While we let North Shore politicos catch their breath and manage the PTSD generated by tight judicial recounts, let’s take a few minutes to nominate a new inductee into the PR Hall of Shame.
That’s Public Relations, I hasten to add, not Proportional Representation, although that one has real potential for the hall.
Previous inductees include both railways for threatening to railroad the Arbutus Corridor and the West Vancouver Seawalk, as well as Park Royal for making mall homies pack up their chessboards and go play somewhere else.
In other words, displays of bone-headed, tone-deaf entitlement. It’s almost as if these outfits are going out of their way to court shame and ridicule.
“What’s our objective here, CB?”
“Shame and ridicule. Can’t get enough.”
And now it’s time to introduce the latest inductee into the PR Hall of Shame: Canada’s former governor general Adrienne Clarkson.
The highlights: After she left the Governor General’s office in 2005, she’s been billing the taxpayer, i.e. you and me Bub, $200,000 per annum for “expenses.” That’s on top of her government pension (so far disbursed: $1.6 million and counting).
At first she tried to pretend all this was “private” (?) and then when that didn’t work, she played the victim card: it’s tough being the former governor general.
It’s painfully obvious to point out that word “former.” For a woman who spent 30 years at the CBC working in words, the implications of that one are clear. Used to be. Not anymore. It’s now someone else’s job to take care of Adrienne, or (and I have a preference for this one) for Adrienne to take care of herself.
Ms. Clarkson seems to see herself as a kind of public institution, a living breathing statue that doesn’t just stand outside the Parliament Buildings, but moves around – often at public expense. She was allegedly unable to answer questions about her lavish expenditures when the story broke because she was on an extended junket to Europe.
One of the requirements for induction in the PR Hall of Shame is consistency over the years, and let’s not forget that Ms. Clarkson was responsible for one of the nation’s foremost boondoggles when she was GG by swanning her clique around Russia, Iceland and Finland, price tag $5.3 million. She’s been at this for a long time.
I don’t know whether to laugh until I can’t laugh no more. All these millions could go to health care, child care – actual essential government services that we’d have trouble living without. Ms. Clarkson’s expenses could be redirected into a current project to keep Lions Gate Bridge from falling down, for example.
Anything but “expenses.”
Ms. Clarkson’s justification for all this profligacy is that people expect her to give speeches and go to cocktail parties – “for no fee.” So, she makes sure there’s a fee and doesn’t care if we the people end up with the bill.
Perhaps the most obvious stinker in this spectrum of offal is the Office of the Governor General itself. Only in Canada can a former astronaut (or journalist) be the appointed head of state. People keep telling me that the GG’s office is entirely ceremonial, but just about any fool, yours truly included, knows that’s not true. At one point, it was thought that Clarkson herself would have to choose between Paul Martin or Stephen Harper to assume the role of prime minister.
That’s real governing, Mister.
I’ve never liked being “ceremonially” ruled by the Queen of England (a land far, far away, especially when there’s a stopover in Toronto); I’m even less enchanted by her former representative here on earth, Ms. Adrienne (Perpetually at the Trough) Clarkson.
If you’re still wondering why Ms. Clarkson finds herself in the Hall of Shame, let’s not forget most Canadian pensioners are lucky to get $1,500 a month from the government, and that’s if they contribute the maximum under the Canadian Pension Plan. With that, you can buy a can of dog food with enough left over to make a pay phone call (if you can find one) to your mysteriously unresponsive children in Alberta.
Finally, what politicians don’t need is a role model for entitlement – witness all the local politicos providing themselves with a soft landing after retiring or being voted out of office; so-called “transfer allowances.” For many, that boosts an already handsome pension.
Adrienne Clarkson and her ilk like to say they are public servants. Now we know what that means: serve yourself first, and if you can’t keep it private, might as well do it in public.
It’s that brazen.
Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. [email protected]
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