Martin plans to ask tough questions

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JAMES TRAVERS (TS)

Governments define themselves by the questions they ask and by those they choose not to answer. To doubt that is to deny 10 years of Jean Chr�tien's rule.

A decade ago, Chr�tien asked Liberals what it would take to win the next election. Since then he has been asking - and answering - the same question to the exclusion of others that will ultimately matter more.

If nothing else, that tight focus produced a winning formula.

In the span of two normal mandates, this Prime Minister claimed three consecutive majority victories. His opposition is in such disarray that they are essentially writing off the next election while Liberals pass the torch to Paul Martin.

Those who so rarely lose, see these as good things. Still, in answering one question so convincingly, Liberals became a single-purpose machine.

That largely explains why the Chr�tien record is so thin. And it explains why these final days are filled with helter-skelter spending intended to add some thickness to his legacy and limit his successors' options.

No surprise then that on top of the controversial injection of $700 million into VIA Rail, Ottawa is dumping money into memorials ranging from museums to new national parks. Time will ultimately determine the merits of projects that, worthy or not, are being pushed along with too much speed and too little oversight by a Prime Minister who is being shoved out the door.

But even more revealing than the Prime Minister's unfettered power, his ability to do what he wants, when he wants, is the absence of federal priorities. While the 11th hour rediscovery of Liberal roots is endearing to some, there isn't much in this final flurry to convince voters and taxpayers that this government knows the difference between managing and leading.

That, along with a pragmatic affection for situational ethics, has long been this administration's damning flaw. Comfortable in the consensual centre, Chr�tien rarely spends much political capital making tough choices.

Even health care, the issue that concerns Canadians most, only captures this government's attention when Liberal political hegemony is threatened. It's no coincidence that Chr�tien finally found health-care cash just before the 2000 federal election and no compliment to his government that its current efforts to restore public medicine are driven more by public pressure than a convincing commitment to a national icon.

There are, of course, many other questions Chr�tien's three governments preferred not to ask.

They stood nearly mute as parsimony and lack of vision eroded the three pillars of foreign policy. The result is a military without adequate equipment or clear purpose, stingy international development and an unsettling uncertainty about where this country stands on the continent and in the international community.

More disturbing still, Chr�tien's governments have a history of failing to decide what they don't want to do.

It was only last year that the characteristically prudent John Manley began pressing his colleagues and mandarins to find money for new projects by axing old programs that outlived their usefulness.

Not surprisingly, the finance minister's grand plan to ultimately find up to $8 billion is being steadfastly resisted by entrenched interests. But Martin, who used cruder cuts to balance budgets, is promising 100 days of slashing as part of an effort to focus the next government on a few issues that might make a difference, rather than innumerable programs that help politicians capture hometown attention with federal cheques.

Those cuts make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. With the federal surplus falling and expectations for the new government spiralling ever higher, Martin needs money almost as much as he needs to make an unequivocal statement before a spring election. Doing a little something for everybody won't provide that clarity any more than continuing to simply manage national affairs will distinguish the next Liberal prime minister from the last.

So, instead of toddling along behind public opinion, Martin plans to first catch up and then forge ahead by asking his cabinet, caucus and the country to answer some of those tough questions Chr�tien chose to ignore.

Among them are very demanding queries about how first ministers move beyond timely political deals to find solutions to health care, education, and city funding problems. And even if that stumps bureaucrats, politicians and John Q. Public, Martin is equally determined to craft policies that will re-establish Canada's place on the international stage, not as a U.S. clone but as a catalyst for much-needed changes in the way the globe governs itself.

This is heady stuff; stuff that recognizes that asking the right question is the critical first step toward finding the right answer.

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