Some richly deserved credit for Chretien's accomplishments

Finally, Chretien is starting to get the recognition he so richly deserves. Today's Edmonton Journal carried an editorial ("Let's not forget Chretien's place in Adscam mess") castigating the "little guy from Shawinigan" for letting Martin twist in the wind by refusing to take ownership of his true legacy now coming into full bloom.

In his last years as prime minister, the rap on Jean Chretien was that he worried too much about his legacy. On the contrary, it turns out his true fault was not worrying about it enough, or at least more effectively.

Yes, the ineffectual Paul Martin may lose his government in the sponsorship scandal, but the former prime minister will lose his political honour, and his post-referendum Clarity-Bill reputation for ending the perennial threat of Quebec separation.

And because he's quietly letting Martin take the fall for his mistakes, and because he has helped create the best "winning conditions" Quebec separatists may ever enjoy, Chretien deserves more attention today for the mess, and all the mud history may care to throw.

Five or six years ago, many thoughtful Canadians in English-speaking Canada looked on the plain-speaking "petit gars" from Shawinigan with grudging affection, and wondered why so many Quebecers turned their noses up at him. Today, faced with a daily serving of evidence of a sleazy, gang-like culture among Quebec Liberals under his leadership, we realize it was Quebecers who instinctively had it right, and the rest of us who were gulled by this flawed old-school pol and his broken English.

He's still a lucky guy, though, this Trudeau-era cabinet minister who cashed in for 10 years and three victories-by-default on the wreckage left by Brian Mulroney. Long after the point where Mulroney could do nothing but lie low and wait for Canadians to forget, Chretien in retirement still has a chance to redeem himself.

He could ask for his own six minutes on national television to tell Canadians the mess in Quebec is largely his fault, and that of a political culture that Martin has been doing his inadequate best to change.

He could apologize for stonewalling for years in question period, and for allowing the sponsorship program to continue long after the separatist passions had cooled and thus removed its only justification for existence.

He could admit what everyone else in the country knows, that his rivalry with Martin and his streetfighter instincts clouded his judgment on a matter tied to the national-unity issue -- the one subject on which Canadians have long memories and little forgiveness, as Mulroney learned before him.

The proud Chretien won't do this, of course. Making fun of his detractors and belittling their concerns (and ours) is more his style. Remember the golf balls he pulled out of his briefcase in his appearance before the Gomery Commission? But 'fessing up would be the smart thing, as well as the right thing, to do.

Until he "rolled the dice" on national unity, Mulroney had a significant record of achievement capped off by the two free trade agreements so central to Canada's prosperity today. The same could have been said of Chretien, under whose leadership the foundations for 21st-century Canadian prosperity were further cemented with the budget-cutting exercise in which his political support was key. But instead, we will remember grotesquely padded contracts that continued long after the threat of separatism had faded, and kickbacks to the Liberal party of hefty chunks of those tax dollars.

Perhaps Chretien fears to let Martin off the hook by taking the blame, when he truly believes Martin has brought his current troubles on himself by holding the Gomery inquiry. If so, he needn't worry. As the current polls loudly suggest, Canadians rightly hold the Liberal party as a whole responsible for the mess.

Martin can't escape from the fact he was finance minister when the sponsorship money was being approved and spent, and moreover, a finance minister with more power over the spending of other departments than many of his predecessors. He probably wasn't officially told the sordid Adscam details, but as an intelligent man and Quebec minister, he surely had an inkling -- and yet never caused a ruckus till he had the top job.

No, Martin will still have much to answer for, whatever responsibility Chretien decides to shoulder. It is how Canadians will remember him that Chretien should worry about.