For anybody who has been locked in a closet lately, Canada is in the midst of a government scandal. Fingers are being pointed and politicians in the opposition are pretending to be outraged. It’s the same old thing.

Was the Chretien government more crooked than the Mulroney government that came before? No. Even the scandal is the same as one of Mulroney’s...huge amounts of cash being transferred to Quebec advertising agencies. Chuck Guite was involved in that one too. There was no official enquiry then, but the tune was the same.

That’s the problem. Nothing ever really changes. Nothing. Brian Mulroney, who led one of the most corrupt federal governments in Canada’s history, is still trotted out proudly at Conservative conventions and public events. He is said to have been instrumental in reuniting the right. The party is full of people who are still loyal to him.

Does that forgive or excuse the present government? Not at all. It points to a systemic problem in our political system. It points to our two main parties, at the very least, being unwilling to bring about real change because they do very well from the criminality inherent in a system that deals in large sums of money and influence and lacks proper safeguards.

Such systems are bound to attract unsavoury types. The bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where the money is,” Sutton replied. It is the simplest and most accurate definition of the criminal mind that there is. Greed and easy money go together hand in hand.

We put guards on banks. If you rob a bank you go to jail. You get a criminal record. It is unlikely that you will be put in a position of trust ever again. There are consequences to your actions that are arguably commensurate with your crime. That is not the case if you are involved in white collar crime, especially if that crime is related to politics.

People connected to Mulroney’s government, as it stumbled from criminal scandal to criminal scandal, might have done weekends or they might have been put under house arrest if they were charged at all. They never went to real prison though. They never had a large, unkempt man with tattoos share a toilet with them. Neither will those from the Chretien Liberals who are presently being dragged in front of Justice Gomery. They will tell their tales, some true and some not. A few will face trial. Some might be restricted to their mansions for a short time.. Some might spend a weekend in a place that is less comfortable than they are used to. They won’t go to real prison though.

In the meantime the parts of our government that do work, however poorly, are brought to a near standstill by the political machinations of men with expensive suits and manicured hands trying to use the scandal to get their turn at the trough. Question Period looks more like the farce of the World Wrestling Federation than anything approaching effective governance.

This all leaves us with a problem, so let’s address it. A few points:


1. Hold all hearings and enquiries in camera. Punish any leaks or any mention of them in the House of Commons or to the press with house arrest until the hearings are over.

I don’t suggest this to protect the guilty, I suggest it to keep the scandal from influencing unrelated parts of politics. Rumours and innuendo are destructive to our political process and to our governance. The recordings of the hearing or enquiry can be released in full when a decision has been reached.

2. Criminal charges can and should stem from such enquiries. Forget about political spankings, if we want the crooks out of politics we need to get the crooks out of politics. That means prison.

3. Convictions should mean serious jail time. These people aren’t just embezzling or stealing, they are undermining our political system and threatening our democratic rights. That alone should net them 2 years jail time...call it Endangerment of Democracy. No country clubs, no house arrest, real prison. Any other convictions for related crimes should have the jail time added to the Endangerment of Democracy sentence.

4. Anybody convicted of any crime involving public money, political influence, or any other crime should be banned from participating in the political process beyond voting. No donating, no volunteering, no running for office.

5. No political donations by anybody except eligible voters and a cap of $2000 per year per person on those donations. No donations to multiple parties to hedge your bets. No corporations, no unions, no special interest groups or lobbyists buying political clout. Democracy is about people, not about corporate interests or special interest groups. No buying ads or loaning corporate jets or donating a hall for a party fundraising supper.

6. Parliamentary reform. It’s time. Actually it’s past time. Let’s put together a citizens’ forum of voters chosen at random to figure out what kind of proportional representation we need and come up with a new system. This would remove a lot of the partisanshipA that leads to the backroom dealing and temptations to criminality. It would also go a long way towards solving the much ballyhooed democratic deficit.

This also necessarily includes reforming the Senate. I have a pet plan for that, and so do half of other Canadians. Hardly anybody thinks that our present works though. Time to change it.

7. Fixed election process. This doesn’t necessarily mean fixed election dates, but there must be a set process for when an election must be held. As I write this the opposition parties are heading for an election even though the latest polls show that 72% of Canadians do not want an election at this time. The last election was called because the ruling party deemed it to be a politically advantageous time for one. We need a better system. This is another job for the citizens’s forum, but not one that necessarily has to be in direct conjunction with their proportional representation process.

8. Patronage positions and government appointments. They will always exist. Every country in the world has them in one form or another. The jobs filled by them are important. Let’s do it by all party committees. Let’s make people apply for the jobs. Let’s hire them based on qualifications instead of who they know.

Our current system is an invitation to corruption. We allow our leaders to reward their friends and people who have done favours for them. I understand all about one hand washing the other. The most important thing is not to put people in positions of trust if their hands need washing.

9. More debates and town hall meetings. We had one debate in each official language last election. We should have had at least four, two in each language. We had a town hall that the leader of the opposition was invited to, but didn’t feel it necessary to attend because he didn’t like the demographic in attendance.

Let’s make it official. An election runs for at least four weeks. Let’s have one town hall and one debate for each week. They can feature either the leaders or one designated representative from each party. If they can’t send a representative, then they lose 1/8 of their government funding for each event missed until the next election. Require all national networks to run all of the events in prime time.

Just to make it more inclusive, any party that either had 5% of the popular vote in the last election or is fielding a candidate in every riding gets to participate in the debates and the town halls.

Putting our politicians in the public eye and forcing them to answer the public’s attention would discourage them from corruption. Nobody wants to face questions about their integrity on national television unless they actually have integrity.

10. Mandatory education about our political system in high school. Something that has been very clear during this latest scandal is that an appalling number of people, including some rather senior politicians, have no clue as to the difference between a legitimate government program such as the sponsorship program, government mismanagement of funds, and criminal acts such as embezzlement and fraud.

It is also clear that many people have no idea what a party platform is, how to find out what a party stands for, or whether it matters at all. Many have no idea of the histories of the politicians they vote for or the histories of the parties those politicians belong to.

So there it is, a ten point plan to at least attempt to address the corruption inherent in the Canadian political system and to make that system more efficient. I’d like to take credit for it, but these are all ideas that I’ve pulled out of one public sphere or another in the time since the last federal election, when Justice Gomery was just getting started.

It’s time to clean up our system and the Canadian public has the knowledge to do so. An election is in the air. Now would be a good time to get started.