the saddam hussein - paul martin connection

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin appeared on national television for seven minutes last night (read the full text here). Among other things, he promised to call an election 30 days after the close of the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal - next January. The Conservatives, however, may very well force an election as soon as they can (May 18) with support from the Bloc Québécois; the NDP will support the Liberals if they "drop all corporate tax cuts in the proposed budget." (CBC) In other words, they probably won't support the Liberals.

All this is bad enough for ol' Paul. I think the country is starting to catch sponsorship scandal fever, and any election soon could mean a (*shudder*) Conservative minority government led by (*spasm*) Stephen Harper. The NDP may stand to make significant gains from angry left-wing Liberals, though, which would be something.

But get this: yesterday, Canada Free Press reported that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in a Martin-owned company. The article is fascinatingly unclear, but here's the idea: Paul Martin owns Canada Steamship Lines (CSL). CSL owns 4.6% of Cordex Petroleums Inc., "launched by Martin’s mentor Maurice Strong’s son Fred Strong". Hussein invested $100-million in Cordex through Tongsun Park, "the Korean man accused by U.S. federal authorities of illegally acting as an Iraqi agent" in the UN Oil-For-Food scandal.

The article goes on to rhetorically ask, "Was Martin using the Adscam scandal as a distraction in a Maurice Strong Cordex oil-for-food scandal that would inevitably lead back to him?" Maybe a better question would have been, "Given what we knew about Paul Martin before he was elected, is any of this all that surprising?"