In the olden days people would take a few years out of their productive lives to run for public office. If elected they would perform their public service and then return to their previous careers. Those days are long gone and Parliament and the legislatures are filled with professional politicians. armed with an exaggerated sense of self importance and basking in their power, they come to see taxpayers’ money as their own and truly believe that the public service means that the country’s citizens are there to serve them and their every whim.
It is sad to see someone who enters politics late in life after a successful career in the private sector be forced to act in the mindless manner that they sometimes are and be forced to defend the indefensible. Revenue Minister John McCallum entered politics in November 2000. He had been a professor of economics and a senior vice president and chief economist with the Royal Bank of Canada. Now he is reduced to just another blubbering idiot as he attempts to justify the Liberal Party’s desire to provide the former head of the Canadian Mint, David Dingwall, with a severance package.
Dingwall resigned his $277,000 a year job after it was revealed that his 2004 expenses approached three quarters of a million dollars. In addition to enjoying a luxurious lifestyle, the former Nova Scotia MP forced the taxpayers to pick up the tab for packages of chewing gum, cups of coffee and bottles of water. Dingwall has also been under investigation for improper lobbying activities.
as can be seen in their refusal to provide any gas tax relief to the middle class, the Liberals don’t give a damn about ordinary Canadians. But they can sure take care of their own and the government wants to pay severance to David Dingwall even though he voluntarily quit his patronage position. Dingwall’s behaviour was so egregious that it should not be referred to as feeding from the trough as that would be highly unfair to pigs.
The government trotted out the hapless Revenue Minister to tell the Opposition and the unwashed masses why Dingwall had to receive a severance package. McCallum said that the government received legal advice that a payout or more appropriately, a payoff, was required but he refused to say what that advice was or who were the lucky Liberal-friendly lawyers who gave it. McCallum cited the common law, the Royal Mint act, the Financial administration act and the Crown Corporation General Regulations as reasons why Dingwall had to be paid after voluntarily quitting but couldn’t quote any specific sections that showed a legal requirement to pay severance. The only “reason” to emerge was one that appeared in Canadian Employment Law Today. The author postulated that Dingwall may have been subjected to constructive dismissal but it is hard to see how someone can be constructively dismissed from a job when the big boss can’t stop singing his praises in the House of Commons and elsewhere. McCallum’s a bright guy but was reduced to a blabbering idiot; trying to convince the opposition and Canadians of something that by all appearances, he didn’t even believe himself.
There are a few reasons why the Liberals want Dingwall paid off. He is one of their own and deserves payment as of right. after all, it’s not like it’s the Liberal Party’s money. Used to spending billions, $500,000 in severance is chump change to Paul Martin and the gang; they can spend half a million without giving it a second thought (or a first thought for that matter).
More importantly, the government is scared to death of a court battle where David Dingwall is forced to defend himself. Dingwall has said all along that his spending has followed the guidelines and the Liberals don’t need that fact to come out. Let’s face it; David Dingwall doesn’t appear bright enough to have thought up expensing chewing gum and doughnuts all by himself. No doubt Dingwall’s prolific spending is just the tip of the iceberg and the Liberals don’t want that fact to come out.
and with Ottawa in election mode the Liberals want David Dingwall to just disappear. If the matter drags on during an election it will be hard for Canadians to buy a cup of coffee without realizing that they have bought one for Dingwall. Pay him and it will just all go away.
Ya done good, John in your role as the village idiot. Relax. Have a few drinks--try and take a plane somewhere. It’s not like you would have to pay for it yourself.