Why we've sunk so low in politics

Toronto Star Editorial, May 28, 2005
Richard Gwyn

This last little while, I've been using my downtime to go backwards in time. To prepare for a project, I've been boning up on Canada's earliest days, around about the time of Confederation.

That, of course, was the era of our first prime minister, John A. Macdonald. It's generally known that he drank a lot, that he fathered Confederation, that he built the Canadian Pacific Railway and so stretched us from coast to coast, and that he got embroiled in a terrible scandal.

This was the Pacific Railway Scandal, in which Macdonald was caught taking money from a company his government was negotiating with to build the railway. It was the worst scandal in our history. The second-worst is today's sponsorship scandal.

--we can debate that one, Richard but we both agree that we are facing a nasty scandal

There are differences about these two events that reveal a lot about the way our politics have evolved. Way back in the 1870s, two important things happened. First, Macdonald was forced to resign because many of his own MPs were so disgusted by the scandal that they switched to supporting the opposition. Second, Macdonald paid a steep price: In the succeeding election, he got trounced. Today, by contrast, not a single government MP has broken ranks over sponsor-gate. Instead, one opposition MP, Belinda Stronach, has crossed the floor to join the tainted Liberals.

-- ironic isn't it? we have not advanced an inch on the moral scale in all those years - and I blame most of it on liberalism

Far from being trounced, Paul Martin's Liberal government won the last election, if only with a minority. More telling, the Liberals are actually better off, despite the immense publicity about the bribery and corruption coming out of the Gomery inquiry. In the latest poll, the Liberals' standing has gone up. Leger Marketing now puts the Liberals at 38 per cent, a shade higher than their 37 per cent showing in the last election.

-- we can argue the accuracy of polls and the liberal companies that take them, also that polls outside of elections are highly elastic to say the least - but I get your point, where is the outrage?

While the Liberals are down in Quebec, where people are really outraged, they are definitely ahead over their election showing in the rest of the country, as confirmed by their easy success in this week's by-election in Labrador.

-- btw, I expect Labrador to be shafted by the liberals re: all their promises

How to explain why, even if we're mad as hell, we're entirely prepared to take it? Two explanations, neither very flattering to us, come to mind. First, our expectations about politics are so low now that scandals, while they may irritate us, don't enrage us.

-- Okay Richard, a trick question here: Who is responsible for this? The liberals for the most part or better still, liberalism.

Second, this is a Quebec scandal. There've been so many of them — only in federal politics, certainly in recent times, it must always be remembered — that we've come to regard them as one of those unpleasant things that happen almost naturally in Canada, like snowstorms in winter.

-- I don't agree, btw are you writing a subtle appolgy piece for the liberals here? This is a LPC scandal.

This cynicism may be justified. The docility of our MPs — in contrast to the past when party discipline wasn't so tight and, occasionally, some members would vote against their own party on principle (or for self-interest, but at least for something other than careerism) — does reinforce the public's attitude that politics has become a game for insiders.

-- All true and again a system put in place by Liberals.

The attitude may also be a kind of protective device by which we justify our inclination not to get involved in politics; in other words, not to get involved in our own governance.

-- Most people are lazy true, but they are not lazy when it comes to complaining about taxes though.

Either way, it's self-defeating. Those who have accustomed themselves to expecting little, get little.

-- Yes! look at what we are becoming..

What's striking about the sponsorship scandal is that it should have happened in the affluent, educated, urbanized, international-minded society that we've become — so utterly unlike the rural, parochial Canada of long ago.

-- but again Richard, this society is a construct of liberalism itself is it not?

What's really striking is that when it happened we, unlike our ruder, cruder ancestors, have, quite unlike them, essentially looked the other way.

-- agreed but give credit to conservatives for their active role in presenting this sordid tale to Canadians.

For the most part I liked this article Richard, and since it was published in the pro-LPC Toronto Star I understand why you tailored it the way you did.

Keep up the good work!