Political Scandals

The mayor of my hometown, the largest city in Canada, is alleged to be in a video where he is smoking a crack pipe. Neither the video (which only a very few have witnessed) nor the owners of the video can now be found. The mayor's brother, an elected councilman of that city, is accused of pushing dope in the 1980's, but none of the ten or so people who were accusers would step forward and make the charge.

Several Senators in Ottawa (not the hockey players) have been accused of being less than forthright (lying) about their principal residence and as a result they received large sums of public money, which they now must repay. Two of them were once prominent respected journalists and the scandal has reached into the office of the Prime Minister of Canada.

Former Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty accepts the blame for moving two Gas Power Stations in order to save two Liberal political seats in the 2011 election. He didn’t know it would cost in excess of $600 million – which the province had to borrow. He resigned and closed the Ontario Legislature for four months to let things cool off.

If you “Google” the phrase “political scandal,” you would get about 257 million results – even more than the phrase “political corruption.”

Political scandals seem to be what politics is about. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that less than half the eligible voters of Ontario bothered to vote in the 2011 Election.

Apple Computer has been accused of dodging taxes for years, another type of scandal.

William Watson, in a column in the Financial Post has a great suggestion on how to reduce scandals here, I recommend it.