Angry in the Great White North

That Stephen Harper should be wary of the Gomery Commission and its conclusions might seem odd at first, given that Gomery has been a huge thorn in the Liberal Party side. The revelations of kickbacks and self-serving bureaucrats and greedy Liberal-friendly ad firms and sleep-walking elected officials did much to weaken the Liberal Party, fatally as it turned out.

At first glance, you'd think Stephen Harper and Justice Gomery would be close comrades.

But then Stephen Harper did not appoint the commission, nor did he set its mandate. The Commission was set up by Paul Martin in an attempt to insulate himself from the scandal that had its beginnings in Jean Chretien's government. That this attempt backfired badly doesn't change the fact that Justice Gomery's Inquiry was Paul Martin's creation, and it had a very specific political goal.

Stephen Harper has been very clear that Justice Gomery's report will make for interesting reading, but that is all:

Mr. Harper said he accepts Judge Gomery's recommendation to keep such funds out of the hands of the Prime Minister's Office and have them administered by experienced hands at the Treasury Board or the Finance Department.

Too much power is concentrated in the PMO, Mr. Harper said, noting that many of Judge Gomery's recommendations to make the executive more accountable to MPs are a close reflection of the Conservative election platform's promised Accountability Act.

In some areas, Mr. Harper said, the Conservatives plan reforms that are even more sweeping than those recommended by the Gomery commission.

But in contrast to Stephen Harper's wariness, Paul Martin has said he would implement all of Justice Gomery's recommendations. Strangely, he said this months before the report was released. Belinda Stronach repeated that position during the election:

Belinda Stronach, Member of Parliament for Newmarket-Aurora, and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal, challenged Stephen Harper to commit to Canadians today in advance of January 23 that, if elected, a Conservative government would enact all of the recommendations of the second Gomery Report due February 1, 2006.

"Paul Martin acted with political guts and decisively to the abuse of the sponsorship program by appointing Mr. Justice John Gomery to both find out what happened and to recommend how to fix problems," said Stronach. "Stephen Harper in turn abused the work of Justice Gomery by welcoming his first report when convenient, but turning his back on Mr. Justice Gomery when no longer expedient for his partisan gain."

The second Gomery Report has the potential to guide one of the most profound and important overhauls of government operations in recent times, the result of Paul Martin's leadership. Stronach pressed Mr. Harper to commit to implementing all the Gomery recommendations, as Prime Minister Paul Martin has already done. Then Canadians can judge his sincerity, she concluded.

Of course, Stephen Harper made no such commitment. Why would he commit to a plan that he had never seen, into which he provided no input much less leadership, and that indeed had yet to be written?

Why would any politician do that?

Why would Paul Martin?

And that's where this odd situation leads us. At first it seems odd that Paul Martin would embrace the Gomery Inquiry, an inquiry that has been a political nightmare for him.

But then he had hitched his wagon to Gomery a long time ago, hoping against hope that it would save him. The first report did exonerate Paul Martin, so his gamble worked, in part. But when it came to presenting himself as a proactive force for change in government accountability, Paul Martin found out that he had hitched his wagon to a tree stump.

He couldn't say much about what he would do, other than whatever would be in the Gomery Report, and that wouldn't be known until over a week after the election was over. How is any voter supposed to judge that? No wonder Democracy Watch graded the Liberals with an F on the issue of government accountability.

In retrospect, maybe Paul Martin should have accepted the opposition suggestion to delay the election until after Christmas. At least then Paul Martin would have had the Gomery Report to show off just prior to the vote.

But forget about the timing of the election. I come back to my original question. Why would any politician promise to implement the recommendations for sweeping changes, recommendations that he had never seen, recommendations that had not even been written yet.

It makes no sense.

Unless...

Unless Paul Martin knew what was going to be in the report.

If he did, how long ago did he know? And if he knew what the recommendations were going to be, it's only a small step to wonder if he had a hand in crafting them, or if he made it clear to Justice Gomery what the range of acceptable recommendations would be. And if you take that step, then you have to wonder why Paul Martin would trust Justice Gomery to stay inside those boundaries, trust him enough to be able to make that incredibly risky-sounding promise. From there you have to conclude that Paul Martin trusted Justice Gomery to play by the rules Martin had publicly and privately laid out, which makes Justice Gomery part of Paul Martin's team.

All of this puts the commission in a pretty bad light indeed. It also makes Stephen Harper's wariness look like a very good call.

See how paranoid I've become.