JANE TABER
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Sep. 22, 2008 9:43PM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 8:46PM EDT
Six. That's the number of federal candidates so far who have had to quit or have decided to step aside over controversies.
These resignations have dominated the news of this election campaign, as the politicos have become so much more savvy at surfing Internet social websites, such as Facebook, and blogs to uncover the mutterings and rants (sometimes from years ago) of candidates.
No party is immune, it seems. Two Conservative candidates have dropped out. One in Halifax who has a criminal record said she quit because colleagues persuaded her that she was needed at her workplace. One in Toronto Centre, according to the party, decided he couldn't commit to four years as an MP. Oh, but a blog under his name contained controversial musings about guns, abortion and natives.
Two B.C. NDP candidates abandoned their bids to become MPs because of their involvement with the cause of marijuana and other illegal drugs. Video on the Internet showed one of them lighting up about 40 joints at once.
And the Liberals have made two “adjustments” in Quebec because of candidates who at one time spoke insultingly of aboriginal Canadians.
There could be more. Monday was the last day for candidates to withdraw officially from the campaign so that their names would not appear on the ballot.
Elections Canada doesn't track how many candidates abandon the race partway through, but there is a sense that this time there have been more firings and resignations in the campaign for the Oct. 14 election than ever before.
It may just be that everything is so much more public. But it begs the questions: What about the vetting process? And will these gaffes and public firings scare off good people from running for office?
“Yes,” says Arthur Milnes, fellow at Queen's University Centre for the Study of Democracy.
He says potential candidates could be turned off from running, worried about what they wrote on a blog in high school.
“I just think it's so easy now. Normally, in the past, we'd go to libraries and look up what candidates wrote in speech books or something,” Mr. Milnes says. “Now you can plug into a blog.”
And he fears that Canada will become more like the United States, where every potential candidate is vetted and investigated and scrutinized to the point where, Mr. Milnes says, you get “fake” or perfect candidates.
“With the Internet world, it's pretty easy to log into some candidate's blog and find some stupid thing he said,” Mr. Milnes says. “But I don't want to go the American route where we parse a person's life from day one and look for areas where we can burn them.”
He says he's more interested in candidates' policies and would rather have Canadians run for office who have “blemishes” and “warts” – within reason.
He says he worries parties could end up with 308 candidates who are “all the same.”
As well, he noted, that U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had to get out his life story – cocaine use and all – well ahead of his bid for the highest office, so “you can control the spin.”
Meanwhile, parties do vet their candidates. The NDP, despite its recent troubles, has a 20-page “Prospective Candidate Information Package.” It asks everything from whether any past actions would cause embarrassment to the person or the New Democratic Party; whether the person is under investigation or has been charged with a criminal offence, and whether the person has been found guilty of a criminal offence. But it has no question about whether the potential politician was ever on YouTube smoking a big fat joint.
Week 3 of the campaign
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