What price the Liberal Party? What price Québec?

Prime Minister Paul Martin is reputed to have been a successful businessman before entering politics. He knew the price of things. Where the best deals were to be had. What a CEO had to do to stay in control.

He has carried the same mindset into public life. Nowhere was that better demonstrated than his recent deal with the leader of the NDP. In return for votes in Parliament he scuppered his own Minister of Finance's budget "configuration", and somehow found $4.6 billion-billion, not million-to buy the support of the NDP.

Think of it! This was a transaction that put the adscam fiasco into perspective. Adscam was designed to buy Québec for a paltry few hundred million dollars. This latest "dollars for votes" transaction buys a paltry nineteen votes to maintain the Liberals in power. For how long? A week? Three weeks? A year?

The NDP, "the conscience of Parliament", seeks to justify its tactics in holding the Liberal government to ransom by justly claiming that none of the $4.6 billion will enter its coffers. "It's for the public good. It's to make Parliament work."

Parliament was working. The Finance Minister's budget was home free. It had the support of the Conservative Party's 99 votes, much more than enough to ensure its passage. Then the Minister was persuaded to add on bits and pieces. His configuration became distorted. Later came the humiliation of seeing his Leader twist that configuration even further. The result? The budget that could have sailed through Parliament ran aground.

Now his Prime Minister and the NDP leader are looking to tiptoe merrily, hand in hand, through the tulips-Ottawa's Tulip Festival opens at the same time as Parliament resumes sitting--and they don't give a damn about the perception they present to the public. After all, to paraphrase something the late C. D. Howe never said, "What's $4.6 billion to keep the Liberals in power?"

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