Guergis, Jaffer at height of hypocrisy
STEPHEN MAHER LETTER FROM OTTAWA
Sat. Mar 13 - 4:54 AM
IT'S NO WONDER that many young people don't pay attention to politics.
It is a dreary parade of lumpy middle-aged people in suits reading misleading
and evasive talking points to one another, projecting emotions they don't
feel as they defend their parties, attack other parties and attempt to attract
the attention of tuned-out voters with dim-witted propaganda.
On the other hand, in spite of the best efforts of party spin doctors,
politicians remain human beings, and they occasionally behave in ways that
provide voters with pleasantly tawdry morality plays, and for that we ought to
be grateful.
Maybe young people should be interested in manufacturing tariffs, but they are not.
They are interested in televised singing and dancing contests, tagging pictures
of one another on Facebook, and scandalous behaviour of attractive, successful
people.
Thank goodness, then, for Helena Guergis and Rahim Jaffer, the Tory poster couple
for bad behaviour, for offering young people a bit of titillation this week.
It has been pretty good theatre - a farce in two acts - wherein they behave badly,
with no consequences to themselves beyond public scorn, and we all get to enjoy
the spectacle.
The curtain came up on the first act three weeks ago, when Guergis, minister of state
for the status of women, arrived late for an Air Canada Jazz flight from
Charlottetown to Montreal on her 41st birthday.
She threw a fit when she had to be scanned, threw her boots, banged on a security
window and swore at the staffers.
"Happy (freaking) birthday to me," she is alleged to have said. "I guess I'm
stuck in this hellhole."
When reporters got wind of this hissy fit, Guergis issued a news release
apologizing for having spoken "emotionally to some staff members."
The second act of the drama took place in Orangeville, Ont., on Tuesday, when
her husband, Jaffer, a former Reform and Conservative MP, appeared in court to plead
guilty to careless driving and pay a $500 fine.
Last September, Jaffer was busted by the Ontario Provincial Police for driving 93
in a 50 zone. He blew the breathalyzer, was searched, and was then charged with
impaired driving and possession of cocaine. But the Crown and defence made a deal,
apparently because of legal issues with the evidence.
Justice Douglas Maund said he could "read between the lines" and told Jaffer:
"I'm sure you can recognize a break when you see one."
Outside the courtroom, Jaffer apologized, sort of.
"I know that I should have been more careful," he said.
"I once again apologize for that and I take full responsibility for my careless
driving."
Immediately, on the Internet, legions of Canadians signalled their disapproval,
complaining that Jaffer got a sweetheart deal. This is a reasonable thing to think,
but it seems unlikely.
There is plenty of reason to believe that people who can afford good lawyers get
better justice, but little reason to suspect that a shadowy group of Tories
engineered this deal.
If they did, they're dumb, because this is, as top Tory Kory Teneycke put it on TV,
"toxic to the Conservative brand."
Other senior Conservatives - Tim Powers, Deb Grey and Tom Flanagan - all publicly
griped, which suggests that while Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not fired
Guergis, his people have signalled that it is OK to go after her in public.
And that's wise because when the Tories stand up in the House and point out that
she has apologized, they look stupid. She hasn't apologized. She issued a half
apology in a news release.
But the Tories are, so far, sticking with Guergis and leaving her in her job,
although she is so damaged that she has little value except as a figure of fun.
The Tories look like they are coddling a couple of spoiled brats, and they look
like hypocrites.
That is a risk of doing business if you run on conservative social values.
Much of the Tories' electoral success is based on a simple-minded anti-crime message. They promise to get tough, and pass laws requiring mandatory sentences. They self-righteously and dishonestly bleat at the opposition for obstructing those bills, and then kill those bills by proroguing.
The Jaffer case points to the reality of our criminal justice system. A lot of
people get light sentences because of plea bargains.
The Tory pitch imagines the world as divided between criminals and good people.
The solution is to get tough on the criminals. But the world is not like that.
Take Jaffer. He's a good guy, likable and ambitious, who on one particular night
behaved badly and engaged in some, uh, careless driving. How, exactly, would you
begin to get tough on him? Can you pass a law that would prevent evidence problems
without compromising all of our rights?
He and Guergis have done us all a favour for drawing attention to the limits
of the Conservatives' crime agenda.
WFDS
the text appears truncated a the right side... pls fix so we can read entire letter.
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