Political ethics and the Mulroney chronicles

Stephen Harper has some important decisions facing him as we move inexorably closer to the next federal election campaign.

One of them will play out as this column goes to press, when Harper responds to the recommendations of Dr. David Johnston regarding the scope of any judicial inquiry into the Mulroney-Schreiber affair.

At year’s end, Harper indicated he wouldn’t be heartbroken if Dr. Johnston recommended that no such inquiry be conducted and that the RCMP be left to determine whether any laws were broken. This was the sort of strategy Jean Chrétien appeared to favour on the sponsorship scandal of the 1990s, one displaced subsequently by the Gomery Commission, appointed by Chrétien’s nemesis, Paul Martin.

The strategy can work, and is likely that some Liberals would now, if they could turn back the clock, strongly favour it, given the political price they paid for Gomery. Indeed, there’s something to be said for the strategy of leaving it to the cops; that citizens are tired of unrelenting chat about the putative corruption of our political class.

Such chat is democratically demoralizing and can do more damage than good. Some citizens apparently also feel badly for Mr. Mulroney, believing that as long as there are no sustainable criminal charges lodged against him, we should just let him and his family be and focus our political energy on the significant policy challenges we face.

However, the strategy of setting aside the questioning of the ethical conduct of especially those in or previously in Cabinet is neither practical nor generally advisable.

It’s not practical in the current context in part because both Mulroney and Harper called for an inquiry, seeking to clear the former’s name once and for all, and emphasizing the latter’s taste for accountability.

Any recommendation from Dr. Johnson to retreat from these purposes, by recommending against an inquiry or by sharply limiting its scope, might reflect poorly on the judgment of both Mulroney and Harper. This is especially so after both will appear to have changed their minds after seeing some of the work of the Parliamentary Ethics Committee in December.

Sensing political advantage

Moreover, it’s increasingly clear that opposition parties, sensing political advantage and with a sense of moral outrage to spur them on, will take up in the House Ethics Committee any aspects of the Mulroney chronicles they believe insufficiently attended to by a formal inquiry. While the House committee doesn’t have the advantage of the time and interrogative skills of an inquiry, it does have considerable power, legal and theatric.

As we saw before the Christmas break, the committee is not afraid to flex its Parliamentary muscles and to manage its investigation with an eye to its impact upon the media.

In a number of ways, a failure to hold a formal inquiry or to set its terms too narrowly could lead to much more political damage being done to some of the major players on the Hill, especially to the Conservative Party, than would an inquiry, as the opposition controls the committee.

There are many questions about which the Opposition is keen to know more. They will insist that the reason we need to know more is to strengthen legislation governing the relationship of parliamentarians to those who wish to do business through them.

For the rest of us, one reason for this uncomfortable probing of alleged dirty linen is it serves as a reminder. For those who are tempted to use, for their private ends, the power we give them in democracy, they need to be forever mindful that their conduct may be the next in line for public display, where their reputations and their party’s fortunes lie in the balance. Even if the Mulroney chronicles turn out to be perfectly clean, the current crew in Ottawa and those who will follow will be more likely to see that political ethics can carry a greater punch than they might suppose.

By the time you read this, Harper’s decision will likely be known. Regardless, he’ll find that this train has already left the station.