the gomery report

I'd completely forgotten about the Gomery inquiry, but apparently the report was released today. The result? Frankly, about as exciting as most of Canadian politics. But here are the key points, as I see them:

• Jean Chrétien himself didn't really do anything bad, except hire a crooked dude as his chief of staff, a guy named Jean Pelletier.
• Paul Martin didn't do anything bad at all.
• Pelletier operated the Sponsorship Program with Alfonso Gagliano, who was minister of public works at the time. (Gagliano has since been fired.)
  
• A former bureaucrat named Chuck Guité was the one who actually awarded the contracts, and he favoured friends and Liberal-friendly ad firms.
• Jacques Corriveau, a friend of Chrétien's who owned a graphic design company, orchestrated "an elaborate kickback scheme by which he enriched himself personally and provided funds and benefits to the [Quebec wing of the Liberal Party of Canada]."

So, there you go. The system sucked, a bunch of Liberals were corrupt, an unknown amount of money went to the Liberals that was supposed to help fight seperatism. Now the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois are clamoring for an election, and Jack Layton says he needs a few days to think it over.

There will be an election, either in a couple weeks' time or else next spring. I doubt the Gomery report will prove explosive enough to reinvigorate the anti-Liberal sentiment that affected the last election, especially since Paul Martin has been exonerated from any blame. And Stephen Harper seems pretty unpopular, even among Conservative voters. That leaves the NDP and the Bloc: the former might gain some seats thanks to Layton's energetic exploitation of the minority government situation, and the Bloc will probably gain some seats now that the report is out.

Anyway, the CBC has excellent coverage of the Gomery inquiry and report; and a bunch of blogs will probably start commenting on it soon - try this Blogger search.