Hopes and Dreams

Political assassinations are always fun. Not the ones which involve actually killing someone, rather the kind which involve destroying someone’s political career. We’ve had the good fortune of seeing a lot of them first hand; Chuck Guite, Jean Brault, Alfonso Gagliano, Sheila Copps, and now Judy Sgro.

I don’t know about you, but when your top aide experiences a breakdown, you’ve got to start looking at the writing on the wall. They say intent is nine-tenths of the law. Not in politics. Whether or not Sgro’s conduct was in bad faith, the fact of the matter remains, she is quickly barreling towards a “damaged goods” rating.

A few things about this whole debacle stand out however. Specifically the way in which Judy Sgro has defended herself in Question Period, the way she has reacted to the initial and subsequent allegations; she’s handled the public relations terribly. She gets accused of handing out visas to strippers, and she cancels the stripper program. She is then accused of receiving an illegitimate donation, and she returns the money. To top at all off, direct questions to her, which the answers to shouldn’t be incriminating such as “how many ministers permits did you hand out in your riding, during the 2004 campaign?” go answered with expatiated equivocation about the importance of the immigration system and other fluffy-bunny rhetoric. This doesn’t look good. Sgro certainly doesn’t have the Chrétien gene of scandal-imperviousness. That and her aides are most certainly giving her terrible advice on how to deal with this program.

Judy, you’ve got to learn a few things about PR:

1. Never admit you made a mistake. Instead, keep highly qualified spin-doctors and speech writers in your employ. They make a living out of putting things like this to bed.


2. Don’t go out of your way to undo past mistakes; it proves you’re guilty.


3. Be arrogant and unapologetic. Tell people if you had a second chance, you’d do it all over again. People pretend they hate this type of attitude in politicians, but really, deep down inside, they love it. Look at Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, and hell, even Jean Chrétien for that matter.


4. Never get angry at the people attacking you. Human beings in general are evil. Really, though we never admit it, we all enjoy piling on the people who appear weak and vulnerable.

It’s too late for Sgro to put any of this great advice into practice, but let her mistakes be a lesson to all politicians.