A tarnished image.

Surveys show that politicians have now displaced used car salespeople as the most distrusted members of our society. The people we send to the nation's capital to run the affairs of the country are less trusted than the guy on the corner lot who will look you in the eye and tell you the clunker he's selling has been owned all its life by a little old lady who only drove it once a week to church

Politicians took last place for trustworthiness among 22 professionals in a 2006 poll taken by Leger Marketing of Montreal. Only 14 percent of those surveyed said they trusted politicians, five percent below the figure for car salespeople. (Firefighters were at the top with 96 percent, followed by nurses at 95 percent, farmers at 92 percent, teachers at 88 percent, police officers at 81 percent, judges at 78 percent, bankers at 72 percent, and church representatives at 64 percent.)

An Environics poll done for the CBC in May 2005 also found that Canadians have a low opinion of their politicians. According to the survey, nearly two-thirds of Canadians had little or no confidence in their political leaders. While the NDP was considered the most trustworthy party by 23 percent of those polled, followed by the Conservatives (22 percent) and Liberals (17 percent), nearly a quarter of respondents didn't think any of the parties could run a government with honesty and integrity.

Politicians have sunk to this level to a large extent because of their own antics:

* Countless election promises are made only to be broken after the vote;

* NIPs can be encouraged to cross the floor and join the party they opposed with the reward of a cabinet position;

* The few who turn out to be common criminals taint the reputations of all;

* The behaviour in the House of Commons is worse than anything that would be tolerated in the unruliest classroom. As a recent Globe and Mail editorial described it, the non-answers to questions in Question Period "are drowned out by applause or catcalls, and the Speaker has the thankless job of kindergarten monitor."

Can we imagine bank presidents calling each other jerks, jackasses, or scumbags? Then there were the Liberal Party ads in the last election that grossly distorted some quotes of Conservative Stephen Harper and added the tag line "We're not making this up."

While some of the quotes were accurate, others were not. One Liberal ad, for example, quoted Mr. Harper as saying, "You won't recognize Canada when I get through with it." In fact, Mr. Harper said in 2004, "We can create a country built on solid Conservative values, not on expensive Liberal promises, a country the Liberals wouldn't even recognize, the kind of country I want to lead."

Conservatives are just as guilty of running misleading ads. One, for example, linked then Prime Minister Paul Martin with Liberal corruption although the Gomery Commission said he was completely innocent.

The Conservative Party focussed on ethics during its 2006 election campaign, painting the Liberal Party. as corrupt, and imploring Canadians to opt for change. But, the Conservatives were soon drop ping ethical howlers of their own.

Even Conservatives were shocked when Prime Minister Harper appointed David Emerson, Minister of International Trade, after he won the election as a Liberal in Vancouver-Kingsway riding and crossed over to the Conservatives (see sidebar on page 5).

Mr. Emerson's constituency was not impressed and wanted him to return nearly $100,000 he received to fight the election. The Globe and Mail quoted one Liberal Emerson supporter who described the party switch as a "brazen display of anti-democratic behaviour ... I've still got newspapers in my recycling box that have David Emerson slamming the Conservatives."

Then, Mr. Harper appointed Michael Fortier, Conservative campaign co-chairman, Public Works Minister by first appointing him to the Senate. Mr. Fortier didn't even run in the 2006 election, and had to be given a Senate seat in order to be a cabinet minister.

But, Mr. Harper wasn't done vet. tie also named a former defence industry lobbyist, Gordon O'Connor, as Defence Minister. This at the same time he was creating a new rule that former ministers, ministerial staff, and senior public servants cannot lobby the federal government for five years after they leave their jobs. But Mr. Harper defended his move, saying that lobbying before becoming a minister didn't pose a conflict of interest, a view that raised an eyebrow or two.

As one stunned Conservative MP remarked on the events, "This is shocking. It's just unbelievable. Who was Stephen (Harper) talking to? We campaigned against this kind of stuff."

Another MP said he was going to have a hard time explaining all this to his constituents.

After all, Mr. Harper had promised that Senators would be elected in future, not appointed. And, dozens of Conservative MPs in the last House supported an NDP bill that would have required people who switch parties to seek re-election in a by-election.

It's not surprising that the electorate is growing weary of such political games.

If democracy can be measured partly by the participation of individuals in the political process, ours is not in the best of health.

