Ethics Commissioner on trial too

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Apr 23

RE: Premier under ethics probe related to COVID-19 prosecution.  CP story by Dean Bennett

In a representative democracy, elected representatives are supposed to represent their constituents. - including constituents in trouble and in need of help.  Politicians are a special breed of people because they have to interact with the Hoi polloi, which includes the unsavory and people they don’t personally like.

Modern, exquisite tastes of what constitutes political ethics are themselves corrupting of both politics and ethics.  Accusing the opposition of behaving unethically is an effective political weapon at the moment because most people in the electorate aren’t that familiar with ethics in high politics and take the accusation as a serious matter.  The accusation might itself be unethical because the accusation of unethical behavior was levelled unethically for purely political reasons, like affecting the outcome of a forthcoming election.

Hence, I find the leaked conversation between Premier Danielle Smith and Pastor Artur Pawlowski, a well-known agitator and character in Calgary, to be entirely proper.  He’s a constituent, he’s in trouble, and Smith believes that prosecutions for violations of COVID-19 regulations are wrong and ought not to proceed.  And she’s the Premier. Pawlowski is an Albertan looking for a redress of grievance from his government.  Moreover, in her candid conversation Smith promised to do nothing illegal, that is not to act beyond the powers of a Premier.

So, where lies the unethical conduct?  Does it lie in taking the call from a constituent in legal trouble?  If the Ethics Commission does hold that, then representative democracy takes a terrible blow; for then only the clean are permitted to be listened to when asking for a redress of grievance from their government.  And in today’s politics, if you aren’t Left, you aren’t clean.

The Ethics Commissioner is as much on trial as Smith is, and could act unethically by releasing an exquisite opinion timed to affect the forthcoming election.

It’s judges who aren’t supposed to take phone calls from the accused; politicians in a representative democracy have to deal with everybody, however they come.

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Justin Trudeau, Mayor Jim Watson, and Premier Doug Ford all refused to meet with the Freedom Convoy representatives because they deemed them unclean.