OTTAWA—This is a small town.In this village, two blocks from the halls of Parliament, stories are swapped over pints regarding the loves lives, infidelities, indiscretions and sexual orientation of ministers, MPs, aides and journalists.
Some are true, some no doubt fanciful. Others are merely vengeful, because this has become a meaner town over the years, a partisan playground where slights, real or imagined, are tallied and scores settled.
Beyond the aggrieved parties, such tales are of interest largely to those habitués of a tiny downtown radius, from the Confederation Building on the west to the Metropolitain Brasserie on the east.
The details of Vic Toews’s divorce were dissected here years ago, but largely, except for a few published details, they stayed here.
Now they are everywhere, and an anonymous post on YouTube over the weekend threatened to reveal more details if the minister does not withdraw his Internet surveillance legislation.
Toews bears some of the responsibility for this toxic pall that hangs over the capital. He is a bombastic, partisan attack dog who moonlights as a minister of the Crown.
He, and too many of his cabinet colleagues, show no hesitation in questioning the patriotism of their critics in the Commons.
They accuse them of not supporting the troops if they question the F-35 purchase, accuse them of being an enemy of law-abiding Canadians if they question the gutting of the long gun registry data.
But Toews slithered under his own bar last week with his rejoinder to a Liberal critic, telling him if he didn’t back the government’s bill he would be backing child pornographers.
Even in the minister’s comic book world of white hats versus black hats, that comment was one of the most foolish ever uttered in this or any Parliamentary session in memory.
He offered a nuanced apology Saturday on The House on CBC Radio.
Toews has left an extensive public record for opponents to attack, but the malicious leaking of divorce affidavits and the YouTube threat is troubling on a number of planes.
The Star has a copy of the affidavits from which the now notorious Vikileaks excerpts were disseminated through the Twitterverse.
There is nothing in there to indicate the minister had broken the law or was subject to police investigation.
There is nothing to indicate his personal travails affected his public job performance, whatever you may think of it.
There was no indication he was abusing his Parliamentary privilege or the public purse.
He has never advocated criminalizing divorce or outlawing adultery.
In other words, there was no need to pull back the curtain on a family mess that involved others who did not choose politics as a vocation.
So his personal drama should have remained private.
This is not a press gallery being deferential to a politician, but one that is quite rightly asking itself the pertinent questions about personal lives and the public’s right to know and coming to the proper conclusion — in this case.
If an investigation by Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer reveals that a House of Commons IP address was used by an opposition party to target Toews, then the minister was quite right in wondering whether political opponents were attempting to hide behind Internet anonymity and using taxpayers’ money to smear him.
But the person or persons behind Vikileaks may never be found and they may have done nothing illegal.
They are, however, guilty of sleaze.
If the sandbox in Ottawa is now open to anyone with a Twitter account and personal dirt on an opponent, we’re all in trouble. It further debases a political system already in historic disrepute.
The Vikileaks move was also politically dumb. It allowed the government to turn the tables on an opposition quite properly going after a flawed bill, and what is more remarkable is it allowed Toews to play victim.
In a letter to constituents, he says he has been the target of “criminal acts,’’ and has asked police to investigate.
In the letter, he quotes from Irish poet William Butler Yeats in professing love for his family: “Yet they that know all things but know, that all this life can give us is a child’s laughter, a woman’s kiss.’’
That merely ratchets up the entire creepiness of this whole affair.
Happy Family Day to all.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Tim Harper
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