There is concern, I think we would agree, about
political corruption in Ottawa. The spectacle is hard to avoid. We
have breaking news on websites and radio stations, newspapers
devoting pages of breathless coverage and, of course, live coverage
on C-PAC.
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| name="valign" top > MICHAEL ATKINS |
The Gomery show is everywhere, complete with
outraged interviews from opposition politicians, and street
interviews with mechanics and nutritional experts weighing in with
their thoughts.
None of this is quite as riveting as impeaching
an American president for sexual transgressions on CNN, but we have
nothing to be ashamed of. This is as dirty and sleazy as it gets in
any of the G7 countries. We’ve really arrived.
It is particularly gratifying to watch Peter
MacKay, son of a former Brian Mulroney cabinet minister, get on a
roll. You can almost believe his indignation. I wonder what he
thought of Brian.
On the other side, there is poetic justice
watching Jean Chretien twist in the wind after pursuing Mulroney
with vengeance. The hypocrisy is stupendous.
But, what does it mean? Is this who we are? Is
this how it works? Is this our political culture?
At the risk of being accused of passing wind in a
small meeting room without ventilation, may I suggest we take stock
for a minute.
May I remind you of the Conservative government
of Grant Devine of Saskatchewan, which featured a variety of
admittedly penny ante corruptions that sent more than a few
ministers to court?
May I remind you of the MFP inquiry in Toronto,
where an investigation has revealed stunning revelations of
malfeasance and stupidity, including the spectre of computer
salesmen showing up in parking lots with brown paper bags of money
disdained for a once-powerful councillor?
May I remind you of the Ontario Land Corporation,
and the buying and selling of land by a variety of shady
characters, all of whom spent a good deal of money on the
Conservative Party of Ontario?
May I remind you of the Catholic Church in this
country, which has been accused of a variety of unconscionable acts
against young people, and has been, to put it tenderly, slow to
grasp the concept of contrition?
May I remind you of the Liberal premier of Nova
Scotia, John Savage, who was nearly drummed out of his own party
for trying to clean up the patronage which is a way of life in that
province?
Do the brand names Nortel or Bre-X mean anything
to you? How about Garth Drabinsky or Conrad Black, whom are in
various stages of criminal litigation?
And let’s not forget the aforementioned Brian
Mulroney, who has now admitted he received an odd $300,000
consulting contract from a dubious political fixer involved in the
Air Bus scandal by the name of Karlheinz Schreiber.
This fact is not disputed. I’m not sure Brian did
any more to earn that money than certain advertising agencies
currently en vogue in Montreal did to
earn their fees, although no doubt Brian now
looks like a piker in comparison.
Money talks. It always has. If you want to hear
money talk, you need a hearing aid. The hearing aid is the culture.
Is it a place where people ignore politics as irrelevant?
Is it a society where the best and the brightest
do something other than public service? Is it a place where
business people (say the banks, advertising agencies, pollsters,
and highway builders for a start) fund parties on a 60/40 basis (60
to those in power, 40 to those who might one day get in power) and
view it as protection money?
Is it a place where the media acts as the Fourth
Estate, or are they are more concerned about their next appearance
before the CRTC ? Is it a society where the teachers stop striking
long enough to focus on their students?
Is it a society where parents instill ethical
behaviour in their children or leave it to the grovelling media,
and their descent to the lowest common denominator to do the
job?
Yes, money talks. So does culture.
So far we have been deaf.
The RCMP is without question the slowest and most
dubious police force in the modern world when it comes to political
and corporate corruption.
If it takes this comic opera to wake us up, it
shall have served its purpose. The fear, however, is that it might
not only wake us up. It may cost us our country.
This noble experiment called Canada is teetering
on the brink. We get to choose between Steven Harper, Paul Martin
and a party that wants to break up the country. It is a cruel
joke.
Michael Atkins is the president of Laurentian
Media. This column appeared originally in the May issue of Northern
Ontario Business. He can be reached at[email protected]
.
