"THE IDLE CANADIAN AWARDS"

Worst Politicians of 2011

For another year, we, at the Mad River Institute for Political Studies, have selected the most self-serving, ineffective, and/or unskilled public servants, as nominated by our members. Unfortunately, 2011 represents another year of hypocrisy and a lack of accountability amongst politicians, with the integrity of all suffering at the hands of a few.

For 2011, Ruth Ellen Brosseau is our choice as the Worst Federal M.P. It is not our wish to criticize her as a person, but as a symbol of what is wrong with the electoral process. Brosseau is the new MP for Berthier-Maskinong, a riding which runs along the north bank of the St. Lawrence River between suburban Montreal and Trois-Rivieres. She was elected for the NDP last May despite not campaigning or even visiting the riding. She actually lived and worked in Ottawa and, by her own statement, did not have a grasp of French sufficient for a constituency that is 98% Francophone.

Our concern with her is that she agreed to run with almost no knowledge of politics, with none for the riding in which she was running. Though she believed she had no chance of winning and this was just to get the NDP a bit more funding, it shows a contempt for democracy and lack of respect for the people. This is hardly a qualification for a Member of Parliament.

However, it also shows that political parties have little interest in choosing the best candidates. So much for the declaration that politics draws out the best and brightest. The party hierarchies clearly only care about their candidates in ridings where they have a reasonable chance of winning. What they really want are ineffective clones who do as they are told.

But the voters of Berthier-Maskinong deserve a slap on the wrist, too. (And this goes for any other riding where electors didn’t do at least a little thinking in deciding for whom they would vote.) If it turns out Brosseau represents her constituents badly, they got what they deserved. If she becomes a good MP, it’s because they were lucky.

The Worst Provincial M.P.P./M.L.A./M.N.A. is Tim Hudak, the leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party. Not only did he take his party from a 20+ advantage in the polls just months before the provincial election to defeat in October, but his party has floundered since, as the Liberal minority government has displayed a total control of the agenda.

Many commentators have blamed the Tories for focusing on wedge issues during the election, like chain gangs and unfair funding for immigrants, as why they lost. It is said they should have concentrated on issues and the government’s record. That’s partly true. However, it’s also true that good salespeople help get the message out and Hudak was certainly an unexceptional merchant leading a band of mostly grey-bearded Common Sense Revolutionaries harkening back to a time that most Ontarians still disdain.

Instead of treating voters as angry simpletons who can’t get past their knee-jerk complaints, perhaps Mr. Hudak could give Ontarians a sophisticated offering of policy and hope, if he gets another chance.

The Worst Municipal Councillor is Toronto mayor Rob Ford. This may seem like an easy shot, given the man’s national profile and the navel-gazing of the media therein, but he really does deserve it if for no other reason than he has attempted to lead his city like a potentate, not a democratically-elected conciliator.

For ‘Sideshow Rob’, the year swung between success and failure in applying his reactionary agenda. He got council to kill the vehicle registration tax. He exploited misspending at the public housing commission to make it look like the previous administration was dripping in ‘gravy’. He re-did a contract with the province over transit. He managed to get more garbage collection contracted out. But as the year wore on, things started to go bad. His transit strategy is now in court, and appears to be going nowhere fast. He looked afraid and angry when he called the police when two people from the comedy show ‘This Hour has 22 Minutes’ arrived at his home to make fun of him. (Other domestic calls to the police preceded and followed this.) Most of the signature cuts he wanted for the budget were defeated.

Like many mayors, and not always those in big cities, Ford seems to think he should have some extra power to control the management of his community. He forgets he is just one vote of 44 on Toronto council. Just because he occupies the bully pulpit doesn’t mean he should be a bully and denigrate those who disagree with him. If he has any desire for re-election, he’d better quickly realize this.

The Worst International Politician for last year is Bashar Al-Assad, President of Syria, for his repression of people and his refusal to step aside and allow a more popular future for his country. When he succeeded his father, Hafez, after his 30-year, iron-fisted leadership, there was hope of positive change when he closed the infamous Mezzeh prison, known for illegal detentions and torture. However, with the coming of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ – the popular uprisings that saw the authoritarian regimes falling in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya – Assad chose not to follow his people’s popular will and, instead, has used security and military forces to quash that will through violence and murder.