In the 2004 general election, only 60.9 percent of eligible voters went to the polls. That was the worst showing in any national election since Confederation in 1867. On the plus side, turnout was up several points, to 65 percent, in the 2006 election. But, only 38 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 turned out to cast their ballot in 2004, and many continue to feel disconnected from the political process, disillusioned and cynical toward the system and politicians.

That may be changing too. A 2006 survey by Innovative Research found that despite the negative campaigning in the January 2006 federal election 64 percent of young people said they definitely planned to vote. And, most of them knew who they were going to support with only four percent undecided just days before the election. Compare that with 22 percent who hadn't decided at the beginning of the campaign. So, clearly, they were paying attention. The survey, conducted for the Democracy Project, a youth voter education program developed by the Dominion Institute, polled about 1,100 Canadian youth aged 18 to 24 between January 13 and 16, 2006.

Meanwhile, another poll taken six months earlier found that many Canadians kept changing their minds repeatedly about who they planned to vote for: unlike undecided voters who often don't have a keen interest in politics, these volatile voters were responding to daily news events involving government.

In the past, low voter turnout generally was attributed to things such as election timing (fewer people turn out in summer for example). Also, when one party has been in power a long time voters expect that to continue, leading experts to conclude that low voter turnout favours the party in power.

But, Elections Canada says voters stay home now for a variety of reasons, including lack of interest, feeling that the election is a foregone conclusion and their vote is meaningless, and lack of confidence in the local candidate and/or the party leader.

It's not just Canadians who are losing faith in the country's politicians. Canada is slipping on an international index of ethical governments as well.

The 2005 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index placed Canada 14th, reflecting its declining reputation around the world. Transparency International (TI), a Berlin-based non-governmental organization devoted to combatting corruption, gave Canada a score of 8.4 out of 10, down from 8.7 in 2004, and from 9.2 in 2000. TI surveys analysts and business people on how clean they perceive the governments of 159 nations to be. Iceland topped the list of ethical governments with a score of 9.7, followed by Finland, New Zealand, and Denmark. The U.K. was 12th with 8.6, and the U.S. was 17th with 7.6.

Of course, other levels of government (and other countries) have their share of scoundrels. In September 2005 a judicial inquiry reported on the lies, payoffs, and rip-offs in a shady computer-leasing deal that cost the City of Toronto millions of dollars.

Madam Justice Denise Bellamy of the Ontario Superior Court received high praise for her report which was described as a masterpiece in sifting through evidence from 156 witnesses over 214 days of hearings into the grubby operations that defrauded the city.

Basically, in July of 1999, city council thought it was approving the leasing of $43 million worth of equipment for three years. But, eventually, the cost almost doubled to $84 million over five years. The inquiry trudged on for more than three years, and ended with Judge Bellamy's 1,100-page, four volume report described by one journalist as "an unsparing, opinionated, superbly well-documented yet pithy and sometimes even sarcastic condemnation of the many, many misdeeds of the many, many creeps who sleazed through the corridors of (then-mayor) Mel Lastman's (Toronto) city hall." The city's current mayor David Miller said the whole affair was "an outrageous abuse of the public trust."

In addition to the actions of many unscrupulous individuals, Judge Bellamy said the computer leasing deal with MFP Financial Services Ltd. was ,also a tale of massive bureaucratic mismanagement. Her report makes 241 proposals for reforms at the city, including the hiring of a full-time ethics or integrity commissioner and a prohibition on the acceptance of gifts from lobbyists by council and staff.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. In September 2005 Globe and Mail columnist Roy MacGregor explained a dream of Peter MacLeod, a 27-year-old PhD student at the London School of Economics, to have a Mobile Parliament. His idea is to have the Canadian Parliament silting a half-dozen times a _year in a mobile House of Commons set up in various cities across the country. After spending more than a year travelling across the country to research the first part of a two-year study into the workings of Canada's constituency offices, he says Parliament needs to reconnect with Canadians and "put a human face on government." What do you think of Mr. MacLeod's idea? What other ways should be considered to encourage people, and young people in particular, to become more interested in politics?

2. When Madam Justice Denise Bellamy's report on Toronto's MFP scandal was released, she said the city had made many improvements since the beginning of the inquiry. One thing it did was create the office of integrity commissioner. Find out how this office operates.

3. Open a clipping file on the introduction of legislation banning the practice of Members of Parliament crossing the floor and monitor progress on it.

