The Gomery Report

[politics]

Given that I take a certain small amount of interest in political matters, I suppose I should comment on one of the biggest political events in Canada of the last year. I refer, of course, to the release of John Gomery's first report on the sponsorship program. I haven't actually read the report myself - I'm not that interested - so you can take my commentary however you please on that basis.

Having seen loads of testimony in the lead up to the report, either directly on CPAC, or indirectly in other media like the CBC, there were few surprises, save one, perhaps, mild surprise: the apparent complete exoneration of Paul Martin.

Someone said it's "the best possible result that Paul Martin could have hoped for." Very true. Very convenient, isn't it? Very convenient. Too convenient?

I'm not going to suggest that Gomery is a Martin crony who was hired simply to clear Martin's name. Other people with more time and more motivation would have rooted out any links between the two men and cashed in that political currency long ago. No, I'm going to suggest some other possibilities. These are just speculation on my part.

1. Maybe there are no explicit links between Martin and judge Gomery, but the judge is biased and Martin knew it when he appointed Gomery to the commission.
2. Martin knows more than he has let on, so he already knew what conclusions Gomery was likely to draw, and he gambled that he would be able to claim ignorance credibly.
3. Martin really knew nothing, and has been completely up-front about everything. He just has a heck of a lot of guts, and called an independent commission of inquiry knowing that it could very well cost him his political career.

He may appeal to ethics and principles when talking about the inquiry, but make no mistake: Paul Martin called the commission on the belief that it will, in the end, help him politically. The risk that he incurred in that decision depends on how much he was involved with the whole affair. As such, I suspect the truth is probably a nuanced combination of all of the above.