Liberal Leader Paul Martin speaks from Coteau-du-Lac, Quebec Wednesday morning.

Some think Martin running a democratic deficit

Updated Wed. Nov. 30 2005 8:34 PM ET

Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Paul Martin has resurrected his "promise made, promise kept" mantra for the election campaign, but when it comes to one of his biggest promises -- eliminating the so-called democratic deficit -- the chant rings a tad hollow.

It was the central plank of Martin's campaign to win the leadership of the Liberal party and it encompassed an ambitious agenda to change the way politics is practiced in the nation's capital.

Among other things, it included empowering backbench and opposition MPs, diminishing the power of the prime minister's office and putting an end to cronyism.

"The democratic deficit, where decisions are made by a small group of people, is not on," Martin declared as far back as 2002.

"The unfettered powers of appointment enjoyed by a prime minister are too great, from ambassadors and consuls general to regulatory agencies to museum boards and the list goes on. Such authority must be checked by reasonable scrutiny conducted by Parliament in a transparent fashion," he said later the same year.

Then, in 2003: "I believe that members of Parliament do have a right to make their voices heard. A year later, Martin pledged to "condemn to history the practice and the politics of cronyism."

The opposition parties maintain Martin has broken his promise to eliminate the democratic deficit at least 50 times since becoming prime minister two years ago. They've been keeping lists of his alleged transgressions.

Reviewing the list of Liberals appointed to plum patronage posts, it would appear that 'who you know in the PMO' remains the prevailing culture in Martin's Ottawa.

A slew of former Liberal MPs and ministers have gone to their reward: Stan Keyes (consul general in Boston), Allan Rock (United Nations ambassador), Yvon Charbonneau (ambassador to UNESCO), Art Eggleton (Senate), John Harvard (Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba), Sarkis Assadourian (citizenship judge) and Karen Kraft Sloan (ambassador for the environment), to name only a few.

Any number of Martin's political allies have been similarly rewarded. Francis Fox, Martin's former principal secretary, Dennis Dawson, one of Martin's inner circle of advisers, and Grant Mitchell, former Alberta Liberal leader and Martin leadership supporter, have all been appointed to the Senate.

But one of the most egregious examples, as far as the opposition parties are concerned, was the appointment of Glen Murray, former Winnipeg mayor and defeated Liberal candidate in the 2004 election, as chairman of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

MPs on the Commons environment committee rejected Murray's appointment, but Martin went ahead with it anyway, despite his vow to open up the appointment process to parliamentary scrutiny.

As for giving MPs a greater role in devising policy and legislation, critics say Martin ignored a number of motions passed by the minority Parliament, including one calling for a public inquiry into the Air India tragedy, another extending Access to Information legislation to cover Crown corporations and a third rejecting Martin's plan to split the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade into two departments.

In the run-up to the 2004 election, Martin refused to protect any incumbent MPs from nomination challenges, contending that grassroots democracy must be allowed to take its course in open nomination contests.

He refused to intervene even when the nominations involved fratricidal fights between two incumbent Liberals. The ugly battle between former minister Sheila Copps and Tony Valeri, Martin's House leader, was particularly brutal. However, Martin did appoint a small number of candidates, circumventing the nomination process altogether.

In the current campaign, his commitment to grassroots democracy is being challenged by members of the Liberal association in the Toronto riding of Etobicoke Lakeshore, where party brass cleared the path for star recruit Michael Ignatieff.

Two would-be candidates for the nomination claim they were locked out of party headquarters when they tried to file their nomination papers by last weekend's deadline.

Both were subsequently disqualified, leaving Ignatieff to be acclaimed.

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