The Written Word
for March 25, 2001

What a pathetic sight the House of Commons has been this past week. Is it any wonder that Canadians have become so jaded with politics? Why would anyone not be cyncial?

We start with an Alliance MP Rahim Jaffer caught in not one but two lies. First he got his executive assistant to do a radio interview for him and then he lied by saying that it was all the assistant’s fault. Just why, when he made his tearful confession to the House of Commons, he didn’t drop the nonsense of it being all his assistant’d fault and ‘fess up to all is beyond me.

Mr Jaffer got a break – a big break. Just as the media hound dogs were after him for laying all the blame on his assistant, along came Hedy Fry, the national windbag, with her allegations of cross burnings in Prince George. What a terrible thing to allege and how much worse when you pretend you got your information from the Mayor himself – a complete fabrication. Then, of course, there was a half hearted apology and no penalty to be paid. No dismissal from her minor portfolio – no censure by her caucus. Nothing. Then Paul Ramsey, a Prince George, who is so despised in his riding that he would be unlikely to out run the Unity party if he was running, weighed in with a furrowed brow and an acknowledgement that there might be some racism in his home town, a town that has won accolades for it’s constant attention to maintaining a tolerant atmosphere.

Then of course there is the Prime Minister. It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that he used all his considerable political muscle to help out a pal who didn’t deserve help, thus feathering his own nest. The public is treated to the nauseating display of a so-called Ethics Counselor, appointed by the Prime Minister and reporting to him saying (here is where you act surprised) that he sees nothing wrong in what Mr Chretien did.

Then last Friday, when the National Post provided more devastating evidence of the Prime Minister’s shady dealings Mr Chretien found a pressing engagement that kept him from Question Period providing the spectacle of the national brown noser, Herb Gray, clumsily trying to get out of his own tongue’s way as he scattered irrelevancies and non sequiturs into the fray. While all this is going on, our MPs on the Liberal side keep their peace. Not a peep.

We have, then, not only a House in which there are corrupt members going all the way to the top but a House that sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil.

And we teach our children what a wonderful system "responsible" government is!