No excuse for blatant cronyism

Like all of us, politicians often face circumstances out of their control. 

The harsh truth is that your mayor, or your MLA for that matter, has no more control over floods, fires, or wars than you do. 

In such chaotic circumstances, the role of politicians is to help manage developments by putting the concerns of local families and communities first. 

As voters we rightly expect preparation, but we certainly don’t expect politicians to personally control every aspect of every crisis. When life throws you a knuckleball, sometimes legging out a single is the best-case scenario. By and large, citizens are fair-minded in such circumstances.

What voters can’t condone, however, is political cronyism.

We’ve all heard it before: Elected officials who abuse their power to feather their own nests, officials who rig contracts to benefit friends, and prid pro quo appointments to purchase political favours. Such tactics are immoral and underhanded.

They are also often devastating to the credibility of politicians. 

Voters have zero tolerance for such behavior. No leniency is given, because such corruption is 100 per cent controlled and orchestrated. Even politicians who aren’t directly involved are often guilty of looking the other way, or even worse guilty of forgiving such actions in the name of partisanship.

Much has been made of the many scandals of Prime Minister Trudeau’s government, from the SNC Lavalin illegal donations, to sole source contracts, to the WE Charity controversy.

For my money, one of the worst and least reported incidents involved Trudeau’s government attempting to appoint the sister-in-law of a Cabinet minister as Ethics Commissioner. She eventually stepped down in the face of rampant controversy.

Meanwhile, in Alberta, Danielle Smith’s government is racking up a similar record.

Most recently, it was revealed that the Premier, several Cabinet Ministers, and Premier’s Office staffers accepted thousands of dollars worth of NHL playoff tickets from a government contractor. This occurred after the government changed its ethics rules, removing monetary limits on gifts to MLAs, designed to curtail corruption and cronyism.

The Smith government also recently appointed disgraced former Premier Alison Redford, who was forced out of office due to cronyism, as a director of a crown corporation. Redford, you may remember, once booked fake passengers on her taxpayer-funded plane so that she could fly family members to a number of tourist destinations on the public dime. The Smith government will now pay Redford a $10,000 annual retainer and $300 compensation for each meeting she attends until at least Jan. 30, 2027.

Smith’s government has also taken several pages from the Trudeau government’s playbook.

Earlier this year they appointed an Ethics Commissioner who once sought a UCP nomination. As an “independent” Officer of the Legislature, the Ethics Commissioner has many duties, including (for example) investigating a Premier and Ministers accepting thousands of dollars worth of hockey tickets from a government contractor.

In addition, the government awarded several highly publicized sole-source contracts to party insiders. The most egregious involved a $72,500, three-month contract to Smith’s former leadership campaign manager for social media work.

The excuses given for the Smith government’s cronyism ring as hollow as Trudeau’s.

Competition and free markets are supposed to be at the heart of conservative ideology. I have to ask, is there no one capable of serving as Ethics Commissioner who doesn’t have direct ties to the UCP? Is the Premier’s former campaign manager the only person capable of delivering social media resources for the Premier? Is a disgraced former Premier somehow the best choice for drawing international investment?

Nonsense. 

At the end of the day, such cases of blatant cronyism are 100 per cent orchestrated. 

Whether it’s Trudeau or Smith, partisanship is no excuse for looking the other way, and voters have no reason to grant either government any leniency.

Corruption is NOT the price of doing business. There is NO excuse for blatant cronyism.