“The Most Honest Federal Government Canada Has Produced In a Very Long Time”

On what passes for a scandal in Canadian politics these days.

The National Post’s David Frum thinks that the recent so-called scandals facing the Conservatives don’t warrant an election. “Italy has Berlusconi. Britain has the expenses scandal. The United States has senators arrested in men's rooms,” writes Frum. “And Canada? Canada has complaints that the Harper government refers to itself as the Harper government.” He believes the opposition is attempting to whip the voting public into a fury over nothing, and that their insistence on doing so is a disservice to democracy because it obscures the misdeeds of real criminals, like the perpetrators of the Liberals’ sponsorship scandal. The injustice of an election based on the premise of Conservative scandal is only compounded, Frum says, because Harper’s government is “surely the most honest federal government Canada has produced in a very long time.” By what measurement he’s reached that conclusion, he unfortunately does not disclose.

The Sun Media editorialists (whose insistence on referring to Michael Ignatieff as “the Visiting Professor™” might be the most obnoxious invention in Canadian punditry) have a similar stance, writing “it verges on the laughable to see the Liberals talking about ethics in government when Adscam, which is hard fact and hardly ancient history, dwarfs anything Harper has allegedly done.” As far as defences for Harper’s government go, the Sun’s ‘they’re not as bad as the Chrétien Liberals’ argument and Frum’s ‘they’re not as bad as Silvio Berlusconi’ argument are not very convincing ones. It’s not at all clear that the current allegations of Conservative misdeeds are serious enough to warrant an election of course, but just because they are not as bad as other administrations’ misdeeds is not proof that they aren’t election worthy.

While we’re at it, the Newsroom would like to point out how pointless it is for pundits who support the Conservatives to moralize about the Liberals being shameless opportunists looking to bring down the government for their own ends. Not because that description is not completely accurate, but what sane person believes Stephen Harper wouldn’t by trying to do exactly the same thing if he were in opposition and the government was facing similar allegations?