Corruption Eruption Interruption

Bloggers, pundit, columnists and all manner of amateur political strategists have been telling Stephen Harper to focus less on Liberal corruption and more on the Conservative platform.

The problem now is that the Liberals won't oblige:

The RCMP have begun a review of reported heavier-than-usual trading in income trusts and dividend-paying stocks ahead of an announcement last week that the federal government was increasing the tax credit on corporate dividends.

NDP finance critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis sent a letter of complaint to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police earlier this week requesting the probe into whether Bay Street insiders received advance knowledge of the announcement, Staff Sgt. Paul Marsh told Bloomberg News.

....

Some stock market regulators are reviewing trading that took place ahead of Finance Minister Ralph Goodale's tax policy announcement, Doug Maybee, a spokesman at Market Regulation Services Inc., told The Globe and Mail.

"The markets did move prior to Mr. Goodale's announcement, there's no denying of that," he said.

"What caused the markets to move, that's something we're still looking into."

Goodale has denied allegations that the information may have leaked in advance to some investors.

And now Jean Chretien has timed his court challenge of the Gomery inquiry to coincide with the beginning of the election campaign, just when the Liberals can least afford another to take another salvo in the the Chretien-Martin civil war:

Former prime minister Jean Chretien is fighting back against the sponsorship inquiry just as the Liberal party launches its Quebec campaign.

Chretien filed a Federal Court challenge on Wednesday against the Gomery commission's findings against him in the sponsorship scandal.

Chretien says Justice John Gomery, the inquiry's commissioner, was biased against him and drew some wrong conclusions.

....

For example, Gomery described Chretien as the architect of the program, and his chief of staff Jean Pelletier as the man who implemented it.

The challenge also attacks the appointment of Bernard Roy, a one-time chief of staff to former Progressive Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney, as chief counsel for the commission.

Even if nothing else happens on the court challenge front during the election campaign, the Liberal civil war is going to start up again as insiders will start attacking each other as secretly working for the other side's interests instead of the party.

Watch for a series of embarrassing leaks and impromptu damaging comments from Chretien loyalists and allies of possible Martin successors in the party.

Martin will spend more time in this election running against Chretien than against the Tories. Fine by us!

It'll be an eight week long multi-car pileup.