scooter
03-25-2009, 03:13 PM
The Hamilton Spectator - Mar 23, 2009
Political optics out of focus by Howard Elliott
http://www.thespec.com/Opinions/article/535139
Oh, those crazy members of our provincial and federal legislatures. On the good days, when the moon is just right, you just can't make this stuff up.
The conditions must have been just right late last week, as there were two prime examples of the sort of antic that keeps editorial cartoonists and TV satirists smiling all the way to the bank.
First, consider the case of Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz, a gun enthusiast invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association next month. Clearly passionate about his pet cause, the MP offered to make a raffle prize available to the association: The Canadian version of a high-end handgun called a Beretta PX4 Storm. More from his corner of The Twilight Zone in a few paragraphs.
The other story has as its main character someone from our neck of the woods
-- Welland, to be precise. Veteran NDP MPP Peter Kormos was on the warpath after discovering the provincial government has stopped buying all its Ontario flags from a Toronto company and outsourced the purchase of many to China. To save money.
The goofiness in this episode starts with Kormos' bellicose media strut where he shouted: "This is shameful. It's embarrassing. It's pathetic. It's rude." No doubt the veteran headline grabber had many more wounds and insults he'd have thrown in, but Kormos is nothing if not media savvy, and knows our limitations and addiction to sound bites.
You can see how bureaucrats are caught between a rock and a hard place in a case like this. Spend more than what's absolutely essential, and get crucified by conservatives and other fiscal watchdogs. But don't forget there are sacred cows. What self-respecting MPP wants to be handing out flags and pins on the rubber chicken circuit, only to learn he/she has been trafficking in Chinese merchandise at a time when the province's manufacturing sector is in tatters, due in part to the migration of work to places like China? Perhaps what's needed here is some professional development in the provincial bureaucracy, of the kind that would help bureaucrats recognize a sacred cow before getting gored by the nearby bull.
Perhaps an invitation could be extended to MP Breitkreuz to take the same training, so he might better anticipate when the optics of a situation are so brutal they outweigh any positive attributes.
The sports shooting association has apparently already taken the course, because they wasted little time in retracting the invitation to the handgun-proffering guest speaker. The association noted, candidly, that they didn't intend for their meeting to become a controversy, and also that the uninvited MP isn't a member of the club.
Nothing illegal happened here. But at a time when handgun deaths and injuries are at record highs in Toronto, and when the Conservative government is working hard to be portrayed as a centrist party with broad national appeal, Mr. Breitkreuz isn't exactly helping the cause. One can only wonder where he buys his Canadian flags.
Political optics out of focus by Howard Elliott
http://www.thespec.com/Opinions/article/535139
Oh, those crazy members of our provincial and federal legislatures. On the good days, when the moon is just right, you just can't make this stuff up.
The conditions must have been just right late last week, as there were two prime examples of the sort of antic that keeps editorial cartoonists and TV satirists smiling all the way to the bank.
First, consider the case of Conservative MP Garry Breitkreuz, a gun enthusiast invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association next month. Clearly passionate about his pet cause, the MP offered to make a raffle prize available to the association: The Canadian version of a high-end handgun called a Beretta PX4 Storm. More from his corner of The Twilight Zone in a few paragraphs.
The other story has as its main character someone from our neck of the woods
-- Welland, to be precise. Veteran NDP MPP Peter Kormos was on the warpath after discovering the provincial government has stopped buying all its Ontario flags from a Toronto company and outsourced the purchase of many to China. To save money.
The goofiness in this episode starts with Kormos' bellicose media strut where he shouted: "This is shameful. It's embarrassing. It's pathetic. It's rude." No doubt the veteran headline grabber had many more wounds and insults he'd have thrown in, but Kormos is nothing if not media savvy, and knows our limitations and addiction to sound bites.
You can see how bureaucrats are caught between a rock and a hard place in a case like this. Spend more than what's absolutely essential, and get crucified by conservatives and other fiscal watchdogs. But don't forget there are sacred cows. What self-respecting MPP wants to be handing out flags and pins on the rubber chicken circuit, only to learn he/she has been trafficking in Chinese merchandise at a time when the province's manufacturing sector is in tatters, due in part to the migration of work to places like China? Perhaps what's needed here is some professional development in the provincial bureaucracy, of the kind that would help bureaucrats recognize a sacred cow before getting gored by the nearby bull.
Perhaps an invitation could be extended to MP Breitkreuz to take the same training, so he might better anticipate when the optics of a situation are so brutal they outweigh any positive attributes.
The sports shooting association has apparently already taken the course, because they wasted little time in retracting the invitation to the handgun-proffering guest speaker. The association noted, candidly, that they didn't intend for their meeting to become a controversy, and also that the uninvited MP isn't a member of the club.
Nothing illegal happened here. But at a time when handgun deaths and injuries are at record highs in Toronto, and when the Conservative government is working hard to be portrayed as a centrist party with broad national appeal, Mr. Breitkreuz isn't exactly helping the cause. One can only wonder where he buys his Canadian flags.