Get Out Of The Sinkhole Of Sleaze

Here’s a bit of advice from a free man, not Freedom Convoy free, just free … unburdened by anything but the law and the right thing to do.

No political debts to pay, no favours owed, no favours wanted, no social ladder to climb, no compromises, no toeing the line to corporate or government policy, no real responsibilities beyond myself, no one forcing me to do wrong (or right for that matter), duty-bound but to my friends and improving my golf short game. I don’t want anything. My needs are modest and mostly invisible. I don’t strive for more. I have purchased the big intangible thing that money can buy. Freedom … expensive, a luxury, something that lifts the burden of many wants and worries. Not all, but a lot.

I can do what I want. But I care about things … like the right thing to do … ethics … journalism … public policy.

So here’s a free man’s advice to those chained to an oar in the bowels of Ottawa City Hall.

Get out, if you can, while you can.

Get out before someone makes you do what you don’t want to do. Until someone forces you to do something ethically wrong. Until someone puts you into the position where you can do what’s right and quit or acquiesce to the real pressures and responsibilities of the family, and the tyranny of bills and the mortgage.

Get yourself in a position where you can get out. Then get out.

Why?

Because in a week at Ottawa City Hall, we’ve seen the Tewin controversy, we’ve seen the spectacle of a senior public servant defending an indefensible conflict of interest, a vague memo saying that the city is settling confidentially …  with your money … claims surrounding Stage 2 light rail (claims big enough that Mayor Mark Sutcliffe will go begging to the federal and provincial government for money he won’t get), incompetence and compromise (a nice term for something else) on every big project the city undertakes, the spectacle of a councillor calling down the auditor general for doing something right and open on the Lansdowne budget overrun,

Seven days. Seven damn days.

Government by con job. Government by favours owed.

Read the provincial LRT inquiry. Realize that nothing has changed. In fact, it has become worse.

Get out of that sleazy culture. Leave. Leave before it rubs off on you. Leave before you become part of the problem.

Work on your own. Work at a shop where they’re trying to make the world a bit better place. Work at a place where you like the person you see in the mirror.

You won’t be alone. For every “interim” you see in a city job title, recognize that, for some reason or other, someone left. You can too. The city can’t find good people to hire or, a little more accurately, people who will become part of the club who will play the game, compromise their ethics and sacrifice their reputation.

Get out of that sleazy place. The corruption has gone from out-of-control to a daily occurrence.

Ken Gray

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