SAINTS PRESERVE US

 

Lurid! Sex! Scandal! Maybe.

 

There may or not be a sex scandal on Parliament Hill. Since this is Canada, we can’t compete with the Profumo Affair or Italy’s happy days of bunga-bunga – or was it oingo boingo?

 

Two Liberal Members of Parliament have each been accused of sexual harassment by two rival New Democratic Party MPs. The two Reds have been identified and pilloried in the traditional press and on social media. The Orange accusers remain anonymous and the allegations of misconduct are vague. Neither one has filed a complaint with the Ottawa Police Service. One complainant is happily granting our national media outlets detailed interviews provided her name is not used. Apparently she’d provided a condom to one Liberal member.

 

People should not act like dicks. Perhaps we’re all hardwired that way? Still, every dog, even the most despicable cur, deserves their day in court or the opportunity to defend themselves before some other quasi-official body. In these early days of the Information Age a digital mob will tear you up as surely as an old fashioned, physical one before you can get a word in. A Tweet can wreck your life.

 

Yesterday things got really surreal. Peter Goldring, a Progressive Conservative MP from Edmonton, issued a press release to an anxious Canadian public stating that he sports, and I quote from the Edmonton Journal, ‘body-worn video recording equipment.’ He advised that MPs who ‘consort with others’ would be wise to do likewise. The press release was retracted after the Prime Minister’s Office issued a one sentence e-mail: ‘Mr. Goldring’s comments reflect his own personal position.’

 

Now, our Prime Minister is an uptight and paranoid autocrat. However if you consider the clowns in the back rows of Stephen Harper’s Tory caucus you can almost empathize with him; his methods control madness. And so, as bipartisan affairs on the Hill continue to unfurl in a murky manner (see Justice Minister Peter MacKay for some  historic background), we are left with another burning question: In which body cavity would an honourable gentleman such as Peter Goldring choose to secret his audio/video recording device?