Martin to address nation Thursday night

[Spazito]

With all signs pointing the Liberal minority government's defeat as soon as May 19, Prime Minister Paul Martin is set to address the nation Thursday night to discuss the sponsorship program and the paralysis in Parliament.

Such a broadcast is rare, but with the oppostion blocking the Liberal legislative agenda, he is taking a chance at explaining the situation to Canadians directly.

The allegations that have arisen from sponsorship inquiry hearings in Montreal dominated Wednesday's question period, as they have for the past two weeks.

Montreal ad executive Claude Boulay told the inquiry today he was paid $3.5 million in sponsorship money only a month after making a tourism pitch to former public works minister Alfonso Gagliano.

more

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1114028243544_81/?hub=TopStories

[Wat_Tyler]

1. 'oppostion blocking the Liberal legislative agenda'?

Are we hell! This is a minority parliament and the Liberals cannot expect to hold a monopoly on power within the house. The culprit here is Valeri, who is an incompetent House Leader and has had the sheer undemocratic gall to cut off all opposition days for the forseeable future purely because he is terrified of the possibility of a non-confidence vote - talk about 'blocking the agenda'. May I remind you that the Government does not control Parliament's agenda. Parliament does. Or, at least, it should, if our democracy functioned properly.
Let Martin speak. He's a lousy public speaker, he'll bumble and obfuscate and it will do him no good whatsoever.

[V. Kid]

2. Maybe the Liberals are trying to kill their minority goverment?

Think about it!

If Gomery turns out to be really big they could finish very low in the house. And they probably want to save as many seats as possible, especially in Quebec. I think they want an election now to stop the bleeding that the Gomery inquiry is imflicting on them, especially in Quebec. If they can have an election now they are probably hoping they'll be able to rally enough support in their favour by scaring the federalist voters in Quebec by saying the NDP and Conservatives have no chance at winning any seats in the province, and voting for them will only split the anti-Bloc vote and give the sepratists the balance of power in the house again.

I think that's probably something his strategists are trying to accomplish. Commit suicide for the long term health of the party, hoping the Conservatives can't govern properly -- pretty much a gurantee -- and then swooping back in to "save the country". Whether or not it will work who knows. Although they were probably freaked by that Environics poll that showed the NDP only 3 points behind them. While the other polls didn't agree with this, if the Liberals fall too far behind the Conservatives in the polls the NDP has a realistic, albiet outside shot, at finishing ahead of them in the house and relegating them to third (or even fourth) party status like Saskatchewan and Manitoba Liberals.

And the relevance of this address to the nation, is simply to make an election look like the other guys fault's. And make Martin look as Prime Ministerial and positive as possible. But I'd agree he isn't a good speaker...that being said his advantage at least a few months ago was that he was considered the most Prime Ministerial of all the leaders so who knows how will it could work, but I doubt it.

[Wat_Tyler]

3. I like this theory - they know they're going down, they want to control

how far they fall. The Liberals are privately saying they'd be reduced to 60-70 seats. Bad, but not enough to finish behind the NDP and Bloc. Perhaps they feel that if they take a fall now, allow Harper to form a minority - wait for him to fuck up supremely, as he undoubtedly will, then return to save a grateful electorate.
Of course, such a plan could fail at any number of points, but it may be the best plan left to them.

[Bragi]

4. I'd say that's Plan B

Plan A would be to try to hang in and hope for some break to go their way, or something bad to happen to the Cons. You just never know in politics. Shit happens.

Plan B would be to have the Cons defeat them now, prefereably on the budget, and to do what they can to save seats outside of Quebec.

In Quebec, there are anglo riding they will hold no matter what, and they're toast elsewhere. But even so, they only have maybe an additional half dozen or so seats they can realistically lose in Quebec, and all these (except maybe one) will go to the Bloq, not the Cons.

The real challenge for the Libs will be doing their best to shore up Ontario, and BC, as best possible. If they could hold on to much of Ontario, and some of BC, they could realistically come back with a really tight minority (backed by the NDP) or at minimum form a strong opposition against a precarious minority Harper government.

Personally, I think Plan B is the most likely outcome, but I also think that they would want to give Plan A a shot, if they can do it (and provided that they think they have already borne the worst that Gomery has to offer.)

Tonight's TV address will be fascinating.

- B

[Mother Jones]

5. No surprises from the broadcast for me...

However, I do agree with Martin, that we should wait for Gomery's final report. It just doesn't make sense to me to go through another election until that final report is published.

Harpey and Gilles, I thought, were doing nothing more than opportunistic posturing.


The ray of light last night was Jack Layton. Willing to put partisan politics aside (for a very reasonable compromise) in order to get on with running the country - the job we just elected them to do for us.

[Joel]

6. ehh

Jack Layton was just as partisan. "Change your principles to ours and we can make a deal." If that's not partisan I don't know what is.

[Mother Jones]

7. i thought it at least showed a willingness

to work together for the sake of what's best for moving forward and getting our parliament to go back and do the job we just elected them to do for us.

Still partisan in some ways, perhaps, but these kinds of compromises are what we knew was in store for us, under a minority govt.

[V. Kid]

8. I agree...

...and besides we elected these people they may as well try to get something done! While I don't think Harper and Duccppe particularly hurt themselves they didn't help themselves by being un-constructive, partisanly hackish and generally annoying to listen to.

Martin was reasonable enough although I don't think his speech will actually convince the opposition to wait until after Gomery. That being said like I said I hope they do wait. It's not as if the Gomery report is going to just go away.