Dear Diary, well we're here. The planes are being fuelled and the last minute scramble by all parties to find candidates is on. What a hectic week it was in federal politics.

Monday: Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin resigns to return to Ottawa to run for the Liberals in the Newfoundland riding of Bonnavista-Trinity-Conception in the forthcoming election campaign.

Also on Monday, Finance begins to leak out details of it's mini-budget - tax cuts will be huge, debt reduction will be predictive, Ottawa's scribes dutifully report.

Tuesday: Auditor General (AG) Denis Desautels tables Volume 2 of his 2000 report. Chapter 11 examines the waste and mismanagement that has plagued Human Resources (HRDC) administration of its grants and contributions programs.

The report is the most damning of the AG's career. It points to twenty years of mismanagement at HRDC and its predecessor departments. It points to political pressures that force the bureaucracy to disregard common accountability and program management measures.

The AG also notes that this lazy culture of disbursing taxpayers dollars with no regard or respect for the hardworking taxpayers from which they came is widespread.

The AG notes that HRDC is now working hard to correct things but cultural shifts are difficult - "beyond the immediate corrective steps the Department has taken, it needs to make today's extraordinary effort tomorrow's routine and fundamentally change it's day-to-day approach to the delivery of grants and contributions."

And by the way, the AG also drew many of the same conclusions about management of public funds at CIDA and Health Canada.

Wednesday: Mini-budget day and Paul Martin didn't disappoint taxpayers by laying out $90 billion of tax cuts over five years and $10 billion of debt reduction for this year alone. But alas, only the capital gains tax cut will be implemented as the rest of the measures will die on the order paper once the election is called.

Alliance MPs could be heard grumbling in the foyer of the House of Commons - "flippin' Martin lifting our ideas" - "stinkin' Liberals copying our platform." And indeed, they probably have a point in this regard. What is really ironic, as Lorne Gunter - astute columnist for the Edmonton Journal - points out, is the fact that the same economists who slammed the Alliance's so-called unaffordable $125 billion dollar tax cut proposal were no where to be seen when it came to Paul Martin's $100 billion debt and tax cut proposal along with his $21 billion health care spending commitment.

But then again this is not surprising. One of the economists who slammed the Alliance proposal was John McCallum from the Royal Bank - and before I forget dear diary, Mr. McCallum was appointed by the Prime Minister to be the Liberal candidate in the Ontario riding of Markham. We'll just leave it at that.

Thursday: The AG was scheduled to testify before the public accounts committee concerning the contents of his Tuesday report. However, not a single Liberal MP on the committee made it to the meeting. (Flashback: This also happened just before the 1997 election).

Some of the government MPs said they couldn't find the right committee room while others said they thought the meeting was cancelled. Sounds innocent enough, except for the fact that all opposition MPs, the media, the Auditor General of Canada and even public observers found the committee room. Dear diary, sounds like arrogance and contempt for Parliament and taxpayers to me! Time to vote!