September 11 reordered the world and made the centre harder to hold. In the weeks and months that followed, George Bush repeated his familiar mantra — “You are either with us or against us” — and, in large measure, the right coalesced around his maximalist agenda, while the left (including soft Liberals) united in opposition to it.
On February 27, 2002, Chrétien returned from Europe and announced that he had no intention of retiring early. Three months later, just before a June 2 cabinet shuffle, he ordered ministers and leadership hopefuls to stop fundraising. Martin was ousted from Cabinet, replaced as finance minister by John Manley. It was constructive dismissal, and the struggle for the future direction of the Liberal Party began in earnest. While Chrétien announced in late August that he would not seek a fourth mandate, he would stay on through 2003 and celebrate his fortieth anniversary in federal politics as the prime minister.
Martin steamed ahead. Unencumbered by a cabinet portfolio, he was freer to campaign. Change was on his mind, polls indicated broad support for Martin as prime minister, and in its Christmas 2002 edition, Time proclaimed him its Canadian newsmaker of the year.
Martin’s popularity and the liberating effects of Chrétien’s announced retirement seemed to spur the prime minister into action. Martin’s campaign, officially launched in early March, was upstaged by glowing headlines for Chrétien, who on March 17 sealed his legacy by saying that Canada would not participate in the US-led invasion of Iraq. Chrétien went further still, arguing that the invasion required the support of the United Nations Security Council and announcing that diplomacy was “bringing positive results” and that “I still feel given a few more weeks disarmament would have been achieved.” Soon afterward, Chrétien endorsed Kyoto and moved to decriminalize marijuana. His policy statements increasingly reached out to the progressive wing of the party, and he loved the attention. Trudeau’s ghost had returned.
In a foretaste of the harsh scrutiny to come when he became prime minister, Martin’s ownership of Canada Steamship Lines — long a matter of public disclosure — emerged as an issue. Martin eventually transferred the company to his sons, saying his “only business will be the public business.” In politics, positioning is almost everything, and Martin was carving out territory of his own.
In September 2003, Martin put meat on the bare bones of his leadership bid by laying out his “public business” plan for the ever-rising surplus. It built on his record and charted a new direction. Unlike Chrétien, who was advocating using the surplus to boost social spending and keep taxes as they were, Martin promised to reduce taxes and the debt, and to generate revenue by boosting productivity through targeted investments in research and development as well as key elements of the social infrastructure. Martin would bring in change and stem support for the right by hewing to the fiscally prudent roots he himself had established. The Liberal Party seemed to agree, and against only one opponent, Sheila Copps, Martin won 93 percent of the vote at the November Liberal leadership convention. It was a ringing endorsement. On December 12, 2003, he was sworn in as prime minister.
Martin felt confident. It was finally his time. What he didn’t know was that some serious baggage had been left behind.
By the time the 2004 election rolled around, the right was united under the Conservative Party led by Stephen Harper, and it had fresh ammunition: the sponsorship scandal. New leaders succeeding long-term incumbents almost always have a tough time of it, and now this. The Liberals’ ethics and reputation for good management were being called into question, and the opposition wanted to link the scandal to Martin. The question they tried to put on everyone’s lips was how a Quebec MP and former finance minister could not know about the sponsorship program.
When Auditor General Sheila Fraser released her report, it caused a firestorm. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been mismanaged, and the smell of corruption was everywhere. Martin called a public inquiry, to be headed by Quebec justice John Gomery. Martin said that the scandal was “perpetrated by a very small group of ten to twelve people within the 14,000 who work for Public Works,” but few were listening. The next day, Conservative MP Jason Kenney rose in the House and said of Martin: “It sounds awfully reminiscent of Richard Nixon blaming a small unit within the White House for actions that he knew nothing about.” The Conservatives had scored, and scored big. Liberal support plunged seventeen points in two days. Over the ensuing months, for the press there was no other story. How could a party that authored the Clarity Act be involved in such murky business in Quebec?
Martin was blindsided. He knew nothing about the secret affair but felt that he had to restore public faith in government. Despite the compelling evidence gathered by Sheila Fraser that something was seriously amiss, Martin’s decision to call the inquiry was interpreted by many as an attempt to calm the anger of Canadians and to satisfy their demand for change by sacrificing the reputation of Chrétien’s government. In fact, Martin’s choice came from his belief that restoring the public’s trust meant lifting the veil — that this was a moral, not a tactical, issue. Nonetheless, the negative perception stuck, dogging Martin throughout the campaign leading up to the June 2004 election. The opposition parties, like the press, tasted blood, and it was virtually impossible for Martin to promote his agenda. While it was the right thing to do, calling the inquiry seemed to placate no one — especially in Quebec, where few believed that Martin was innocent, and many still don’t, even though Justice Gomery completely exonerated him.
The 2004 election results told the tale: a minority Liberal government, a strengthened Conservative opposition, a rejuvenated Bloc Québécois, and a whole lot of horse-trading between the Liberals (135 seats) and the ndp (19 seats) to keep the government from falling. While many insisted that Martin should have buried the sponsorship scandal, it is unlikely that we would have won even this fragile minority if he hadn’t called for a full inquiry.
It was a working summer, but the announcement of Martin’s cabinet brought the now familiar charges: friends rewarded and the old guard dumped. The new government was going to catch few breaks from a press eager for the Gomery inquiry to start naming names. The inquiry began in earnest on September 7, when the first witness appeared. Over the next nine months, fresh revelations kept the country’s attention focused on Liberal scandal, the headlines brutalizing the government and, often enough, Martin himself. He was in the fight of his life, but he counterpunched early and often: the inquiry would do its job, there would be full disclosure, heads would roll, and we would govern. On September 16, Martin inked the Health Care Accord. Against the backdrop of the scandal, it was a singular achievement, but not one that provided much respite.
A united front against the gathering storm was essential, as was a firm commitment to change how government operated. The impolitic outbursts of Mississauga MP Carolyn Parrish — telling Martin to “go to hell” and slurring the Bush administration — resulted in her expulsion, a risky move as the Liberals, assuming we could hatch a deal with the ndp, were one vote shy of holding the balance of power. But Martin stuck to his principles, and Parrish was ousted. In a majority government this type of thing generally plays itself out in private; in minority parliaments, MPs have more power and talk more openly, and the press and public get to see it all. On policy issues, plans have to be negotiated through the House, leaving the government open to attacks on nascent policies. It can be impossible to keep a lid on things, and the appearance can be extremely messy, as it was in our case.
