The three opposition parties accuse Paul Martin of trying to whitewash the federal sponsorship scandal and promise to use the coming election campaign to hold him to account. It's clear the prime minister never had any real intention of getting to the bottom of the scandal, Conservative Jason Kenney told a joint news conferenceyesterday. "He was shocked and outraged and made a solemn promise that he would leave no stone unturned before going to the polls. 'He is not living up to his word... That is something that he's going to have to deal with on the campaign trail should he call an election." The vow to carry the fight to the hustings came a day after Liberal MPs on the Commons public accounts committee used their majority to suspend public hearings into the sponsorship affair. They said they wanted to spend the rest of the week trying to daft an interim report on the testimony heard to date. But even the Grits were divided on whether they could do it. Critics contend the government's real goal was cut off the flow of damaging testimony in the days leading up to an election call. "No more witnesses, no more hearings, no more news," said Kenney. "No more light shed on the biggest scandal in modern Canadian history." Michel Guimond of the Bloc Quebecois and Pat Martin of the NDP suggested a separate judicial inquiry under Justice John Gomery may have better luck in probing the scandal. Gomery won't start hearing witnesses until September and won't deliver a final report until December 2005.
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