to read the actual transcripts of the conversations Mr. Grewal held with the PM's Chief of Staff, Tim Murphy and with Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, has to conclude that offers in exchange for votes were the whole point of the bloody exercise.

This is true regardless of whom contacted whom first; a debate which, interesting though it might be, is a red herring in the grand scheme of things. Nor is it particularly important whether Mr. Grewal is a paragon of public virtue or not. It certainly appears to me that he is a dubious sort at best.

But it is the Liberals who form the Government of Canada and it is their part in this tale of sleaze which ought to rivet and revolt the citizens of this nation. I am aware that there is little in the way of public outrage right now. This both puzzles and saddens me.

We are told that this year is the year of the veteran. During this year the government encourages us to honour the sacrifice of those who went to war to defend our liberties. It is a good and noble suggestion. Yet in our passive quietude over the Liberal revelations of political corruption we betray the sacrifices of our veterans and the national future of our children.

Our children will one day ask you what you did during your watch as our democracy crumbled into a kleptocracy. How will you answer this question?

If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Major John McCrae, Surgeon, 1st Canadian Field Artillery Brigade