The Canadian Liberal Party has ruled politics and media in Canada for twelve years but that all came to a screeching halt in the last two months. Last night the Canadian Parliament passed a motion asking the leading Liberal Party to quit:
Canada’s 10-month-old Liberal minority government lost a key censure vote in Parliament on Tuesday, but ignored opposition demands that it resign and call an election.
The Conservatives, Canada’s largest opposition party, said the government had lost all moral authority to govern after its 153-150 vote defeat on a motion instructing a committee to ask it to quit.
The right-wing party promised additional steps yesterday to address what one top party legislator called a full-blown constitutional crisis.
“Mr Martin’s behaviour has gone from dithering to desperate and now to dangerous and this is a very serious situation,” Conservative leader Stephen Harper told reporters yesterday.
Not good news for the Great White North Liberals. But the story is really in what actually got the country to this point of a late Tuesday night election in the first place. Captain’s Quarters from his nothern perch in Minnesota spilled the beans about the Canadian liberal administraton’s corruption. This information which was kept from the Canadian citizens because of a court ruling was not kept from the Canadians from American blogger, Captain Ed. And, Canadians flocked to his site to hear about these scandals much to the dislike of the liberal Canadian MSM:
A Canadian publication ban and an American blogger clashed last week. The court-ordered ban did not survive the impact. The blogger was overwhelmed with visitors.
And what had been Canada’s own private scandal — so private Canadians had been prevented from hearing about it in full — fast traveled the borderless blogosphere.
Publication bans prevent anyone from publishing or broadcasting evidence given or motions made during the course of a trial. Publication bans are not common in Canada, but when imposed they are meant to ensure that a jury pool, or a sitting jury, is not tainted. (One can be forgiven for wondering what the point of jury selection is, if a judge can’t feel confident those selected are unable to look solely at evidence presented.) In this instance, however, the ban was imposed on a public inquiry into possible government fraud and conspiracy, involving taxpayer dollars. The word “counterintuitive” comes to mind…
…”Adscam” has been making headlines in Canada for nearly two years. It involves an attempt by the federal government — under former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Party — to “sell Canada” in Quebec, a province that has twice held (unsuccessful) referendums on the question of independence. Advertising agencies in Quebec were hired — at a cost of more than $200 million (US) — to promote federalism. But allegations surfaced that $81 million of those funds had been funneled back to Liberal Party loyalists. Paul Martin, shortly after becoming prime minister in late 2003, set up an inquiry headed by Justice John Gomery.
On March 29, Justice Gomery issued a publication ban on the testimony of three witnesses. This was done, he said, in order to assure the witnesses receive fair treatment when they face a criminal trial — relating to Adscam — later this year. In his ruling, Gomery stated that the ban included the Internet…
…Enter American blogger Ed Morrissey, or Captain Ed, to his readers. On April 2, in his Captain’s Quarters blog, he posted some of the testimony. In the following days, Mr. Morrissey posted more, telling readers that some of the revelations came from a single source, some were corroborated by a second.
It didn’t take long for a Canadian site, NealeNews, to link to the captain, though without printing any of the testimony. Still, officials at the Gomery Inquiry said they were considering citing the owner of NealeNews with contempt. American bloggers — including Michelle Malkin and Instapundit — picked up the story. Any Canadian with access to a computer could get the dirt. Morrissey wrote that his blog had been “swarmed with tens of thousands” of hits. He kindly warned Canadian visitors that they may “receive a summons” from their government.
This is problably the greatest world changing event due to the diligence of bloggers. And, so a toast to Captain Ed for being the man behind a late Tuesday night “No Confidence Vote” for the Canadian Liberal Party.
