By Klaus Rohrich
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
an interesting article in the National Post caught my eye last week. It was written by Edward Miguel and Raymond Fisman, two professors teaching economics and business at UC Berkley and Columbia University, respectively. Their thesis revolved around official corruption and which countries fostered the culture of corruption.
Using the number of unpaid parking tickets that UN officials owed to the City of New York, Miguel and Fisman concluded that Chad and Bangladesh were the most corrupt countries in the world, because of 1,243 and 1,319 unpaid parking tickets, respectively. They then concluded that Canada whose UN delegates had 0 unpaid parking tickets, was the least corrupt.
Maybe if we're talking about parking tickets they have a point, as parking tickets tend to be small potatoes not worth making waves. But to conclude that systemic corruption in a nation is indicative by how their diplomats handle parking infractions may be a stretch. The authors stated "to perform such an experiment, you first need to bring together public officials from around the world to the same place where they are given the opportunity to break the law. You also have to make sure that they are permitted to break the law without fear of consequence- in order to remove the influence of tangible incentives, and isolate the effect of culture.”
They then conclude (with certain caveats) that Canadians have "an inner Dudley Do-right” and tend to be the most honest people on the planet. The caveats were disclaimers that, for instance, people tended to adjust to local circumstances, as a Canadian in Nigeria was more likely to engage in corrupt behavior because that's how things get done in there. They even mentioned the recent adscam scandal that resulted in the Gomery inquiry as an example of how shady government dealings are ferreted out and come to light in a country such as Canada.
But by and large, I think Mssrs. Miguel and Fisman miss the point about the nature of corruption in a country such as Canada. It isn't that Canadians are inherently more honest and decent, it's that we are subjected to a culture of "soft” corruption. We don't have policemen holding out their hands for bribes, as these actions are too crass. We do have the soft corruption of politicians treating themselves lavishly at the public's expense. Our civil servants and heads of crown corporations tend to be particularly adept at bending the rules when it comes to between meal feedings at the public trough, which is evidenced most recently by the Ontario Government's auditor General, who reported misspending on the part of many high-level executives of organizations such as the Children's' aid Society. Hydro One's former chief, Tom Parkinson, resigned in disgrace last week after the auditor General revealed that Parkinson had inappropriately charged $45,000 to his executive assistant's corporate credit card for personal expenses. On top of that Parkinson will now receive a buy-out package worth some $3 million.
In 2000, Sheila Fraser the Federal auditor General revealed that one billion dollars was essentially unaccounted for in then Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart's department. Then there is the matter of the $600,000 loan to the gran mre hotel, which Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister of Canada personally shepherded. When the head of the Canadian Business Development Bank objected to granting the loan, his career was unceremoniously destroyed.
The Gomery inquiry detailed how nearly $200 million disappeared into various Quebec sponsorship programs, a significant portion of which found its way back into the coffers of Quebec's Liberal Party. Not a single politician was punished as a result of the adscam scandal, while two small-fry, Jean Brault and Chuck Guit, received slaps on the wrist.
Yes, corruption in Canada is hard to find, but that's more a function of the sophistication of those in power than it is a reflection of their innate honesty.
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