i point the same thing out every time these cash-for-influence stories come up.

first, i want to point out that there's a difference between the kind of corruption you saw in something like the sponsorship scandal - which i think is harmless - and the kind of kind of corruption you see in the ford government, where they're essentially selling off public services to campaign donors, which is extremely dangerous. there's a big difference between what you might call "political favouritism", which is a longstanding issue for the liberals, and literally putting the government up for sale, which is what the tories tend to do - and you shouldn't conflate favouritism with restructuring. one is an inevitable consequence of democracy, while the other is absolutely toxic to it.

but, what i have to point out whenever this comes up is how horribly ignorant people sound when they try to make the influence of money an issue in elections, as though this is something that can be reformed or gotten rid of. it's one thing to hear an idealistic teenager talk like this, but have these people not read the republic? plato's argument remains the most cogent exploration of the topic i've seen. this used to be required reading to get out of high school; nowadays, you can write major op-eds in national papers completely ignoring it, or even run for president by loudly demonstrating that you've never even heard of it - because so many voters haven't read it.

plato lays down the flat truth by explaining that corruption is a necessary trade-off for the freedoms provided by democracy, and then actually uses it as an argument against democracy (and in favour of what the enlightenment resurrected as enlightened despotism). we don't have to follow him in his conclusion to accept the basic point, in the convincing terms he lays it out in: that you can't have democracy without corruption, and any successful reforms within a democracy to root out corruption would necessarily render that democracy a tyranny. freedom and corruption are, in fact, exactly the same thing.

so, we need to make a choice - if we want to live in a democracy, we have to accept some level of corruption as normal. and, if we don't want to tolerate some level of corruption, then we need to embrace some form of autocratic government instead.

if the accusations surrounding snc-lavelin are true, i don't know how that affects me, as an artist living in windsor. i don't see any particular reason to care; to me, this is an acceptable level of corruption for me to exchange for my freedom. i can't even articulate an argument to the contrary.

so, don't expect much analysis from this space - i don't care about political interference around contracts for construction firms in libya.