Ottawa Sun
Published: Saturday, May 7, 2005

Grow up and get back to work

It's time for MPs of all political stripes to set aside the name-calling and accusations of racism and return to business.

This is going to be the nastiest and dirtiest election in Canadian history. Of course folks say this before every election but the mudslinging and name calling is already at a fever pitch on Parliament Hill.

There is little doubt that it will only get worse as the House moves toward the May 18 vote on the Tories confidence motion, or approval of the Liberal-NDP $4.6 billion hang-on-to-power garage sale budget deal, whichever comes first.

On the eve of what should be national pride and reverence in commemorating the 60th anniversary of the allied forces victory in Europe, sadly we are distracted by a Parliament mired in controversy and infinite immaturity. The halls of political power have degenerated into a circus of racial slurs and an Olympic games (minus the drug scandals) of parliamentary procedure.

Meanwhile over at the Gomery inquiry disgraced former bureaucrat Chuck Guite has given yet another, different version of his time as head of the sponsorship program. In addition, we have now learned about hundreds of thousands of dollars in cold, hard cash stuffed into nondescript envelopes that was allegedly funneled into the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal party to help fight the 1997 general election from the former executive director of Quebec Grits himself.

We're not talking a mortgage payment here or there, as criminal as this would be. We're talking enough money to allow the average Sun reader to pay off the mortgage, the line of credit, wipe out the VISA card, drop a good chunk of change into the kids' RESP accounts with enough left over to take the family (the spousal unit, the 2.2 kids and Fido) and sail the Caribbean or veg on a warm Dominican beach for a month in the dead of winter.

This week's name-calling and racial slurs on Parliament Hill are simply a disgrace. It all started when Western Standard magazine published a doctored and admittedly noir centre-page spread featuring Liberals such as Scott Brison, Paul Martin, and Alfonso Gagliano among others with the tag line, Liberano's. It is a parody of promo shots used for HBO's popular TV series, The Sopranos.

A couple of Tory MPs were photographed viewing this spread with smirks on their faces. This prompted immigration Minister Joe Volpe to comment to the effect that the Klan, a.k.a. the KKK, was somehow influencing the Conservatives minus the capes and hoods. While the Western Standard poster -- a private commercial entity by the way, with no affiliation to the Conservative party -- pushed the envelope in terms of political satire, Mr. Volpe's remarks in response were totally out of proportion and as a Conservative partisan, I find them personally insulting.

The Tories response was swift (and predictable), out came MP Rahim Jaffer (a visible minority and a Muslim by faith) and MP Bev Oda (a Japanese-Canadian with a 25-year legacy of promoting multiculturalism and diversity in Canadian broadcasting) both seething with understandable indignation at Mr. Volpe's comments. Sadly, the human decency of a deserved apology is something to which Mr. Volpe cannot aspire.

Then by mid-week we were witness to the alleged courting of Manitoba red-Tory MP Ink Mark with alleged offers of an ambassadorship as the Liberals try to pick off opposition MPs in their attempts to survive a confidence vote. To this Treasury Board president Reg Alcock reportedly said that he would go higher up the "gene pool" in looking for ambassador material. In turn this was interpreted as a racial slur by Mr. Mark.

Hey kids, how about growing up? As infuriating and disappointing as all this six-year-old schoolyard name calling is, really, what does it have to do with the business of the nation? As ambivalent as I am about an election this spring, increasingly it appears as the best road to take to escape the paralysis that has seized Parliament.

The decrepit state of the once proud and well-equipped Canadian military, the security of our drug supply in the face mounting U.S. Congressional pressure to allow bulk re-importation of drugs from Canada, and the laissez-faire, get-out-of-jail-free sentencing of punks, molesters and repeat offence impaired drivers by an unaccountable judiciary are just a few of the pressing national problems that require parliamentary action.

Our MPs should take a long and reflective stroll through the new and spectacular Canadian War Museum before hitting the pavement and banging on our doors for votes to get a much needed sense of perspective on what really matters.

The museum is a long overdue and solemn tribute to over 100,000 Canadians who died (and many more who survived and still serve) for the ideal of democratic Canada, strong and free. Surely, the present and increasingly corrupt and chaotic state of the Canadian body politic is not reflective of this ideal. Honourable members -- of all parties -- we expect better from you and this country's future commands it.