Opposition leaders ask, 
"Where's Martin?" 
by Romeo St. Martin

[PoliticsWatch Updated 6:10 p.m. April 19, 2005]

OTTAWA  — A day after testimony at the public accounts committee suggested he took an interest in contracts going to Earnscliffe and on the same day the ad man the opposition has been trying to link him testified at the Gomery inquiry, Prime Minister Paul Martin was not in question period Tuesday.   

Martin, who has been taking a hammering from the opposition parties during question period since the testimony of kickbacks to the Liberal party by Jean Brault surfaced two weeks ago, was not in the House for a second day this week, even though he was in the Ottawa area both days.

"With the prime minister caught in the biggest scandal in history, in the web of his own deception, should he not be here to answer questions from the floor of the House?" asked Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. 

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said Martin was busy meeting with ambassadors, just hours after introducing the government's new foreign policy framework. 

With Martin not present, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale had to handle dozens of opposition questions about the PM and two of his closest associates for the past two decades. 

Warren Kinsella, a long-time ally of former prime minister Jean Chretien, levelled a number of accusations against Martin, David Herle, who is the Liberal campaign co-chair, and Terrie O'Leary, a former aide for Martin when he was finance minister. 

Both the Bloc and the Conservatives jumped all over Kinsella's allegations that Martin was aware of efforts to steer research and polling work from the finance department to Earnscliffe, a firm where Herle was once an employee and later a partner. 

O'Leary denied Kinsella's allegations that she or Martin was involved in contracting decisions in the mid 1990s when Martin was finance minister. At the time Kinsella was working for public works minister David Dingwall, whose department oversaw procurement for advertising and public opinion research. 

Harper delivered the most blistering attack in the House on Tuesday, when he suggested that Martin "abused the process to get contracts to his friends at Earnscliffe, to his campaign manager David Herle.

"Why does he not just admit that he got public money to his political associates?"

In response, Goodale said the contracts in question had been cleared by an audit by Ernst and Young and he also raised questions about the Kinsella's testimony.

When Bloc MP Benoit Sauvageau mentioned one of Kinsella's most startling revelations, that Martin left messages at his home to convey his annoyance about one contract bidding process involving Earnscliffe, Goodale said "there is absolutely no evidence of such a mythical phone call."

Nonetheless, the opposition parties continued to grill the government about the absence of Martin. 

"The Prime Minister has entered the witness protection program so let me try a question for the finance minister," Tory finance critic Monte Solberg said. 

After question period Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said Martin wasn't in the House because he was "scared."

"He's panicking," said Duceppe. 

NDP Leader Jack Layton also question Martin's absence.

"It's important for the prime minister to be in the House of Commons when such serious allegations are being brought forward (about) his friends in consulting companies," he said.

Layton also said Martin should be in the House to explain Government House Leader Tony Valeri's decision to cancel a Conservative opposition day, where they planned to bring forward a schedule of other opposition days in which opposition parties could table votes of non-confidence and trigger an election. 

"All of these things are adding up I think to judgment day for this prime minister, which is going to be very, very difficult because I don't think Canadians like what they see," said Layton.

Meanwhile, at the Gomery inquiry in Montreal, Boulay confirmed the prime minister's previous testimony and said he didn't know Martin all that well.

He also denied previous testimony from a Groupaction lobbyist, Alain Renaud, that he discussed sponsorship contracts with Martin at a Liberal convention over lunch. 

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