Only Candadians Can Make Serious Political Corruption Stultifyingly Boring

I should be interested in this, but, you know, it's Canada.

The Liberals' struggle to hang on to power has been badly, perhaps fatally, damaged by the RCMP's blockbuster confirmation halfway through the campaign that it has launched a criminal investigation of a possible tax leak from Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's office.

The leak (if I remember correctly, which is always in great doubt) was basically a tip-off to well-connected friends and political hacks that there would be major tax-code changes, and perhaps they'd better do what they could in advance to avoid the consequences of those changes.

Coming on the heels of a series of Liberal gaffes and miscues, the announcement from the Mounties this week has the feel of a tipping point in an election battle that had previously been almost impossible to handicap.

The story tries manfully to pique my interest:

"This is like a live grenade has just been thrown down Paul Martin's pants," remarked Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research Associates. "I think the potential fallout from this is quite significant — as in, you know, might lose election rather than win."

But, still: Canada. Just not interested. Canada is like the Ringo Starr of the Beatles. No, wait, that's not fair to Mr. Starr. Canada is like the Richard Marx of the Beatles.

posted by Ace at 03:28 PM

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