Very Public Malfeasance

It's not entirely true that the public enjoys crucifying their politicians, they would far rather prefer to honour and respect them. Not entirely the public's fault that their elected lawmakers somehow manage to indulge in schemes and behaviours that bring criticism upon themselves. We have every right to expect better from those who elect themselves to run for public office. That those we help elect to high office succumb to behaviours that bring disgrace on themselves and to that office is a matter for their conscience, and our notice.

In the City of Ottawa, the mayor, a former highly successful businessman, is on trial for suborning the electoral process by attempting to buy off a competitor for election to the mayoralty, promising him that he could deliver a future position through his political contacts at the federal level. Mayor Larry O'Brien has temporarily stepped down from office, until the case has been adjudicated and he has been found not guilty of the charges brought against him in a court of law. He has the wherewithal to hire expensively clever lawyers.

Former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney has proven himself to be somewhat less than completely honourable, bringing insult to the office of the prime minister through his back-room machinations with a shady lobbyist, while still in office. He accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, made no tax return on the funds, kept the cash in a home safe, and never divulged his relationship with KarlHeinz Schreiber for fear of reputation-contamination.

He needn't have feared. His ego and his greed alone combined were what distinguished this man as unfit to hold public office, despite his greasy soliloquy before a federal inquiry reminding his interlocutors of the executive office he held, and what his consummate skill as a politician availed this country. His accomplishment boasts, his recounting of his modest background rising to attain legal and corporate respect, and finally the highest office in the land, obvious manipulation.

Unexplained, still, his decision to sully the office to which he was elected, his exploitation of his position of influence at home and abroad, ostensibly to represent a foreign manufacturer of munitions and military vehicles, for which he would be paid handsomely. A former prime minister of Canada shilling as an arms-dealer-at-a-remove. Right-un-honourable to a loathsome degree.

And then there's the Commons committee enquiry into the employment of foreign care workers temporarily in Canada on work permits for domestic workers. Employed by none other than the Liberal Member of Parliament, Ruby Dallah who had served in various portfolios (critic for youth and multiculturalism; critic for social development; member of the House standing committee on health), and aspirant for the elected post of leader of the Liberal party.

Her principal residence, along with her brother, is with her mother who requires the services of an in-house care provider. She undertook to hire caregivers to live in her loving and compassionate home, to look after her mother's needs. In that loving and compassionate home the caregivers contend that they were tasked with demeaning work, had their passports taken, were not given the work permits required by law, were exploited, overworked and underpaid.

What all three personalities have in common is a larger-than-life ego and sense of personal entitlement. Their positions in life entitling them to considerations not shared by others leading more pedestrian, untalented lives of ordinary, everyday under-achievement.