Here’s a headline that was sure to surprise absolutely no one, except, of course, those out-of-touch federal politicians: “Canadian politicians out of touch: poll.”
The results of a new Ipsos-Reid poll showed a whopping 95 per cent of Canadians believe federal politicians – locally, that means Brent Rathgeber – have nothing, or very little in common with average Canadians.
The poll also found, surprise, surprise, that Canadians don’t trust politicians, especially at the federal and provincial levels.
(Before the city councillors breathe a sigh of relief … barely half the 1,100 people polled said they trusted their local/municipal governments to do the right thing.)
One has to wonder what happens to honest, down-to-earth citizens when they get elected. One assumes that most of them go into politics honestly believing they can do some good for their town, city, province or country. Yet many of those who stick around for any length of time either simply disappear into the backbenches, rarely to be heard from except at election time, until they leave politics with gold-plated pensions.
American conservative columnist Cal Thomas once wrote: “One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician’s objective. Election and power are.”
Those outside cabinet, like Rathgeber, have so little influence in government that their presence is almost a waste of time and money. Backbenchers are there to vote in favour of all government motions. Rarely will a backbencher vote against government, and when that vote goes against the wishes of the constituents it builds distrust.
Not enough politicians follow the words of former U.S. president John Quincy Adams, who said: “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
And, rightly or wrongly, politicians are all painted with the same brush every time there’s a scandal. And there have been enough of those, federally and provincially, to give citizens plenty of reasons not to trust their elected officials. And it doesn’t matter what party it is.
Federal scandals have been happening almost since Canada became a country in 1867. In the 1870s the government of Sir John A. Macdonald faced allegations of taking bribes in the Pacific Scandal. Since then the major ones have been the Munsinger affair, Tunagate, Airbus, the APEC inquiry, Shawinigate, the Shoe Store Project, Julie Couillard-Maxime Bernier, In and Out, robocalls, the ETS Scandal and, lately, Bev Oda’s tampering with documents and ridiculous spending.
In Alberta, we’ve had the likes of the Great Waterways Railway scandal of 1910, the Sexual Sterilization Act of 1928, the John Brownlee sex scandal … and on and on it goes.
Yet scandals continue to happen. Politicians at all levels continue to waste taxpayers’ money and at the end of it all too many of them walk away with gold-plated pensions.
After years of her lavish lifestyle at taxpayers’ expense, Oda is resigning her seat in Parliament and is eligible for an annual pension of $52,183.
And politicians wonder why we don’t trust them?
