No matter which party wins the next election, we can expect the next sessions of the Commons to be characterized by vicious political battles of a kind rarely seen in Canada, let alone any place that can call itself civilized.
The reason is simple.
In politics as in life, what goes around, comes around.
The major difference is that in politics, the world is small so as it goes around, it picks speed.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have launched an investigation into the possibility that information on a government policy was leaked to certain individuals who profited by their inside information.
The police actions are prudent. They are doing exactly what we would expect police to do.
That said, the police caution in the matter is also prudent - there is no evidence of any criminal action by anyone.
There may never be.
Yet if you listen to the savage rhetoric of both major opposition parties, one of the most decent and honourable of men, namely Ralph Goodale, should be nailed to a cross and tortured for his supposed sins.
What crime has he committed? None.
Is he accused of any impropriety? Not even Jason Kenney in his wildest delusions has linked the federal finance minister to any wrongful actions.
Jack Layton calls for the minister to step aside while the investigation proceeds. He claims there are hundreds of precedents, yet when pressed by reporters could not name a single one.
There are none.
Having worked for one of the most scrupulously honest politicians in recent memory, I learned first hand what a genuinely fair approach to this sort of issue is. It would do others to ask a simple question, based on the few examples of alleged impropriety during the Wells administration: what would Clyde have done?
The answer in this instance is likely that he would have stood by his minister, against whom no allegations have been made. Wells did relieve ministers of their duties either temporarily or permanently, however in each instance there was a valid reason. In cases where ministers were relieved, either he or she was directly involved in the alleged infraction. In one instance, a minister remained in cabinet but was relieved of departmental responsibilities as justice minister and attorney general solely because there was the potential that some interference in the police investigation might be alleged. Such was his high standard of public integrity that even the potential of an allegation, no matter how baseless was cause for action.
In Goodale's case, none of these criteria can be applied. Hence, he should stay in place.
The answer is that Wells would ensure that the police are clearly charged to get to the bottom of the matter and report fully. There is no prospect of political interference in the current matter since the administration of criminal justice falls to the provincial solicitor general, not the federal one. Mr. Harper has already displayed his profound ignorance of Canadian criminal law during this election, but that is another subject for another time.
The answer is also that Wells would have given both Jack Layton and Stephen Harper a tongue lashing for cheapening politics with their excessive and abusive rhetoric.
No matter what the outcome of this matter, it is hard to excuse Layton and Harper for their crudities. The cynical Conservatives, angry and as bitter as they are, are likely relishing the chance to get to power by whatever means possible. Invention and gross distortion are legitimate means to an end in some minds; they are hardly appropriate in a political party seeking to govern a country.
Evidence from elsewhere shows that focusing so relentlessly on negative issues - pounding incessantly on allegations that politicians are criminals - only serves to diminish the view Canadians hold of politicians generally. Again, the cynical political operative would not care since the voters staying home in this case will mostly be Liberals and New Democrats. The hard-core, the committed Conservatives will flock to the polls.
Yet in the longer run, the Conservative (and New Democrat) approach to the matter of integrity in politics is ultimately a self-defeating one. On the one hand, they will engender ever deeper cynicism and distrust among the electorate already grown weary of shenanigans. Each misrepresentation, each distortion serves to undermine public confidence in the entire political system even more. It is a political system of which they, themselves, are an integral part.
When Mr. Harper accuses all Liberals of being criminals, he is perchance a few scant years away from a closet full of Guccis and rumours of a secret deal to buy foreign passenger planes.
On the other hand, the Conservatives have crafted for the Liberals a rod with which to beat every Conservative back all the time. Their actions have destroyed any prospect that the next parliament could be one in which integrity, civility and maturity will prevail. Expect that even the slightest misstep by a Conservative member of parliament will be an excuse to pile on. Decent and honourable men and women will be crushed without mercy, along with the truly guilty, just as the Conservatives are now slicing into Ralph Goodale. No allegation will be too outlandish. The Conservatives have set the bar and they have set it exceedingly low.
Nor will things be better in parliament if the liberals or New Democrats win. If the Conservatives lose this next election, we can only expect that their rhetoric, their verbal butchery will intensify.
No matter what the outcome of this election, the next parliament will make the Rat Pack and Tequila Sheila look like kindergarten antics.
Of course, were any of the Conservatives slurs about Gomery and Goodale even vaguely true, Liberals would be the first to agree with them.
Reid was publicly criticized for his silly remarks. Klander was denounced quickly, and as I have said elsewhere, one need only look at the number of Liberal bloggers who have criticized Liberal errors to see a functioning political party in which there is discussion and debate. There is a readiness to disown that which cannot be defended.
Flip to the Conservative blogger world and you will see bile and invective for Liberals, yet no sense of proportion or introspection for the Rob Anders of their party or the "Belinda the whore" brigade of misogynists who crawled over each other to see who could make the most hateful of comments.
There is no recollection of the Conservative Party operatives who engaged in extortion during the Mulroney regime and who were suitably condemned to prison for their crimes.
On the one side - the Liberal - we have seen corrective action and apology. On the Conservative side we find only silence, or worse still, churlish drools at the prospect of occupying government offices.
The allegations about Goodale and Gomery are not even remotely true, however.
And so Liberals across the country will bitterly resent the cheapening of politics we have seen from Conservative and, to only a slightly lesser extent, from New Democrats.
What has lessened the nation is not the actions of a handful in the case of the sponsorship mess or the possibility - not probability, but possibility - that someone committed a crime in the case of the income trust issue.
Rather what has lessened the nation, what has further debased political life in Canada, is the campaign of exaggeration and slander being mounted by the Conservatives and their associates.
Canadians should be saddened that our national political dialogue has been reduced to such vindictiveness.
We shall all pay a price for it in the very near future.
