It's personal to a lot of people

I don’t usually think of an election, or even government, as being overly 'personal' affairs.  Heck, my mother even tried to convince me early on that the leaders of opposing parties “could be good friends” in real life.  Not sure that’s ever been true.  But beyond the opposition wrangling and the fierce competition for votes, the personal aspect of elections in Canada has never stood out.   Yes, one’s favoured party might not win, neighbours might be perturbed by the lawn signs, and a few things might change in the public sphere.  But real personal pain? 

The case of Helena Guergis is particularly interesting in this regard.  Her treatment by the party provides a disturbing glimpse into the personal implications of being a Tory who falls out of favour.  Her faults:  being rude in an airport, and being married to a cocaine user/drunk driver who lost his Alberta seat in the last election.   Sensational allegations were later made against her for which no evidence was found.  But she had to apply to the Access of Information Act to find out the nature of these charges, and to the PM she is now a nameless “individual” not welcome in the caucus and replaced as the Tory candidate of choice on the ballot in her riding.

The case of Remy Beauregard, a civil servant at the end of a distinguished career, is even more concerning.  In a letter to The Toronto Star, Suzanne Trepanier, outlines how her husband was the subject of a sustained and baseless assault on his character that caused him to die of a stress-induced heart attack.  She explains how the assault came about through a secret performance evaluation of his work at the human rights organization Rights and Democracy by three Harper appointees to the board.  In a move that negates every principle of fair employee treatment, Beauregard was never shown this evaluation, let alone given a copy.  He had no knowledge of what he was fighting against, or why the negative attacks had been made.  

A year later the organization is proceeding in the direction Beauregard originally laid out, building upon his obviously valued ideas, while his wife waits for an apology for "destroying" their lives.   

The discipline exerted within a political party to sanction members who’ve chosen to run for election is one thing.   Treating a distinguished public servant as "an inconsequential and incidental casualty of political games," as Trepanier puts it, takes things to another level altogether.  And these are just the stories that have broken out.  

And of these two stories, relatively little airplay has been given them, really, considering what they say about the modus operandi of the Harper government.  So I wonder how many similar stories are out there, how many people say nothing for fear of losing their jobs or their health or both.   Are our journalists worried that they too could find themselves sidelined, especially if Harper’s secretly planned new government media outlet with its promise of “robust physical and information security measures to protect the prime minister and cabinet” goes ahead?  Which would only be the beginning. . .