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December 21, 2004
An Unprecedented Orgy
On the bottom floor of my parents' condo is a library of donated books. Among the large number of Harlequin romances, Reader's Digest condensed novels and John Grisham books are a surprising number of books on Canadian history. Besides books on the war of 1812 and Trudeau biographies, I found a book called On The Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years by Stevie Cameron. Having always wondered why Canadians revile Mulroney so, I took a peek at the book's description on the inside of the dust cover:
When Brian Mulroney's Tories left office in 1993, Canadians breathed a collective sigh of relief. There had been boondoggles, cover-ups, and scandals aplenty - and the strong suspicion that among those in power many had looked after themselves and their cronies at the expense of the citizens who had elected them.
The dust cover also describes Cameron's account of "flagrant kick-back schemes... misappropriation of parliamentary budgets, favours to corporate supporters of the party, and an unprecedented orgy of patronage appointments..."
The funny thing is, you can replace the words Tories with Liberals, Mulroney with Chrétien, and 1993 with 2003 and the text still holds true.
So why are the PCs considered worse than Hitler, while the Liberals were re-elected three times? Maybe because Canadians have gotten so used to hearing the word boondoggle in the news so often, they are no longer fazed. Or maybe it's because the economy is going so well. Or maybe it's because despite numerous scandals and misappropriation of public funds, the competition makes Canadians think "Well, maybe the Liberals aren't so bad..."