Choices, Poor and Otherwise

The young, the sophisticated, the beautiful, the hip. Do they Google one another's names before they commit to a relationship? Many, I am assured, do. Others doubtless prefer to attach themselves to those of the opposite sex whom they perceive to share their interests, their values, their backgrounds. Those who pique their interest through their many attributes, physical and intellectual. So they take their potential companions at face value.

For people in the public eye there are always repercussions if they're perceived to have behaved in a manner considered unorthodox in a social venue. Or if they perchance seek out partners in romance whom the general public might consider to be unsuitably indecorous, too colourful, publicity-seeking, or trailing behind them an unfortunate past which eager critics are only too happy to dig up and place on full tut-tutting display.

Good grief, have Canadian parliamentarians nothing better to do than dig about assiduously for alleged nasty scenarios they can hoist to the national view, to point admonishing fingers of denunciation on? We've so many serious issues to be addressed in this country, from the faltering economy, to the inadequate health care system, to serious security threats from both within and without the country, to job losses through disappearing manufacturing.

One can only suppose that the continued efforts of the Bloc Quebecois to tarnish the image of a member of the Conservative governing body, a federal Cabinet minister, speaks to their desperation to find an issue to engage Canadians in, to assault the government with. A tawdry, inconsequential issue at that, one that the Liberals have been quick to pick up and run with. Earning a response from Prime Minister Harper that put the issue in perspective.

The prissy nose-sniffers from those two political parties and their leaders who have voiced their hysterical denunciations and apprehensions of indecorous presumption of trading state secrets were treated to a well-deserved lecture from Mr. Harper: "I hear that one of my Cabinet ministers has an ex-girlfriend. It's none of my business. It's none of Mr. Dion's business. Mr. Duceppe and Mr. Dion are quite a group of gossipy old busybodies."

As for Maxime Bernier, the object of their smear tactics, he proclaims himself puzzled by the close examination of his personal life, deploring its "nasty and low" countenance. "This is about my private life, the private life in the past of my ex-girlfriend. People's private lives are none of the members' business." he said. Well, he's right, and he's wrong. When it's the life of a public figure, discretion is the order of the day, but the media will always be on the ready.

And the media joined in the chorus of condemnation, publishing a photograph of Mr. Bernier and his beautiful companion wearing a low-cut dress revealing her cleavage. I've seen photographs of the wife of the prime minister, another beautiful woman, with similarly-revealing garb, but in a different, more formal setting. Question: why didn't the media use easily-available photographs of Mr. Bernier and his friend wearing a modest outfit?

The young woman in question had a history of unfortunate acquaintances among biker gangs. She was married to one for a while, a decade earlier; intimate with another, on another occasion. People live their lives, then move on to other things, as she did, finding another kind of life for herself. Including a close and intimate relationship with Mr. Bernier. They looked very well matched, very happy together.

Until a manufactured scandal that the news media revels in intervened, thanks to the concentrated effort of an antagonistic political party looking for victims. You'd think that as elected lawmakers, parliamentarians, they'd have more noteworthy items on their minds. For example, to question a few of their own members who consorted publicly in the near past with people overtly supporting outlawed terrorist groups in Canada.

Instead, they chose to sit in moral dudgeon, smearing character of an unblemished, hard-working and creditable Member of Parliament. And in the process dredge up old misfortunes that befell a close friend of his, as though he was guilty by association of her one-time poor choices in companions. As though, by his association with Julie Couillard, a woman who has worked hard to make a new and different life for herself, he has diminished his honour.

The NDP has remained aloof from this absurd charade of self-righteous scandal-mongering, to their credit. They, obviously, have better things to do with themselves, rather than squander their own credibility as elected officials - as the Liberals and the Bloc have done, in rushing to judgement and attempting to slander their social superiors.

Shakespeare might have a whole lot of fun writing a comic play about that little scenario.