Goodbye Paul Martin

He's officially resigning.

Fortunately for him, he'll probably go down as the greatest Canadian Finance Minister ever (although whether he was is very much debatable). Since Canada will continue to experience surplus budgets for some time into the future, no Finance Minister will likely ever be able to claim that they transformed the budget from deficit to surplus.

He'll also go down as a fairly idealistic, although deeply flawed Prime Minister. Someone who wanted to be popular at the expense of being respected. As his father is still remembered for being a great External Affairs and Health Minister (again, very debatable), his son will provide competition when it comes to rating the greatest (non-PM) cabinet ministers in Canadian history.