Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy


Huge crowds gathered over the weekend in Toronto's Trinity-Bellwoods Park. Our political leaders were horrified -- with reason. On the other hand, they have not been leading by example. Susan Delacout writes:

While their disappointment was understandable, it was also a bit rich. When it comes to leadership by example during this pandemic, some notable Canadian politicians have amassed an array of examples of what not to do. Why does this keep happening?
Mayor John Tory is the latest public figure to sheepishly acknowledge he had strayed from his own advice when he played fast and loose with mask-wearing in that same crowded park over the weekend.
And he’s not alone in the pack of leaders who have failed to walk their own talk during this crisis.
Justin Trudeau crossed the Ontario-Quebec border to spend Easter with his family at Harrington Lake, even though that option was not open to other families with property in Quebec.
Premier Doug Ford visited his own cottage that same long weekend — to check the plumbing, he said — and then on Mother’s Day, held a gathering at his own house that was larger than public-health-prescribed limits.
Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer piled his family into a not-physically distant plane ride from Saskatchewan to Ottawa in April.

Thomas Wolfe wryly observed that some people had a talent for, "making the world safe for hypocrisy, " But hypocrisy won't get us out of this crisis.

Image: Dreamstime


8 comments:

zoombats said...

Meanwhile, my wife and I are in day two of a fourteen day quarantine with three dogs that we have been told we can't take out for a walk. It wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't already been practicing safe distancing for the last two months in rural Illinois while my wife lectured online with the university being shutdown from reading week. My only problem was crossing the border. The hypocrisy of the "elites"is over whelming especially in Britain and the US where a President won't give Media the chance of seeing him in a mask.

Anonymous said...

"Do as I say, not as I do!" Didn't your parents teach you that? Enforcing rules against those with power and privilege has always been a problem. Sometimes shaming then is the best we can do.

Cap

Owen Gray said...

Power corrupts, zoombats. And the most common kind of corruption is the notion that the rules don't apply to me.

Owen Gray said...

It becomes even more difficult, Cap, when they are shameless.

rumleyfips said...

Remember Maggie Thatcher ( wife and mother of notorious gunrunners ). She said there was no such thing as society only family. Now people ( especially right wingers ) are desperate to get away from their families and out in society.

Of course, Mags was wrong about most things.

Owen Gray said...

She was wrong, rumley. But, unfortunately, she was very influential.

The Disaffected Lib said...


With each example they undermine their authority and reinforce the public's perception of privilege for the few but not the many. BoJo has lost immense political capital for stubbornly defending Dominic Cummings lockdown-busting cross-country outing.

Now the WHO warns that we could see another peak in this, the 'first wave' of the Covid-19 pandemic. How are you going to keep them down on the farm, eh?

What will we do if a vaccine does become available? Will we make vaccination mandatory? If not will our authorities force anti-vaxxers into some sort of exile quarantine where they're ostracized from the general population?

I did a post today on BC's Covid-free villages - First Nations villages where the Watchman programme is in service keeping tourists and other would-be visitors out. Many of these villages are only accessible by air or water but rich folks in their yachts are turning up precisely because these areas are Covid-free.

Owen Gray said...

The public health prerogatives for this situation have been long established, Mound. When people ignore what we know works, we can only expect the worse.