Cabinet ministers are expected to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the legislature...as long as it suits their convenience.
This is part of a large fallout from what effectively is the first time in memory a minister has admitted lying in the legislature.
Charles Harnick, who was attorney general in the former Progressive Conservative government in 1995, told opposition MPPs at that time, he had been unable to substantiate a rumour an unidentified person said, ?I want the f.....g Indians out of the (Ipperwash Provincial) park? before police entered to
remove native demonstrators and shot one dead.
Harnick has now testified at a public enquiry he clearly heard the remark made by then premier Mike Harris, but did not say so in the legislature because it is merely a political forum in which he did not feel the same obligation to tell the truth.
Harnick technically is not the first minister to admit to lying. New Democrat Shelley Martel claimed in a bizarre case in 1991 she lied when she said she saw the confidential billings of a doctor who was criticizing her government, and that he could be prosecuted.
But Martel was suspected to have opted to say she lied because she felt it was a lesser offence than misusing confidential information, and it was not as clear a case of lying as Harnick?s.
Many will now say if one minister has admitted he lied when called to testify at a public enquiry, others probably have lied, but have never been on a witness stand where they were forced to confess it.
Some will say this merely confirms what they already knew, all politicians are liars.
Harnick?s admission also is a blow to those in all parties suggesting ways of building trust in politicians and encouraging more residents to vote.
In what may seem odd to outsiders, while ministers clearly lie at times, the legislature?s rules forbid questioners calling them ?liars? or saying they ?lied?
in an attempt to prevent debates degenerating into mere name-calling.
Bob Rae and Lyn McLeod in opposition both complained Harris broke promises regarding medicare. They were ejected from the legislature for saying so.
Michael Cassidy of the NDP was another leader ejected for saying an opponent lied, in his case Conservative premier William Davis.
Some have been successful using different terminology trying to avoid getting thrown out. David Peterson when Liberal leader got away with saying a minister was ?talking out of both sides of his mouth.?
Conservative Leo Bernier was not kicked out when he said a New Democrat had ?as much respect for the truth as Ali Khan has for a marriage licence,? but this comparison is now out of date.
A number of MPPs have borrowed Winston Churchill?s famous phrase and accused ministers of ?terminological inexactitude,? and been allowed to stay.
But Harris said a Liberal minister did ?a taffy pull with the truth? and a Speaker forced him to withdraw the comment.
The legislature goes to a lot of effort to stop MPPs calling each other liars, but it is more difficult to stop them lying.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen?s Park press gallery.
