Wednesday, June 22, 2005

o tempora! o mores!

The Grewal affair rates mention among recent moral failures in a Globe and Mail column, A moral compass for ethically grey times:

In Canada, a slew of recent political events guaranteed the word ethics would be on everyone's lips -- from the Gomery commission investigating inappropriate payments to ad executives in Quebec to the inordinately sleazy Grewal affair.

A whole lot of ink was spilled wondering who was sleazier: the MP from B.C. who tried to engineer a sting that backfired and may have released doctored tapes, or the oily and unctuous Liberals who made him an inference-laden non-offer about joining the government.

Yet isn't this behaviour, so decried in politics, commonly accepted in business, where people cross the floor -- i.e. go over to the competition -- all the time because they are offered more money, a higher position and better perks?
Including Grewal-gate among the other scandals--adscam, Enron, Tyco--seems to me a stretch.