Monday, July 30, 2001
Red, bloody patronage - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- What irks me the most is that no one just comes out and admits it. The silence (or more appropriately, blind arrogance) is deafening. Now it may come off that I sound bitter or even jealous, but my tummy tells me I should just spill the beans. The greedy and power hungry in this country should take the advice already heeded by many: sign up for a membership with the Liberal Party of Canada. Join the hacks and cronies and get in on the largesse of Canadian consternation, patronage.
Brian Mulroney, the last small-c and big-C conservative we’ve had in office, was notorious for his exploitation of patronage amongst his other flaws. No matter who you’ve got in office, a Tory or a Liberal -- political payoffs are expected. You dance with the girl who brung you, so to speak. I guess what bugs me most of the Liberal’s latest allocation of the pork barrel, is that they do so at a time when it’s understood they’ll be able to exercise generosity for a hell of a long ways to go. As is the state of one-party rule in Canada, so should our deepest fears.
The Liberal Party has never stood for a Canada west of the Lakehead. The recent British Columbian-related installations harbour a bit of that indifference that they’ve held towards these parts.
Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister’s Office put to rest the media speculation that Carole Taylor would be designated the new Chair of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (or what Allan Fotheringham lovingly taps, the Canadian Broadcorping Castration). Taylor, the 56-year-old wife of former Vancouver mayor Art Phillips, has held a number of chairmanships and board positions as of late. Recently installed as Chair of the Vancouver Board of Trade, she’s a former television personality and former city councillor as well. She and Phillips are dyed-in-the-wool Liberals, as the latter was a one term MP back in the late ‘70s. There’s a funny story in Senator Pat Carney’s memoirs, Trade Secrets. Carney claims that on the night she unseated Phillips in the Vancouver Centre seat in the 1979 election, Taylor cried publicly. Phillips and Taylor were devastated by the loss, as Phillips looked a shoo-in for a cabinet post in the resurrected Trudeau government. I guess now they’re getting their just desserts.
Whilst I believe Taylor is naturally endowed for the tasks at hand, the appointment smells of patronage and nothing else. As does the Senate elevation of a Vancouver lawyer named Mobina Jaffer. To say it didn’t raise eyebrows is a total lie. The seat in question was vacant after the retirement of Ray Perrault. Jaffer was tapped for the seat that many speculated would go to Taylor herself or even former premier Ujjal Dosanjh. Jaffer was elevated and at the tender age of 51, she will collect millions in wages should she serve to the mandatory retirement age of 75. Much hay has been made by the PMO regarding the Jaffer appointment. It’s seen as highly progressive as she is a minority and that she is the 28th woman appointed to the Upper Chamber by this particular Prime Minister. She also happens to be a staunch Liberal Party member who ran in 1993 only to lose. I guess the Grits, if they can’t elect them, they just appoint them to office.
Now if you aren’t a Liberal, you’ll find the appointment of The Honourable Iona Campagnolo, P.C., C.M., O.B.C. as BC’s latest Lieutenant Governor a tad nauseating. As the Queen’s vice-regal representative, Campagnolo had left a journalistic career into a seat in the 1974 election. (Only one term did she serve as she lost her Skeena seat in 1979.) Since Trudeau lacked MPs west of the Lakehead, she was appointed to the lofty post of Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport. This particular appointment is seen as payoff from Jean Chrétien.
See as the Liberal Party’s president, Campagnolo was in-charge of announcing the winner of the 1984 Liberal leadership race. John Turner bested the little guy from Shawinigan in the race to succeed Trudeau. However while Turner was first on the ballot, Jean Chrétien was, as Campagnolo said in full national view, “first in [their] hearts.”
It may be sickening, but Jean Chrétien and the Liberal Party are merely exercising the prerogative of the power they hold. All the parties do it as are the benefits of the office -- fringe benefits if you will. And with the state of the other parties in our democratic sham, it looks like they’ll be doling out the goodies for sometime to come. We could idealistically wish that appointments be made on the basis of merit rather than blatant political reasons. Then again, we’d have to be realistic. Since the beginning of time it’s been a game of who you know, rather than what.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .