Every relatively little bit helps

I heard on the news this morning that the federal opposition parties are calling for Brian Mulroney to return the $2.1 million in damages he won in a libel suit against the government over the Airbus scandal, now that a new inquiry has concluded that he hid the truth during the proceedings.

And if the former prime minister won’t do the honourable thing, the opposition leaders argue, then it’s up to the current prime minister to pursue the matter.

Now, I don’t want to tell Stephen Harper how to do his job. For one thing, if I tried, he’d probably just whip up some deliberately falsified statistics that suggested I was wrong, forbid his cabinet ministers from saying otherwise, block all inquiries into the truth, and shut down the federal government. And our third annual prorogation isn’t supposed to happen for another seven months, so forget it.

But let me put it this way: if I were the man in charge, I think I’d have to go after the money. $2.1 million might not seem like much to you and me, but it could totally cover one fifth of one percent of the estimated security costs for the G20 summit that we’re holding in Toronto this month. Hell, it could pay for one fifth of one percent of a lot of things.

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