Karl Krauss, an Austrian satirist, once wrote: “How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.” [1]
Listening to the same answer to repeated questions about the involvement of PMO Staff in the Mike Duffy Affaire one wonders if the statement has now become the believed truth as opposed to what happened (if they are indeed different).
The questions point to one of integrity and whether that was compromised. All parties make claims of integrity only to be foiled in some way. The question is why is integrity so difficult or even impossible to maintain? Why would a government who realized power on the promise of not succumbing to the corruption of the previous government follow a similar path. All parties promise not to become corrupted, few meet the goal. It is too easy to say that it is the people. I don’t think that is true. Most of the politicians I know or have meet are there for public service.
But something happens. Something changes in these individuals to cause them to appear to loose integrity; to make what the outsider views as inappropriate decisions. As it seems to cross party lines, then it is hard to pin the issue on the individual so one must look at the environment that they operate within. That environment includes the system of governing; the media and the voting public.
Two factors come to mind: the motivation by the politician to contribute and scale by which results are measured. In an environment where one’s ability to contribute is determine by whether they are in the governing party motivates politicians to win not only a seat, but government, and in Canada’s system of government this generally means a majority. Yet once in power, the individual will find themselves in a place that is so intolerant to mistakes that when they occur there is no option but to suppress, then deny, then recast in some messaging, but never to admit and seek to do better and move on.
Is this a manifestation of our confrontational system of government where each side will spare no effort to improve their stature and concurrently diminish that of the others in the eyes of the voting public? Is it a voting public that accepts the spin? Is it this model that allows a $90,000 dollar expense transgression on a budget of 290 Billion to become a sensation that goes on for years? Surely there are more important moral and ethical issues? Is it because of a media that looks to find abnormalities and expose them under the banner of transparency? Does that role the media has taken on reflect a failure in the transparency of the political system such that a third-party organization needs to take on that responsibility?
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