When Paul Martin was waging his bloodless coup against Jean Chretien, some were wondering why, exactly, Mr. Martin was so eager to become prime minister. Apart from raw ambition, was there a reason he felt he had to dislodge his boss two years before the end of the government's mandate? Where was the emergency? Were there fundamental political differences between the two men? Did Mr. Martin have a unique vision that had to be implemented immediately?

There are still no answers to those questions; last week's budget certainly didn't provide any. It didn't present a new road map for the future, and the vague projects previously touted by Mr. Martin are almost totally absent from the budget: There is no new deal with the municipalities, nor with the First Nations; no innovative plan for health care; no sign that federal-provincial relations will be different; not even fresh cash for the Canadian Forces that Mr. Martin wanted to shore up.

[. . . . The] Liberals are in trouble, and nowhere more so than in Quebec, the province on which they counted to make up for anticipated losses in Ontario. Support for the Liberals is down to 30 per cent while the Bloc Quebecois has soared to 50 per cent. And the polls don't say everything.

[. . . .] Many old-time Liberals are also furious at the way the Martinites are distancing themselves from the Chretien government. Jean Lapierre, Mr. Martin's handpicked recruit in Quebec, called for a rebranding of the party -- now it's the Martin team, a group with no supposed link to the old Liberal Party. It follows that the Martin party, unable or unwilling to capitalize on the achievements of the previous government, will campaign in a kind of vacuum, as if it were a mere opposition party. This is going to be a strange campaign, indeed.