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PETTY SCALE ACCEPTING IRVING FREEBIES - Friday, October 31, 2003 at 13:20

EDITION:  Final 
SECTION:  News 
PAGE:  34 
BYLINE:  PETER WORTHINGTON 

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A PETTY SCALE ACCEPTING IRVING FREEBIES NO MEASURE OF MINISTERS' ETHICS
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The late Northcote Parkinson, creator of Parkinson's Law, used to say that when boards of directors of big companies met they would rubberstamp expenditures of millions, then haggle for half an hour over whether office coffee should cost 5 cents or 10 cents. His theory was that everyone understood the coffee question, and had opinions, but no one fully understood the million dollar issues.

That's a bit what it's like in Ottawa at the moment, with the hullabaloo over cabinet members accepting hospitality from the Irving industries in the Maritimes. Of all so-called "scandals," this has got to be the silliest and most petty. So what if Environment Minister David Anderson spent a weekend at an Irving pulp and paper lodge in New Brunswick? Does anyone truly think that bit of hospitality would corrupt his vote on trees? Still, Anderson sent the Irving's a $1,500 cheque -- lending substance to accusations and assuming that this somehow purifies him.

One by one other ministers who've taken flights on Irving aircraft, or attended fishing lodges on the Restigouche, all scramble to pay back what they think the hospitality was worth. Prime Minister Jean Chretien got it right (the law of averages dictates that he's got to get some things right!) when he poo-poohed the fuss and refused to take it seriously.

FAIL TO CONSULT

Health Minister Allan Rock, Labour Minister Claudette Bradshaw, Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault and undoubtedly others failed to consult with Chretien's personal Ethics Commissioner Howard Wilson that they were accepting freebies. Who can blame them? Mr. Wilson's main function seems to be to approve of whatever indiscretion or rule-bending the PM does in Shawinigan, so why bother him?

More serious breaches are when ministers give contracts without mandatory bidding process (like the PM getting DND to buy new and unnecessary ministerial aircraft for prestige purposes. Or ministers hiring their girlfriends for consulting work, or paying them to write reports on subjects they know nothing about; or ministers wasting a billion dollars on nothing; or the billion-dollar gun registry boondoggle that will actually increase crime and violence rather than curtail it. The list goes on and on.

Fishing weekends in New Brunswick seem small potatoes. Ethics are something an individual has, or does not have. You can't legislate ethics. Fear of being caught can limit a cheat's behaviour, if that's what the elected person is. But it can't make him or her ethical.

It is insulting to think that accepting a ride in a plane is sufficient to corrupt a cabinet minister. Or that accepting a free dinner is irreversibly corrupting. Still, all those who were "guests" of the Irvings are backpeddling. Frankly, there'd be more respect if some of them refused to apologize or atone by sending money to the Irvings after they've been identified, because they've done nothing wrong.

REAL CORRUPTION

Again, this has become such an issue simply because it's something most of us understand. Most of us don't have the opportunity to waste a billion dollars. Far more corrupt, if you ask me, is politicians voting themselves pay raises or benefits no one else in society gets -- and justifying it on grounds that if you want good people, you've got to pay good money. That's utter rubbish -- raise the pay and you lower the competence, and people going into politics for the money, not because they want to help the country.

Paul Martin, the PM-in-waiting (and waiting and waiting) has put all his holdings into a blind trust -- as if that means anything. Does anyone truly think he doesn't know what's going on with his holdings? It's all cosmetics. If Paul Martin isn't a crook, it doesn't matter what he has, he's not going to abuse his office. It's as simple as that.