Now that the former second in command of the FBI has come out and acknowledged that he was the infamous Deep Throat, the Watergate scandal has re-emerged in near 1970s proportion. as evidence of this, all the President’s Men--the book that was written by Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, is on its way to becoming a best seller-- again.
Currently Canadians, many of whom despise all things american, are involved in their own scandal over the diversion of taxpayers’ monies to Liberal friendly Quebec advertising agencies that were then only too happy to kick some of it back to the governing Liberal Party. all this was done under the guise of keeping Quebec part of Canada.
With the winding down of the hearing of evidence by the Gomery Commission coming within days after the revelation of the identity of Deep Throat, it is difficult not to want to compare these two events. There is no doubt that Watergate is considered to be bigger than the Canadian sponsorship scandal. after all it happened in the United States and involved Richard Nixon, who was a prominent world leader. adscam is taking place in Canada that, unlike its southern neighbour, is not exactly on the world’s radar screen. and Prime Minister Paul Martin’s status as a prominent world leader is mainly in his own mind.
Watergate seems a lot worse than adscam because most americans were angry at Nixon and his associates for what they did. Too many Canadians are saying "tsk tsk" at the adscam players while spending sleepless nights worrying about Stephen Harper’s hidden agenda and planning to vote Liberal in the next election. This raises the philosophical question of whether illegal actions can be truly be called a scandal if a significant proportion of the population couldn’t care less.
But as far as illegality goes, the sponsorship scandal is much worse than Watergate ever was. Because of the nature of the american government and their separation of powers, Watergate was confined to the executive branch. In Canada the Prime Minister and the PMO are inextricably linked to Parliament or the legislative branch which means that the actions of the sponsorship scandal involved the government of Canada, not simply a branch of government. While Watergate could properly be classified as a political scandal, adscam is a government scandal.
The essential illegality involved in Watergate was what was then dubbed as nothing more than a third rate burglary. It really was not that big a deal--it was the cover up of what went on by Nixon, John Mitchell, John Dean and others close to the president that really formed the basis for what is now referred to as Watergate.
Unlike the sponsorship scandal, the break in at the Watergate complex could hardly be characterized as being systemic. after some of the principals were indicted and Richard Nixon left office, it was over. New measures such as the Independent Counsel legislation came into being but the matter was essentially over when Gerald Ford took office. On the other hand, the sponsorship scandal merely exposed the way the Liberal Party of Canada conducts business. Exchanging one leader for another one who says that he’s mad as hell doesn’t solve the problem. The Liberal government is simply corrupt, something that could not have been said of the american government during the 1970s. The lengthy conversations that the PM’s chief of staff and the Minister of Health had with Conservative MP Gurmant Grewal about what would happen if the latter abstained on the non confidence vote showed, regardless of who approached whom, that the Liberals lack a certain morality that makes the corruption something other than a one off.
Perhaps the greatest difference is the effect that both the Watergate and adscam scandals had on the ordinary taxpaying citizens of their respective countries. Many americans made donations to the Republican Party in good faith, only to see their money used for slush funds and payoffs to protect Nixon and his cronies. But the ordinary apolitical farmer in Iowa didn’t see his hard earned tax money stolen, laundered or otherwise misappropriated the way Canadians saw their taxes diverted to Quebec ad execs and then kicked back to the Natural Governing Party.
When it comes to government corruption in the United States and Canada, many Canadians can take solace in the fact that " we’re number one".