On justified suspicion

We can add Murray Mandryk to the list of typically-conservative commentators opening fire on Harper and company - and better yet, Mandryk draws the provincial connection as well:

The clear message this week is that ethics are something you talk abut while in opposition, rail about during election campaigns, but immediately dispose of the first time you encounter a politically inconvenient situation as the government.

With all due respect to Saskatchewan Party leader Brad Wall and his party's bid to force its members to behave in an ethical way during campaigns, this was a very bad week for a right-wing Opposition party to be taking the moral high-road on ethics...

At the risk of sounding overly suspicious, my sneaking suspicion is that (the ethis package which the Sask Party plans to debate) may be more for the Saskatchewan Party's own benefit than ours. What better way for the Saskatchewan Party to distance itself from a wingnut? And what better way for it to ride herd on its membership?...

So here's the depth of the Conservatives' ethical commitment, folks -- something that can be wiped out in a couple of key strokes.

Frankly, we don't need grandiose ethics codes from opposition parties that serve their purposes more than ours. We just need politicians who truly live by what they promise and propose.

Mandryk does take an obligatory shot at the NDP in the column. But let's face it, without that part of the column nobody would have believed that Mandryk really was the writer.

What's particularly significant is that Mandryk seems to be encouraging Saskatchewan voters to learn from their mistakes in the federal election, and cast a critical eye on an opposition which pushes for the toughest ethical rules imaginable only as long as those rules are binding somebody else's actions. There's plenty of time before the next Saskatchewan election...and the more than message resonates in the meantime, the better off the province will be in the long run.