Over 15 per cent
Campbell Gordon
rianada is having an election, too. Cana- dian election campaigns are very long — about three months — a remnant of the days when it actually took that long to get from one end of the country to the other. Generally they are quite dull. But this one is interesting because of its vivid exposure of the grease for the wheels of Canada's political machinery — patronage.
Canada has a remarkable tradition of immorality and scandals in public life (as well as striking measures of integrity, but we are not now witnessing any growth in integrity). The best known of the scandals are so important to the development of the country's history that they tend to be among the fragments remembered by even the most indolent school-leaver.
We find, for example, the Marquis de Montcalm, doomed to death and defeat by Wolfe and struggling to provision his troops in 1759, writing to his wife: 'What a country! Here all the knaves grow rich and honest men are ruined.' The 'Pacific Scan- dal' in the late 1860s and early 1870s was the revelation that Canada's first prime minister, and one of its greatest, had accepted substantial party contributions from the man with whom he was negotiat- ing a contract for the construction of the vital transcontinental railway. Quebec has had a really good series of scandals, and evidences of a political culture of payoffs which probably rival President Mobutu's regime. As a result of these conditions, the stadium for the 1976 Olympics is improper- ly built and even roofless in a country where a bitter winter lasts eight months, as well as being virtually the most expensive building in the world. Last year, one of the Province's cabinet ministers had to resign after being caught shoplifting. One meat- packing firm several years ago managed to persuade health inspectors to allow them to sell rotten meat to restaurant chains for several years. The list is very long.
Probably the best defence of this wide- spread state of affairs was given by one 0. D. Sweezey to the Parliamentary Commis- sion investigating the Beauharnois Power Project scandal in 1931. Mr Sweezey said: 'We thought that a contribution would be in order to the Ontario Conservative Party because we would probably be having a lot more dealings with the people of Ontario, and that gratefulness was always an impor- tant factor in dealing with democratic governments.'
Canadians do keep hoping that things will look up and are disappointed when they don't. Historians like Michel Brunet are the cynical exceptions. M. Brunet was wont to say that there was corruption in every government, but that it only became intolerable when it was over 15 per cent. Fifteen per cent of what, one wonders. Let me now describe the events of the last month, so that you may judge whether someone is 'over 15 per cent'.
M. Pierre Trudeau, the outgoing Prime Minister, has been anxious to ensure that all his friends, supporters, helpers and loyalists were rewarded for their service to him over the years. M. Trudeau has been notable in his concern to provide for such people throughout his 15 years in office. In the last month of his tenure, he made 225 appointments. He then, to arrange the smooth transfer of power, met Mr John Turner, the new Prime Minister. M. Trudeau explained to Mr Turner that if M. Trudeau were to appoint a further number of members of Parliament to various offices, Mr Turner would, sadly, be left without a parliamentary majority. And yet, M. Trudeau was most anxious that these people be amply rewarded. So, continued M. Trudeau, just to make sure, would Mr Turner sign a written pledge that he would make the appointments after becoming Prime Minister? If he should not sign, M. Trudeau would have no option but to make the appointments himself before resigning. Mr Turner signed.
John Turner was seriously damaged poli- tically by these events, as M. Trudeau, who loves him not, perhaps intended. His efforts to appear fresh and present himself as a major change from the Trudeau Liberal Party were swept away. He had at least the grace to look embarrassed at the press conference announcing some of the appointments, and in a televised debate last week, when he claimed, piteously 'I had no choice'.
The appointments themselves are de- pressing even by M. Trudeau's standards. At least half of those appointed were of no discernible merit, and few were noted for any kind of effectiveness in their previous posts or suitability to occupy the new ones.
The most interesting appointments were to the more obscure people. Marie-Andree Bastien, for instance, who has handled M. Trudeau's mail for some years, is made executive vice-president of something cal- led the Canadian Sports Pool Corporation at between $63,000 and $74,000 a year. A 29-year-old who carried some, but not all, of M. Trudeau's bags for two years, is to be a director of the Export Development Corporation at $3000 per annum plus $300 for each meeting he attends. A Betty Hewes, who must be a Liberal but is certainly an alderperson in the City of Edmonton (where in M. Trudeau's day Liberals were hard to find) is to be chairman of the Canadian National Rail- ways — previous occupant's salary $90,000. A man who wrote some, but not all, of M. Trudeau's speeches, William MacEachern, is to be a member of the Canadian Aviation Safety Council ($50,000 — $60,000). A defeated Liberal candidate in Manitoba, Joseph Mullally, is to be a judge at $89,100.
The appointment to have caused much further embarrassment was that of a for- mer cabinet minister, Bryce Mackasey, as ambassador to Portugal. Mr Mackasey, a popular figure, is nevertheless involved in a long drawn out series of trials, in which alleged pecuniary improprieties of his drift to the surface. The Portuguese government has made an official complaint.
Mr Brian Mulroney, the Leader of the Opposition, should be the man to profit from this. Indeed, he has voiced the peoples' feelings by calling the whole episode 'vulgar, shameful, scandalous'.
People in glass houses, however, should think of their past. When Mr Mulroney was standing for the leadership of his party, he addressed a warmly partisan audience of Tories with the remark that he saw many potential Senators among them.
(Canadian Senators are appointed — M. Trudeau's last appointments included eight of them.) His righteous rage rang just a little false.
In any event, a poll which appeared two Tuesdays ago suggested that the Conserva- tive party, and Mr Mulroney at its head, were benefiting from the affair in this close-run election. Buoyed by the news, Mr Mulroney boarded his campaign plane and chatted to the press. How was it, asked one journalist, that he could say one thing when standing for leader of the party, and another now? Credit Mr Mulroney with his answer: 'I was talking to Tories then, and that's what they want to hear. Talking to the Canadian public during an election campaign is something else.' Then the journalist asked him about Mr Mackasey's appointment to Portugal. In the full flood of his previous genial admission, Mr Mul- roney continued: 'Let's face it, there's no whore like an old whore. If I'd been in Bryce's position, I'd have been right in there with my nose in the public trough like the rest of them.' Are they not all 'over 15 per cent'?
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