June 30, 2003
For the past year or so, Canada’s prime minister has been a lame duck leader in search of a legacy. He set his hopes on NEPAD--the New Economic Program for African development that would inject millions into the continent in exchange for such luminaries as Robert Mugabe and Charles Taylor implementing democratic reforms. So much for that one. Then Chrétien looked to various pieces of legislation such as the new aboriginal bill and changes to electoral financing laws, to be remembered by. These new measures, far from being capable of forming a legacy, didn’t even impress a lot of his back bench. He could have been remembered as the prime minister who brought in same sex marriage but, oops, the courts did that. Ditto for the legislation to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. It sounds revolutionary, but the courts have already struck down criminal laws regarding simple possession. It’s hard to take credit for legislation when the government leaves everything to the courts.
Things were not looking good for the littlest guy from Shawinigan in the legacy department. He had no equivalent of international peacekeeping (Pearson), the Bill of Rights (Diefenbaker), the Charter of Rights (Trudeau) or free trade (Mulroney). Then, all of a sudden, when the country least expected it, a legacy just popped up. It’s not so much as a legacy as it is a symbol. And that symbol is — George Radwanski.
George Radwanski is of course the disgraced former Privacy Commissioner who reluctantly resigned after a Parliamentary committee issued an interim report stating that they had lost confidence in him; a first step on the road to having Radwanski removed by the Senate and the House of Commons. Radwanski started off by holding tough, but after employees in his office rebelled, he resigned.
Radwanski stands as a living symbol of everything that is wrong with Chrétien and his government. There are some differences between George Radwanski and Da Boss. Chrétien’s physical appearance and manner of speaking allow him to mask his arrogance and project himself as just the "little guy from Shawinigan". And the PM has not been known for outlandish personal expenses, other than those that come with the office that he holds. But other than that, there are a lot of similarities between the prime minister and Radwanski.
Both the PM and the former Commissioner use the same defense to they’re actions — they’re just doing their jobs. When Chrétien was accused of making improper telephone calls to influence government monies going to friends in his constituency, he said he was just doing his job as an ordinary MP. Radwanski whined that members of the Parliamentary committee that lost confidence in him were just upset because he was doing his job too well.
Both men acted as though the end justified the means. Chrétien constantly tells Canadians what a wonderful job he and his government is doing and that justifies anything he does, from the dictatorial hold that he has on his caucus to his anti-Americanism. What he does is irrelevant — it is only the end result that counts. Radwanski is so full of himself as the perceived greatest privacy commissioner in the universe, that he can’t understand why anyone would dare question his outlandish expenses. Like Chrétien, his conduct is not to be questioned.
The main similarity between the two men is that both have utter contempt for ordinary Canadians — the ones who work hard so they can pay taxes so that the PM can build fountains in Shawinigan and Radwanski can enjoy $400 lunches. They have a right to these things. They hold equal contempt of their underlings — in Chrétien’s case its his backbenchers; in Radwanski’s, it’s his employees. Both ran roughshod over those below them. How dare they interfere with greatness? At least the employees of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, unlike the Liberal back benches, had the guts to rebel. And Radwanski, much like Chrétien, have never made a mistake or done anything wrong.
As a legacy to Jean Chrétien, a statue of George Radwanski should be erected; perhaps next to a fountain in Shawinigan. It would stand as a perfect memorial to the greed and arrogance of Jean Chrétien’s years in power.