IT’S MORE CANADIAN SCANDAL NEWS:

Paul Martin hardly needs another scandal, but the news that Maurice Strong has stepped down from his UN post as special envoy to Korea in the wake of allegations related to the Iraqi oil-for-food debacle is potentially damaging on several fronts.

This week, Mr. Strong, a long-time mentor and associate of Mr. Martin, admitted ongoing links to Tongsun Park, a Korean lobbyist charged in connection with oil-for-food. Mr. Park previously enjoyed 15 minutes of infamy in the 1970s as the conduit for bribes to U.S. Congressional officials, an affair dubbed “Koreagate.” This time, according to Paul Volcker’s independent inquiry, Mr. Park transferred funds from Iraq to high-ranking UN officials. . . .

Mr. Strong is a man of enormous informal power within the “international community.” A lifelong self-confessed socialist, he espouses apocalyptic alarmism as a rationale for a much more powerful United Nations. Paradoxically, however, he has always kept one foot in the capitalist camp via an array of often messy business dealings.

I think it’s more a case of “a hand in the capitalist pocket” rather than “a foot in the capitalist camp.” But it’s really more about power than corruption, though corruption certainly plays its role:

Paul Martin’s senior advisers, angry at having lost control of the political agenda, are determined to get it back. They didn’t ask for the election that is being thrust upon them, but they are confident that they can win it.

Maybe they will. But the fact remains that the Liberals are struggling with more than the ever-spreading fallout from the sponsorship scandal. They must also fight a growing impression that the government is adrift, its agenda frustrated by a minority Parliament and by a Prime Minister who wanted to take on everything and ended up achieving very little.

I’m just interested in seeing how money seemed to be flowing from Saddam Hussein to pretty much every government that took an active role in opposing the Iraq war. And I wonder where else the money was going. I suspect we’ll find out, in time.