NDP Leader Jack Layton tried to throw PM PM a too-short lifeline: He's offered to prop up the federal Libs' minority government if the Grits cancel some corporate tax cuts.

But he doesn't quite have the numbers to guarantee the government's survival if everyone is in the House of Commons on the big day, presumably May 19 or the budget vote.

The one thing the NDP would provide is some cover for the Conservatives, who might look like they were in cahoots with the Blog Bloc Quebecois if they defeat the government in a non-confidence motion.

(The numbers: Liberals, 131 plus the Speaker, who can only vote in a tie; Conservatives, 99; Bloc, 54, NDP, 19; Independents, 3; Vacant, 1. 99+54=153. 131+19=150. Of the Independents, Chuck Cadman has said he won't vote for a non-confidence motion. David Kilgour left the Liberal caucus over Gomery, among other things, and Prime Minister Paul Martin punted Carolyn Parrish. However, neither Parrish or Kilgour have said how they will vote. Martin would need both of them).

Addendum: The Globe reported Friday morning that Kilgour said he would vote against the government, but that two Tory MPs were very ill and might not be able to attend any vote.

In any event, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale has apparently said no to Layton's idea, so that would apparently be that.

Meanwhile, PM PM is guaranteeing us an election within 30 days of Justice John Gomery reporting, likely in November or December.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper and Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe had near-identical lines about the sponsorship scandal: It wasn't a Quebec scandal, it was a Liberal scandal.

Where Duceppe differed was noting it was a Liberal scandal that originated in Ottawa (boo, hiss! :) ).

This CTV.ca story has video of all four leaders' speeches,along with the Q-and-As of the opposition ones (Martin wouldn't talk with the media afterwards, although he's starting a media blitz tomorrow). The text of Martin's, Harper's and Layton's remarks are posted too.

The speeches reminded me of a few questions that have never been answered.

In his remarks, Harper made the point that last year, Martin cut short the Commons public accounts committee hearings (Martin challenged that claim in a recent question period exchange) and otherwise triggered an election without Canadians having much information about how deep the sponsorship scandal went.

PM said his first act upon becoming PM was to cancel the sponsorship program.

Uh, why? That was almost two months before Auditor-General Sheila Fraser tabled her report on Feb. 10, 2004.

What did Paul Martin know and when did he know it?

(BTW, if you want to read Martin's Gomery testimony from Feb. 10, here's the link to the translated version.)

Harper said Martin had to have known what was going on with regards to the sponsorship file, being second-in-command of the government as finance minister and all that (Martin was also automatically vice-chair of treasury board, although he testified he attended only 17 of 222 Treasury Board meetings. Martin was also minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development for Quebec, or FORDQ, until January 1996).

But that's disengenuous on Harper's part.

Alfonso Gagliano was the political minister for Quebec. He and former prime minister Jean Chretien signed off on the documents that created the  sponsorship program.

Even Ran Quail, the deputy minister of public works, was kept out of the sponsorship loop. Gagliano and PMO officials dealt directly with Quail's underling Chuck Guite -- a highly unusual arrangement in the federal bureaucracy.

Given the frosty relations between Chretien and Martin, I can't see Martin knowing much, especially on a sensitive file like sponsorship. And being finance minister doesn't make one an intimate expert on every program being operated by the government.

This is where people more knowledgeable than myself could help: Was sponsorship spending ever out of control enough to attract attention, or did it just spend the allotted amount every year -- and just did it corruptly?

If sponsorship spending was spiralling out of control, that should have given people pause.

Here's a tantalizing part of Martin's speech:

I was the Minister of Finance. Knowing what I've learned this past year, I am sorry that we weren't more vigilant - that I wasn't more vigilant. Public money was misdirected and misused. That's unacceptable.

I'm not sure how to interpret that, but again, I would ask: What did Martin know, and when did he know it?

I suspect he certainly knew something well before Fraser tabled her report, but the question is, how far back? (Addendum: I forgot to mention that Ralph Goodale, one of Martin's closest associates, succeeded Don Boudria as public works minister in late May 2002. Boudria had succeeded Gagliano but had to step down after it came out Boudria and his family spent the weekend at the ski chalet of Claude Boulay of Groupe Everest fame. Those were crazy sponsorship times back then too!)

One other area in which Harper could fairly accused of being overly aggressive in his use of language: He described the Martin government as being under "criminal investigation."

That's casting the net a bit broadly.

For one thing, these are allegations of incidents that have occurred in the past.

Guite is the only civil servant criminally charged. Three Montreal ad types, including star witness Jean Brault, have also been charged.

I don't believe there's been anything at Gomery to taint any current cabinet minister, and while the opposition has thrown mud at Martin constantly (and sometimes the same mud over and over again), not much has stuck. Sometimes the repetition's been justified, as Martin hasn't been forthright in some of his responses, but often, it seems to be done  just to repeat the allegation for the TV cameras.

That being said, if Canadians want to punish a political party in an election for the shenanigans being exposed at the Gomery inquiry, which party is the likely candidate?

A friend of mine e-mailed me off-blog and suggested the three opposition leaders didn't make the case why there shouldn't be a delay until Gomery reports.

Let's assume that's true. If the Tories and Bloc, and perhaps an Independent or two, do defeat the government against the people's wishes, then perhaps they'll pay a price for it. But right now, what's going on in Parliament is all about raw politics and the calculus of winning an election, not about good governance or procedural fairness.

The Conservatives see themselves as close as they've ever been in the last 12 years to taking power. The Bloquistes see themselves as being poised for even bigger gains in Quebec, with the added bonus of "winning conditions" being established for a sovereignty referendum should the Parti Quebecois return to power.

The Liberals see time as the key to increasing the currently unlikely possibility they can hold power (although the bleeding has stopped for the time being; a new Decima poll released Wednesday had it 35-28 for the Tories over the Grits, so things aren't getting worse for them).

Stephen Harper didn't come out and say it on CBC Thursday night, but he hinted a spring election is pretty darned likely. I believe him.

Anyway, for instant professional analysis, see Paul Wells' blog.

An excerpt:

FIGHT! FIGHT! UPDATE, 7:52: Allan Gregg tells NewsNet he's quite sure there'll be an early election, at the opposition's behest, long before Gomery — that is, writ drop in the next couple of weeks. Which means I disagree with Allan, a state of affairs that usually unnerves me.

But again: this is not the Liberals fighting the Opposition in some box somewhere. This is all parties competing for the favour of Canadian voters, who judge them all with no particular fondness for any of them. They're not terrified, in the abstract, of an election this spring instead of some other time. They don't hate voting. But they would prefer to vote when voting makes more sense. Voting now makes less sense than voting later. I've been wrong before (it was 1998), but I'll be amazed if Martin loses his call for a writ drop to await Gomery. Amazed. Sorry Allan.