Burned, yet again

Gresham’s Law, in economics, is the observation that “bad money drives out good.” If honest coins and debased coins are both in circulation, each purporting to be of the same value, the debased coins will in time come to predominate: honest money, being worth more, will be withdrawn and hoarded, leaving its lesser rival to serve as the medium of exchange.

Something like the same has happened to Canadian politics. The currency of our debates has been so debased, through so many repeated episodes of deceit, that dishonesty has become, not just the medium of exchange, but the standard of value. It isn’t just our politics that has been thus discredited. It is truth itself, as the bar to measure it by. We no longer much care whether our politicians keep their word; we may even prefer that they don’t. Bad politics has driven out good.

A promise in Canadian politics is not a bond, to be redeemed at face value on some future date. It is a token, a punt, whose value is whatever it will purchase from the next fool. And as its value in such exchanges diminishes -- the fools being less willing -- a promise comes to stand for the very opposite of what that word is traditionally understood to mean. As each more extravagant oath is sworn, in an effort to overcome the public’s mounting cynicism, only to be revealed to have been an extravagant falsehood, the two approach a point of convergence.

And so we come to Stephen Harper, and to David Emerson, and to Michael Fortier. Mr. Harper could not have been clearer during the last election -- the one concluded just two weeks ago -- that he meant to bring “real change” to Canadian politics. After the endless scandals of the Chretien years, and after the promise of change under Paul Martin had proved illusory, Mr. Harper and his Conservatives would be the ones to redeem that promise.

Understand: this was the centrepiece of the Conservative campaign -- ethics and accountability. They did not campaign as politicians of the old school, glib charmers who avoided firm commitments. They went to extraordinary lengths to convince us that they were different, that “this time, we really mean it.” You’ve been burned before, time and time again, they told us. We will not burn you this time.

The party’s incandescent rage at Belinda Stronach’s betrayal last spring, and at the attempted suborning of Gurmant Grewal and others, seemed to confirm this. Would a party that did not value truth, and loyalty, and fairplay, be so put out? Would they not have shrugged, as so many did at the time, and say that’s politics -- you win some, you lose some?

Mr. Emerson, for his part, could not have been clearer during the same election -- the one concluded just two weeks ago -- in telling the voters of Vancouver-Kingsway that his party was the Liberal party, scorning the Conservatives at every turn as a party that, among a long list of sins, favoured a society where “the weak die.” He drew upon all of the reserves of trust and goodwill he had acquired in the province of British Columbia through a long career as a businessman and public servant.

But then the election happened, and Mr. Emerson’s party lost, and suddenly none of it mattered: not Mr. Harper’s vow of change, not his party’s disgust at Liberal bribery, not Mr. Emerson’s explicit mandate from his constituents. Mr. Harper phoned Mr. Emerson the day after the election, and that was that.

As for Mr. Fortier, Mr. Harper could not have been clearer during that very same election -- the one concluded just two weeks ago -- that he would not appoint anyone to his cabinet who had not been elected, just as he would appoint only elected Senators. And he drew upon all the reserves of trust and goodwill he had acquired through a long career in politics, as a member of the party that invented Senate reform.

Then he did both at one stroke -- appointed his campaign co-chair to the Senate and to cabinet. With responsibility for Public Works, the department at the heart of the sponsorship scandal. On his first day in office. Say this for him: if you’re going to break a promise, you might as well rub everyone’s noses in it.

Mr. Harper has achieved a great deal with these two appointments. He has demoralized his party’s supporters. He has ruined whatever honeymoon he might have had with the press. He has diverted attention from what was otherwise an impressive piece of cabinet-making.

But most of all, he has undermined his own reputation for honesty. A priceless political asset has been devalued, and all for a couple of cabinet seats. Bad politics has driven out good.