There’s an old saying that the coverup is always worse than the crime. There are a couple of stories that fit this scenario going on in Canadian politics this week.
For the first we go to Ottawa. The Prime Minister finds himself in some hot water over his Christmas vacation. The National post published a Canadian Press piece on December 22, informing us that he was going on vacation to Jamaica, and he would paying flight costs on a government jet, as well as for the stay. And then early last month on January 4, 2024 they reported that the stay at the resort was actually free, because it was owned by a family friend.
I don’t begrudge the guy a vacation with his family. Like most of us, he’s trying to figure out what normal is after a two-year sustained crisis in COVID, and the breakup of his marriage. If anything, that makes him more human, and relatable than he’s been for a long time. For me, the vacation isn’t the problem. At the minimum pay for either flights, or hotel for his family, and it all goes away. It’s the coverup; the changing your mind that makes people angry, not the thing itself. It plays into the image that he’s out of touch, and an elitist.
Let’s Find Out: The Story of Doug Ford and Staples…
And that brings us to the second story out of Ontario politics. Premier Doug Ford seemingly out of nowhere, makes a decision to move Service Ontario into Staples’ outlets. It’s a sole-source contract; which means that other retailers were unable to bid for it.
There are transparency issues behind this decision, like why are we closing independently owned and operated service providers in the first place? Where did this issue suddenly come from that suddenly puts it over healthcare, education, and the Greenbelt ? And how much money can be saved from this change? What procedures weren’t followed in awarding the sole-source contracts? And why non-disclosure agreements? Ministers have been caught completely flat-footed on this in scrums this week.
There might be a perfectly good argument to transition away from the independent offices for Service Ontario. Maybe it will save money, or it’s more convenient; or there’s another perfectly good reason. But without a business case, and the answers to the above questions, we’ll never know. And nobody will ever listen, because it will forever be associated with the coverup. This keeps coming out in drips, so I expect to have more to say at some point.