2 mars 2004
JAMES TRAVERS
It's one thing to hack at the heads of crown corporations, and quite another to root out corruption in the nation's capital.
Paul Martin is no slouch at the easier of the two. Yesterday, the Prime Minister took advantage of Jean Pelletier's appalling remarks about Olympic gold medallist Myriam B�dard to sack the man who ran the trains on time in Jean Chr�tien's office.
It is, as they say, a good start.
Powerful and feared, Pelletier is more than a pivotal figure in the Quebec advertising scam; he is also the most prominent example of the cronyism that scandal is exposing. His summary dismissal sends a welcome, long overdue signal that even in Ottawa there is some connection between actions and consequences.
But sometime soon, certainly before the next federal election, Martin must shift the focus from federal corporations and civil servants to their political masters. Only then will he begin restoring confidence in a system now squirming under public scrutiny.
Facing its own ethical crisis, the U.S. private sector quickly recognized that nothing steadies investor nerves like speedy justice for those who shatter public trust.
With encouragement from the White House, Enron and other accounting horrors moved speedily from low, if spectacular, crime to high-profile punishment.
Here in a North that increasingly seems more grimy than white, the course of events is different. While Martin struck fast against Pelletier and even faster after Auditor-General Sheila Fraser's report, real progress is slow.
Weeks after Fraser confirmed what many in Ottawa have known for years, mandarins, not ministers, remain at the centre of suspicion. With the notable exception of Alfonso Gagliano, attention remains squarely fixed on those Martin labelled "the mechanics" instead of on the masterminds.
Truth is often elusive, but in this case it's easily grasped. Despite the efforts of two consecutive prime ministers to blame civil servants, responsibility rests with those elected to protect the public purse, not plunder it for political advantage.
Gritty as that truth is, it is also inescapable; the Quebec advertising scandal is a lesson in failed leadership. Stripped of all the self-serving anti-separatist rhetoric, the systemic misuse of taxpayer's money was nothing less than a calculated, coldly callous abuse of political power on Chr�tien's watch.
There's nothing new about that in the national capital. Situational ethics are so ingrained in federal politics that what would be denounced as lies elsewhere are cherished as slick "spin," and value for money is a flexible criteria easily bent in delivering money to friends.
Nothing measures that ethical deficit more accurately than an appointment process that too often chucks merit in the dumpster. If there is a hidden benefit in the current scandal, it must be that the cost of rewarding political loyalty with prestigious positions is now exposed as simply too high.
Via Rail, Canada Post, the federal Business Development Bank and even the RCMP have been damaged by ready-aye-ready compliance when the political centre wanted favours repaid with services that broke rules and perhaps laws.
It would be easy to trace that damage, those failures, to bureaucrats and powerful officials � officials like Pelletier � who learned to play the game much too well. But to punish them alone would again miss the point so quickly lost in the humiliation of George Radwanski.
As a bureaucrat, the former privacy commissioner's lavish spending and scurrilous management practices heaped public shame on the civil service. Radwanski � again like Pelletier �was no career civil servant, he was a Liberal insider who, despite a personal bankruptcy, slipped into a lucrative position through the back door.
No political price was paid for that appointment and, while promises have been made, no substantial reforms have been applied to a patronage apparatus that allows the Prime Minister to appoint whomever he pleases to some 3,000 plums jobs.
If Martin is to restore credibility to a badly discredited democratic process, he must urgently address the twin issues of accountability and appointments. The latter is more easily fixed.
It's a simple matter, one well tested in other jurisdictions, to ensure that appointments are made from a list of suitable candidates selected by any independent or multi-partisan group. In that way taxpayers are assured only the competent fill federal jobs, and that political partisans stop slipping across the line into the public service.
Surely that isn't too much to ask, too much to expect. And surely it's not too na�ve or old-fashioned to believe that those who accept the rewards and responsibilities of high office should be held accountable for their failures, as well as praised for their successes.
That was once the norm. Sadly, it's now the exception. Where the Ottawa and Rideau rivers meet, accountability is a fluid variable that naturally flows to the lowest point in the pecking order.
Until that flow is reversed, until citizens, taxpayers and voters are certain that those they elect have the courage to do the right thing when things go wrong, faith and participation in the democratic system will continue to ebb.
Firing Jean Pelletier is just a beginning. If it proves to be the end, it won't be nearly enough.
page mise en ligne le 2 mars 2004 par SVP
