While the Conservatives moved on a combined motion to suspend Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau in Ottawa, all eyes were on Toronto City Hall and the Ford Family Gong Show.
At first blush, the situations have little in common — apart from the fact they both involve Conservatives. The Senate scandal centers on the misuse of taxpayer dollars, as Harper and his mini-me, Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra, never cease to remind us.
Ford, in contrast, is the self-described taxpayer’s best friend, pinching pennies in his office and reining in the largesse of a free-spending city council. The Senate scandal unfolded in the august halls of the Parliament of Canada, the Ford fiasco in some of the seedier parking lots of Hogtown. And the drama in Ottawa features a steady drip-drip of information orchestrated by the media-savvy Duffy, while Toronto’s media-hating mayor takes the opposite approach, shoving the press off his driveway in frustration.
But at base, the two situations are the same — because they involve the deception (whether admitted or not) of the voters who elected Harper and Ford. The ever-changing story from the Prime Minister’s Office — about who knew what when, how people left its employ and what the motivations were for their actions — cannot be described as anything other than obfuscation.
As for Ford, he’s refused to comment on a video “which does not exist” — one which (allegedly) shows him smoking crack cocaine — but which his own chief of police, Bill Blair, now says is in the possession of the cops.
Integrity. Truthfulness. Transparency. They’re lost commodities in Ottawa and Toronto now. Montrealers are perhaps the only happy Canadians right now, as the misdeeds of their elected officials have been bumped off the front page. It seems that corruption — large, medium and small — is everywhere, leaving voters disgusted at the country’s entire political class.
As the federal Conservatives assemble in Calgary for their convention, they should bear this mood in mind. Yes, good fiscal management can keep your core vote in line, which explains why thousands of Ford loyalists continue to defend him. But leaders of cities and countries are supposed to do more than balance the books. They incarnate their office to their citizens and the world. And when they act as though they are above the law, they undermine the very institutions they are supposed to represent.
Harper may claim he’s cleaning house by evicting his three senators-behaving-badly — but you can’t do it with a dirty broom. Ford might say he’s defending the Toronto taxpayer, but his behaviour made him the subject of a police operation which cost those same taxpayers thousands of dollars.
At some point, both leaders need to take responsibility for their messes, not blame it on their staff or the media. For if our politicians behave badly, why shouldn’t we all follow suit?
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