Cliff Nordal, the former shared President and CEO of London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, Ontario, is our choice for 2011's Worst Civil Servant. (He retired on 1 January.) It’s not that Mr. Nordal did his job badly – by most accounts he did it well – but he also did it with such decadent self-absorption that he soaked up resources that denied health care to patients. His pay of about $730,000 per year went along with around $100,000 a year in taxable benefits. However, then, he got a bonus, too. As the local newspaper put it, Nordal’s retirement bonus of $1,169,665 could have purchased ...

35,146 hours of nursing at $33.28 an hour, or 2,339,330 syringes at $0.50 each, or 58,279 hours of orderly service at $20.07 an hour, or 222,793 visitors parking for 2 hours at $5.25 each, or 22,957 stethoscopes at $50.95 each. (London Free Press, 27 January 2012)

One might ask why we blame Nordal for negotiating the best contract he could when he was hired as of I January 2006. Is the fault not with the members of the Boards of Directors who agreed to the terms? Yes, they definitely share the blame. However, Nordal was hired to efficiently deliver the best health care possible, not to deny it to patients so he could take the cash with him when he left. One would hope our public leaders would have a bigger conscience.

Our 2011 Lifetime Lack of Achievement Award goes to Tony Clement. The MP for Parry Sound-Muskoka and present President of the Treasury Board is an example of someone whose public service ‘best-before date’ has clearly expired. For a man who has sought out self-aggrandizement his whole adulthood, this immodest ego-trip now seems more important to him than public service, and it’s cost Canadians a lot of money.

Clement has always shown a desire to be the boss. He was twice elected to the University of Toronto’s board of governors, president of the university’s PC campus club, and president of the Ontario PC party. After a defeat for Metro Toronto council, he was elected as MPP for Brampton South in 1995 and 1999, only to lose in 2003. Under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves, he had little to claim as accomplishments in about 4 unspectacular years in the Environment, Municipal Affairs, and Health ministries. His biggest claim to fame in these early years was as someone who helped write the Common Sense Revolution document.

Perhaps part of his banal provincial career came as a result of the foot he dipped into federal politics. In 2000, he became the first president of the Canadian Alliance, the attempt to ‘unite the Right’, and, then, his run, and defeat, for the leadership of the new national Conservative party in 2004. Shortly thereafter, he was defeated as the Conservative candidate in the 2004 federal election in Brampton, then moved and was elected in his present riding in 2006. Stephen Harper appointed him Health minister but, again, he was uninspired in the position.

His real infamy came as the Minister of Industry, where it might be fair to say he oversaw the biggest exercise in pork-barrelling ever in Canada, with $50 million having gone into his own riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka during the G8 Summit, quite often for things unconnected to, and nowhere near, the summit site. (In contrast, the City of Toronto received $0 for the G20.)

Mr. Clement proved hypocritical in blocking the sale of PotashCorp. to a foreign company while allowing other Canadian natural resource firms be bought out by such interests. The difference was risking the loss of 12 seats in Saskatchewan in the next federal election. But his pretense didn’t end there. Despite years of criticizing other governments for ‘corporate welfare’, Clement approved $300 million for Pratt & Whitney to invest in the research and design of lighter engine parts for the dubious F-35, which the government’s order of 65 is now estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Office at almost $30 billion. The jet is a horrid gas-guzzler. Also, it was Mr. Clement who cancelled the mandatory long-form census, arguing it impacts on the privacy of Canadians, then because Statistics Canada said it wasn’t needed. This was not true and led to the resignation of the head of StatsCan in protest.

Now, Clement is at Treasury Board and is behind an attempt to cut $4 billion from annual spending (a number he now says is $8 billion). The question is: given his history of mediocrity tinged with self-promotion, can programme and service cuts he identifies be trusted? One would hope he is trying to identify things which are no longer needed or are not effective and would not be missed if eliminated, and not items to make him look good amongst his conservative cronies.

Rules:

0. Must be nominated by an Institute member.
0. Must be an active politician for first four categories.
0. Must be an active civil servant or one still "in the news".
0. For lifetime award, must have been out of politics long enough to evaluate policies and political decisions or, if still active, have a long and/or lamentable, track record.
0. "Winners" selected by Board of Directors.