Canada has had its share of spendthrift politicians in recent years, but few have doled out dollars with the same reckless abandon as Paul Martin. In a six-week period prior to last year's election, his government announced $7 billion in new spending, or $150 million per day. Fearful of defeat in the House of Commons this spring, Martin and his ministers became even more profligate. Between April 20 and May 19, they made 250 announcements and spent a staggering $17 billion, or $607 million a day.

Between these sprees, there was a series of grandiose announcements - $41 billion in new health-care spending over the next decade; $10 billion to ensure that Canada meets its international commitments under the Kyoto accord; $5 billion for a new national day-care program; nearly $3 billion for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia under the Atlantic energy accord; and $5.7 billion to silence Premier Dalton McGuinty, who complained loudly that Ontario was sending too much money to Ottawa and getting too little back.

Spending at such a breath-taking pace would be understandable if Paul Martin were a John A. Macdonald with a transcontinental railway to build, a Wilfrid Laurier with millions of acres of western wilderness to fill with homesteaders, a Mackenzie King with a war to fight, or a Lester Pearson with a welfare state to contemplate and create.

But Martin is none of these. The year that has passed since the last election has demonstrated that he is a leader with no discernible vision and no compelling purpose.

He has thrown a whack of money at health care under the guise of fixing the system for a generation, but does anyone believe that it will suddenly become easier to find a family doctor or to have surgery performed promptly? He has lavished money on the provinces and done little more than create a lineup of premiers and special interests demanding ever more largesse.

Martin came to office as a successful businessman and a deficit-breaking finance minister who restored some sanity to the federal government's finances. As prime minister, he has become just another Liberal advocate of activist and expansionist government. Like every Liberal prime minister from Mackenzie King to Jean Chretien, he believes it his duty to redistribute the wealth of the nation in order to enhance the security of the citizenry. This is his great failing.

For the past 60 years, our federal governments have devoted themselves to the redistribution of wealth. In the years immediately after the Second World War, the results were astounding. The architects of the welfare state, King, Louis St. Laurent and Pearson, introduced the family allowance, the Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, medicare, unemployment insurance and other programs that made a real difference in the lives of ordinary citizens.

But by the time Pearson left office in the spring of 1968, the welfare state was a finished product. Canadians had all the protection against the vicissitudes of life that any people should reasonably expect. There were universal programs to treat the sick, to assist the unemployed and to cushion retirees from the rigours of old age.

Three successive Liberal prime ministers - Pierre Trudeau, Chretien and now Martin - have made it their business to extend, to enhance and to expand the works of their predecessors. They have run deficits or taxed us mightily to do it. Unfortunately, the law of diminishing returns has taken hold. We keep making enormous contributions as taxpayers. We get very little back in the way of improved service.

Health care is a prime example. It is now the largest single item in every provincial budget in the country. Governments of every stripe have ratcheted up the spending in recent years and we still don't have enough small-town doctors, we still wait for months for surgery, we still sit for hours in emergency departments. Regional development is another sinkhole. Billions have gone in, but unemployment has not declined in Atlantic Canada, nor have the economies of Manitoba and Saskatchewan become any more attractive to investors.

If Paul Martin were a leader of vision, he would see that Canada sorely needs a new approach for a new century. He would be a visionary prime minister dedicated to the creation of wealth rather than the redistribution of wealth. His government would put forward policies and programs to promote proprietorship and encourage entrepreneurialism.

But don't expect this from Paul Martin. Based on his performance over the past 12 months, he's just an old-fashioned Liberal. He's hooked on big spending and wedded to big government. That's why he's destined to go down as one of our least effective and hastily forgotten prime ministers.

(D'Arcy Jenish can be reached at jenish@businessedge.ca)