FLOOR CROSSING

Bernard Shapiro is Canada's First Ethics Commissioner. He was appointed to the job in April 2004. It's his task to enforce the code of conduct For Members of Parliament. The Commissioner is appointed for a five-year term and reports to the House of Commons. Unfortunately, Mr. Shapiro's early months in office have not been happy ones. He has mishandled a couple of investigations and several MPs have called him incompetent. The Conservative government claims he is biased against their party.

The Commissioner has had to handle some very hot political potatoes. Several MPs asked him to look into the appointment of David Emerson (pictured here) to the Conservative cabinet.

In the January 2000 election, Mr. Emerson ran and won as a Liberal in the Vancouver-Kingsway riding. He appeared in Liberal ads strongly attacking Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party. He told voters that if elected he "would be Stephen Harper's worst nightmare." He was elected, but within hours he was talking to senior Conservative Party official and Former MP John Reynolds about switching parties.

Mr. Emerson had been a Liberal cabinet minister. As his party was defeated in the election he lost his cabinet job and faced sitting in the House of Commons as an opposition MP. He would lose tens of thousands of dollars in additional salary, and his government car and chauffeur. By switching parties and getting into the new, Conservative cabinet he holds onto those perks of office.

The question that Mr. Shapiro had to answer is: "Did the offer of a cabinet constitute a conflict of interest?"

Section Eight of the House of Commons Ethics Code states that: "when performing Parliamentary duties and Functions, a Member shall not act in any way to further his or her private interests or those of a member of the Member's family, or to improperly Further another person's private interests."

Mr. Shapiro decided that neither the prime minister nor Mr. Emerson broke the rules. Then, he went on to give both men a mild telling off. He noted that many citizens feel "that their vote--the cornerstone of our democratic system--was somehow devalued, if not betrayed."

Most Canadians appear to agree with the Commissioner's comments. Two thirds of people in a Macleans Reader Forum said Mr. Emerson should step down and run again in a by-election as a Conservative.

David Emerson may be one of the last floor-crossers. The New Democratic Party says it plans to introduce a bill that will ban party switching,

PROMISES MEANINGLESS

In January 2005 an Ontario Superior Court judge said people who believe political campaign promises are naive.

During the 2003 provincial election, Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty (below) had emphatically promised "I won't raise your taxes." Mr. McGuinty even signed a pledge with the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation not to raise taxes.

After assuming power in October 2003, Mr. McGuinty said his Liberal government had to raise taxes. He introduced a health premium, saying it was needed because the previous Progressive Conservative government had left behind an unexpected deficit of $5.2 billion.

The Canadian Taxpayers' Federation cried foul and tried to get the health tax overturned in court. The case came before Mr. Justice Paul Rouleau. The learned judge said that although everyone hopes politicians and their parties keep their election promises "few people would consider that all of the promises made and pledges given constitute legally binding documents between the candidate and the elector or electors to whom those promises or pledges were given." He also pointed out that Mr. McGuinty was not the first politician to break a promise, and said it is up to voters, not the courts, to punish governments who do not keep their word.

If all such breached contracts went to court, the judge said "our system of government would be rendered dysfunctional. This would hinder, if not paralyze, the parliamentary system."

FACT FILE

In the 19th century, Benjamin Disraeli was called to order in the British Parliament for declaring that half the cabinet were asses. "Mr. Speaker, I withdraw," he apologized. "Half the cabinet are not asses."

Between 1945 and 1988, voter turnout in Canada averaged 75 percent (excluding 1953, 1974, and 1980).

Websites

Elections Canada: Explaining the Turnout Decline in Canadian Federal Elections: A New Survey of Non-voters--http://www.elections.ca/ content.asp? section=loi&document=index&dir=tur/tud&lang=e&textonly=false

Ethics Commissioner--http://www.parl.gc.ca/oec/

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE

It's up the Speaker of the House to rule on unparliamentary language.

Over the years, the following words and phrases have fallen into that category in Canada: parliamentary pugilist (1875); a bag of wind (1878); inspired by forty-rod whiskey (1881); coming into the world by accident (1886); blatherskite (1890); the political sewer pipe from Carleton County (1917); lacking in intelligence (1934); a dim-witted saboteur (1956); liar (consistently from 1959 to the present); a trained seal (1961); evil genius (1962); Canadian Mussolini (1964); pompous ass (1967); fuddle duddie (1971); pig (1977); jerk (1980); sleaze bag (1984); racist (1986); scuzzball (1988).

In Britain, Winston Churchill evaded the rule of not accusing anyone of being a liar by using the words terminological inexactitude.