Blood: The opposition's Hepatitis C compensation motion was defeated. Now, thousands of victims harmed by government negligence will be forced to pursue their battle for compensation through the courts.

Leaving aside the moral issue, the government's decision not to compensate all Hep-C victims is hypocritical and fiscally blind. The precedent set when HIV and Thalidomide victims were compensated was ignored.

Instead of capping our collective liability at a few billion dollars, the victims' pursuit of this issue through the courts could end up costing taxpayers billions more.

The feds will try to ride out the storm. Indeed, an indifferent public, a young and inexperienced Hep-C lobby, and the fact that many Hep-C victims have limited financial resources for court fights works in the government's favour.

Also emerging from this vote is a clearer picture of government backbenchers. Visions of trained seals or lemmings racing to the cliff are most apt. Their bark of concern could not be backed with a bite of principle.

Sweat: April 28 was also the day that Auditor General (AG) Denis Desautels released the first nine chapters of his 1998 Report.

Only one chapter commends the government. And guess what This chapter deals with interdepartmental administration of the tax system. Yep, Justice, Finance and Revenue are pretty good at making sure we pay our taxes. But the other eight chapters paint the well-known picture of waste and mismanagement.

Over at Defence, the AG found that three of six major capital projects with a value of $3.3 billion, selected equipment that "does not meet the original military requirement."

The AG also noted that a state-of-the-art lab being built in Winnipeg is one year behind schedule and $30 million over budget. Even worse, the lab was constructed without an appropriate examination of existing lab capacity across the country. Therefore, the Winnipeg lab has excess capacity and no "comprehensive business plan or strategy" for maximizing the use of this capacity.

And once again, the AG cast serious doubts about Paul Martin's grasp of simple and straightforward government accounting principles.

"The emerging practice of recording transfer payments before a recipient signs an agreement, or even before Parliament has created (one) runs against objective accounting standards - Departing from CICA standards could be disastrous for business firms because their reported results would not be credible. Canadians should expect no less from their government."

Of course, this report will be treated like all others: it will be ignored. So much for sweat and hard work.

Tears: Earlier in the day, six NHL governors testified before a House Committee on the future of Canadian sport. They told MPs that high taxes threaten the future of professional hockey in Canada. Thanks for the news flash! This same high tax burden affects every other Canadian company and industry. Their tears and testimony were pointless.

This government already slammed the door shut on business tax relief after it shelved the Mintz report on business taxation. As for special industrial assistance, they are way offside.

As the CTF study on Corporate Welfare showed, we've been down this road with the aerospace industry and others and it cost us billions.