Blowing the whistle on Martin's "democratic deficit reduction" -- The Ministry of Truth

It is passing strange to think that the New Liberal Party would consider anything that would expose them to the glare of unwanted publicity. Let's take the so-called whistleblower bill. Now that we have seen through the sponsorship scandal committee such sterling examples of whistleblowing, we naturally crave more. Well, this new bill is not going to provide that. Rather, as Ralph Heintzman, the vice-president of the new office of Public Service Values and Ethics, tells us, the bill should really be called "the internel disclosure bill". This is because it encourages public servants to keep their concerns inside government. Gee, I thought that is what they had been doing all along. Now they have a new department to waste more taxpayer money on forcing potential public whistleblowers to toe the line. The top boys must all keep a copy of Orwell's 1984 on their desks. Why don't they go the whole route and call the new department, "The Ministry of Truth".

Next up for a fresh appraisal of fighting the "democratic deficit" is Martin's pronouncement that there will be more openness in the selection of Supreme Court appointments. Put to its first test, it fails abysmally. Journalists can't even get a peek at the profiles of the candidates being considered. The reason for this, according to Vic Toews the Conservative justice critic, is that "It's the political analysis of that profile that they're worried about and the whole assertion that these are not political appointments."

Finally, the Liberals' attempts to ease the draconian laws on marijuana use also has a Big Brother twist to it. Sure you can have a baby baggie of grass and not face criminal prosecution -- but if you are caught driving while under its influence, you can potentially face up to five years in jail. The new law would call for road side drug testing as well. Now you can polish off that quart of whisky and get caught driving, thus facing a license suspension and a $1,000 fine -- but if you smoke a joint and drive, you could face five years in prison. How draconian is that? It's enough to bring a smile to the American drug czar's lips. Carrying the Liberal mindset to its extreme, we could empty the prisons of all the culturally misunderstood natives and fill them up with law-biding citizens who simply like a toke. And the Liberals have the nerve to call the Conservatives radical?

Based on The National Post's Ottawa Notebook (April 27)

© Bud