Posted on 10/13/2005 9:06:49 PM PDT by NorthOf45
One great pool for their partisan whims and fancies
October 10, 2005
Rex Murphy
It's kind of difficult stepping back into the stream as it's flowing. Certainly the House of Commons is in full wind-up mode – with everything from the Prime Minister getting 'stern' with the Americans on trade, Justice Gomery's potential hand grenade of a report about three weeks away, and of course the delightful saga of David Dingwall's possible half million in severance coming into collision with his "expensing" $1.29 for chewing gum.
The Dingwall dilemma could be looked at as a kind of "opening act" for Judge Gomery. Now putting a pack of Chiclets or Juicy Fruit on the expense claim - I was going to say it's just peanuts, but of course it isn't peanuts, it's chewing gum - might seem like small change – actually it is small change – when compared with the near $800,000 Mr. Dingwall's full expenses were for one year as President of the Canadian Mint.
But that's just it: when you have a man who has already been rewarded by the government with a plum position – the Mint Master gets $277,000 a year – and who already has an expense account that would make Conrad Black in his glory days drool — then it kind of puts of few extra spots on the liver to learn that when David wants to pop a breath mint, or double his fun, that a bill is sent out to the Canadian taxpayer for $1.29.
He's an ex-cabinet Minister, so he also already has a hearty pension — the job at the Mint was pure patronage —a gift; he flies the globe, sees all the great cities, has his membership paid at an Ottawa golf course — all at public expense; and he's got a really prestigious position.
So there you have it: pension, great salary; huge expense account; travel the world but he also wants the Canadian public to pay for his chewing gum.
And when the amount of his overall expense claims comes out -$800,000! Why then he very quickly, or very cutely, resigns from all of this largesse and then we learn, from Revenue Minister McCallum, that this "good and faithful servant" has to be given severance pay as well — and by some fairly knowledgeable sources severance pay to the tune of half a million dollars! That's a lot of Certs.
Mr. McCallum's parade of statements on the Dingwall severance have every quality of fudge, except taste and digestibility. They are intellectual tofu. His latest, the government "has" to pay, because Mr. Dingwall "might sue."
None of which goes to yet another question — Mr. Dingwall's lobbying for technology grants, while not registered as a lobbyist, and collecting a success fee from a program that expressly forbade such fees.
Who do you think should be suing whom?
If Gomery was about anything, is about anything, it's about cleansing the big boys in the Liberal party from their deep immunity to the thought that the public treasury is not one great pool for their partisan whims and fancies.
What the Dingwall affair tells us is that the instinct dies slowly; that on the grandest scale, and on the pettiest — from a severance package for a patronage appointment, to the chewing gum freebie — in some quarters the lesson just hasn't sunk in.
And for those who thought the long summer had, in that ridiculous cant phrase, "put Gomery behind us" that pack of gum may be just the perfect fuse for Justice Gomery's canon.
One can only hope.
Rex Murphy, the only good thing offered by CBC.
Rex Murphy ping
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Rex Murphy is the greatest thing about Canadian TV. (except for Red Green and Mr. Dressup)
I rarely listen to what he's saying because his facial expressions are entertaining enough. He truly has a face for radio.
LOL ... He'd be the FIRST to agree with you.
Rex Murphy is great, his essay on the The National calling for an election last spring (before Belinda backstabbed the Tories) was classic.
May the Gomery report end once an for all this miserable excuse for a parliament and government sitting in Ottawa.
Having Michelle Jean be forced to ask Stephen Harper to form a government would be priceless. Having her ask him to form a MAJORITY government would be a dream come true...
Rex is also probably the only one on the CBC who is begging the Liberals to stop dumping money into the Maritimes getting people addicted to Unemployment checks. See the folks in the Maritimes have a problem with work ethic caused totally by government function and decree.
More than 50% of the population collects government assistance checks of some kind. Many of the jobs in the Maritimes are of seasonal nature, and when folks are laid off instead of finding new work they collect unemployment until the new employment season starts.
Once again, broad statements ... and misleading as well.
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