MARTIN ALLIES CHALLENGE SPEECH

But ex-finance minister takes care to avoid criticizing PM's plans

Two of Paul Martin's staunchest supporters in the Liberal caucus challenged
elements of the throne speech yesterday, with one of them guaranteeing a
fight to the finish over any government attempt to take marijuana
possession out of the Criminal Code.

Mr. Martin took care to avoid any confrontation with Prime Minister Jean
Chretien on the government's policy plan, but Toronto MPs Dan McTeague and
Albina Guarnieri said the speech failed to address major issues Canadians face.

The plan should have included a strategy to battle the spread of child
pornography, said Mr. McTeague, who at the same time vehemently criticized
the promise to consider the decriminalization of cannabis.

"The issue of decriminalization, not on, I'm sorry," said Mr. McTeague.
"Anybody who believes that that is going to happen has to very clearly take
into account my view, (the views) of the constituencies they represent, and
the cold hard facts."

Mr. McTeague also challenged the government's plan to speed the approval
process for pharmaceutical drugs in Canada, saying a broad spectrum of
Liberals are opposed to major concessions to the drug industry.

"Those are areas that our party has had a lot of concern about, on the left
and the right," said Mr. McTeague, predicting legislation to put certain
parts of the throne speech into effect will be challenged in Parliament.

"My guess is what you're going to see here, as we get back to our
committees, get back to the work, as these things come down we will have an
opportunity to debate them," he said. "The government has had in the past
many very good proposals ... but once you get into the specifics, these
things bog down in the details and there is a lot of compromise back and
forth."

Ms. Guarnieri said throne speeches generally are broad-brush documents that
rarely spell out the implications and costs of proposed government policy
and suggested she will await the detailed proposals.

"The real story is in the budget, always," said Ms. Guarnieri.

She nonetheless questioned the absence of any mention of the impact that
retirement of the baby boom generation will have on government spending
plans over the next decade and said the strain on the old-age security
program and health care should have been addressed.

Mr. Martin adopted a supportive posture, in contrast to the confrontational
statements made by some of his caucus supporters over the last two weeks.

"The speech from the throne really does set out the overall direction the
government wants to take," said Mr. Martin. "The speech from the throne is
very much in the line of previous (Liberal election campaign) red books,
and certainly demonstrates the priorities that we as a government and
Canadians have been talking about."

Government House leader Don Boudria rejected Mr. McTeague's suggestion the
government did not take the views of backbench MPs into account on the
issues of marijuana decriminalization and relaxing the approval process for
pharmaceutical drugs.

Mr. Boudria noted Mr. Chretien sought the views of all MPs in writing in
August as the government was preparing to draft the speech. "Once the
exercise is done, it's pretty hard to say we weren't consulted," said Mr.
Boudria.