Boring Canadians?

Canadians have that reputation. Nothing exciting ever happens in Canada. People are stolid, staid and boooring.  Mundane and unexciting. Phlegmatic, that describes the Canadian temperament. We are too self-controlled, too satisfied with the status quo, too involved with being nice and ordinary. When there are Canadians who excel at acting, comedy, musical performance, they exit the country and head out to where they will be appreciated - anywhere but Canada.

But -- wait! All of a sudden Canada has turned itself inside out and backwards. Toronto has a mayor who has been accused of consorting with low-life petty drug-besotted criminals, and there appears to be evidence given to some select journalists working for newspapers that would love to hang Bob Ford as high as they can tug his considerable girth - over smoking crack cocaine. The man in question smiles and fires his staff and shuts the door to his office.

In Quebec a commission is launched by a the provincial government on the cusp of losing the next election, which they do. The commission of enquiry invites public servants, business and corporate leaders and some government officials to come and entertain them with stories of municipal government malfeasance, making corrupt common cause with construction companies in league with crime syndicates.

And it is Quebec's mayors whose reputational heads get lopped off, and are forced to leave public office. One mayor after another leaves under a cloud of opprobrium, and true public disgust. But that's not enough, those who step forward to act as mayor on an interim basis until democracy takes it time to replace the municipal heads, are themselves implicated in wrong-doing.

Montreal's mayor resigned in utter disgrace, and his temporary stand-in is taken into police custody as well shortly afterward, for acts unbecoming a licitly-honourable member of local governance. Graft, corruption, raiding the public purse, it's all about money, money, money. Commonplace enough in and of itself. Money has a corrupting influence on the public weal.

But sex? Yes, that too. And there are the three signal ills of society: money, drugs, sex. That trifecta is not, after all, monopolized entirely by the celebrities of the popular entertainment industry. In walks Laval's interim Mayor, Alexandre Duplessis -- or rather out he walks, reluctantly, claiming fruitlessly "I never, never, never received sexual services. I did not solicit. I received nothing sexual. There was an attempt to extort me."

Ahem, poor man has a transitory memory file. Dozens of cellphone text messages from him to the owner of an escort service. The customer, says the owner, asked if he could wear women's underwear. When the escort arrived at the remote country cottage where the client awaited her, they dressed up, put on high boots, did makeup. But there arose a dispute over the $160-an-hour fee-for-service.

Which is when the escort service owner called police who in their turn informed her that the customer was the mayor of Laval, Quebec. No fewer than 110 text messages. Kinky, oboy!