Leaders fail to differentiate between party and state

Those of us who work in and around Canada’s political class are fond of moaning to each other about Canadian voter apathy, and how irresponsible it is not to care about who governs.

A more self-aware view might be to wonder why Canadians care at all, given the contempt with which they are treated by too many politicians. This month was marked by two such “finger-in-the-eye” episodes.

I am indebted to my friend, Susan Delacourt, one of Canada’s shrewdest and most insightful political journalists, for her regular explosion, “Don’t these @#@#$ guys know that politics is not governing!” at whatever is the latest transgression by foolish political leaders. She is right, of course: it is not. The separation of party and state is an essential wall that too many young political staffers and many of their adult supervisors — too many premiers and prime ministers — pretend is simply not relevant.

Such sophistry is a major contributor to older voter anger and younger voter alienation.

What is a first-time potential voter to make of the nonsense from Premier Kathleen Wynne that her No. 2 employee is both her taxpayer-paid deputy chief of staff and her party’s campaign director? Is this on alternate days or partisan until noon but public employee after lunch?

Such an absurd insult to common sense might be seen as a good reason not to vote.

This is beyond even the Harperites: by far and away the Canadian gold medallists in cynical politics for their deliberate blurring of the bright line between partisan and national interest. They at least cycle their party hacks into and out of the PMO, not having the chutzpah to pretend that you can serve the people and the party at the same time.

So the bank regulator says to his boss, “Sir, I just wanted you to know I am doing alittle work for one of my bank buddies as a consultant on the weekends. But we’ve built a hard Chinese wall between my two jobs. No problem, eh?” Well, you could go to jail for a stunt like that. But perhaps political staffers are no longer covered by the Criminal Code.

Then there is the case of the weather vane MP and her gormless new political love. Imagine a hockey player whose agent is secretly negotiating to move her to a new team, swearing all the while no such plans were afoot.

She plays against her “about-to-be” team until the night before the announcement of her switch, trash-talking them to the end. And what would we think of her new coach sappily smiling beside her and claiming he “had always respected her, was delighted . . . blah blah.” This would not pass a 5-year-old’s ethics or credulity test.

The Ontario case is a sad example of the contagion of the Harris/Harper political ethics’ broad contamination of Canadian politics. Each Conservative party and its operatives were famous for stunts such as these. Sad that some in the Liberal party in Ottawa and Ontario apparently feel they need to stoop to that level to compete.

Apart from wanting to instantly forget such stomach-churning episodes, and feeling one needs a long hot shower to remove the slime, cases such as these do matter. Each case is rooted in a failure to understand the difference between partisan interest and public interest, between politics and governing.

No, you cannot be both a senior political operative and a servant of the people of Ontario — as Wynne famously pledged her premier’s office staff would understand they always are. And no, you cannot flail the admitted champions at abusing public money and public trust for political gain when you indulge in the same politics yourself.

Yes, Stephen Harper skilfully employs religious prejudice, national security angst, angry regional tensions and even our deference to authority to serve his partisan interests, daily. Yes, there will be a lot of cleaning up to do after the lost decade of Harperism: rebuilding trust in government, morale in the public service and Canada’s standing in the world, among a much longer list of damage to be repaired.

But why would anyone competing for that cleanup role think that smearing themselves in the same political mud was a good idea?

Why would a premier chosen in part for her pledge to clean up the stench that surrounded the sad closing months of the McGuinty premier’s office allow herself to squander her reputation for integrity so carelessly?

“Good government” is part of the constitutional trinity of Canadians’ faith in their country. We care about honest and competent government. Confusing good government with greasy politics is not only insulting to your own supporters, it risks becoming political suicide.

As a good coach would say to such ethical failures, “Time to up your game, kids!”