Everything you need to know about Gomery in three minutes

VICTORIA - OK, you’re busy and easily depressed in these darkening fall days, and so have skipped much of the Gomery coverage.
Here, in 650 words, is what you need to know, starting with the basic findings.
First, you were ripped off. Tax dollars you paid in good faith were wasted, stolen and directed to the Liberal Party and its friends. The Martin government has acknowledged $57 million was siphoned off through fraud, but much of the $330 million spent in the sponsorship scandal was squandered on dubious projects of little value.
Second, Gomery clears Paul Martin and the current cabinet. The program was secretive and run from Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s office. Martin, despite his cabinet posts and political network in Quebec and across the country, was out of the loop.
Third, Gomery blames Chretien and his circle. Chretien’s office ran the program without proper oversight, and his friend Jacques Corriveau siphoned $8 million from various contracts, kicking back some of the money to the Liberal Party. “The prime minister and his chief of staff arrogated to themselves the direction of a virtually secret program of discretionary spending to selected beneficiaries,” Gomery found.
Fourth, the whole program was based on the notion that the interests of the government and the Liberal Party were one and the same. Fighting separatist sentiment in Quebec - using tax dollars - meant strengthening the Liberal party, not the Canadian government.
Those are the important findings. The details are sordid and discouraging, the cast large and disreputable, and the lack of honesty before the inquiry appalling. But you knew most of that.
The question left is what happens now.
Martin and company want you to forget about it. That was the old gang, and they are the new, improved Liberal Party.
That seems a tough sell. Martin have moved quickly to set up the Gomery Inquiry and end the sponsorship program once he was in power. But newspaper stories about the scandal, which should have sparked his interest, started appearing in 2000. He didn’t act for three years.
Despite the leadership change, Canadians have reason to be skeptical about what the Liberals have learned. One underlying theme in the evidence was the divine right of Liberals. The people involved were convinced that the party had the right and responsibility to govern, and a duty to win elections even if it meant fund-raising fraud.
And they were convinced that they had a right to rewards for their good work, at the taxpayer’s expense - an inflated contract here, a gift from a supplier there. Being a Liberal party brought an entitlement.
It’s hard to see that those fundamental beliefs have been altered. Martin appoints Francis Fox to the Senate; Pierre Pettigrew flies his chauffeur off to Europe; friendly law firms get government work across the country. David Dingwall is rewarded with a patronage appointment to the Mint, and snappishly reminds MPs that he is “entitled to his entitlements.”
Voters are left with a tough choice in the coming election.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper will try and argue that re-electing a Liberal government is condoning corruption. If there are no consequences for what Gomery called a depressing story of waste, greed and misconduct, then voters would be saying they accept that level of behaviour.
It should be a strong argument. But the Conservatives’ remarkable failure to connect with the priorities of Canadians means that it may well be ignored.
Except in Quebec. It is not much of a stretch for Bloc Quebecois supporters to argue that the Liberals cheated and attempted to steal two federal elections in Quebec. The sponsorship program used tax dollars to support the party, and funneled cash directly to the campaign effort. It has the feel of the kind of fraud seen in psuedo-democracies in the Third World.
Liberals seemed cheerful at the Gomery findings this week. Canadians should just be depressed.
Footnote: Chretien’s decision to demand a review of the findings in federal court is a body blow to Martin. Chretien not only will keep the issue alive as the election nears, but argue that the sponsorship waste was just business as usual in Ottawa, a damaging message for the Martin campaign.