Slinging muck

We spend a lot of time with politicians.
When we’re not interviewing them, photographing them or taking notes as they present their points in council or Parliament, we’re thinking about them.
What will they do next? What is their agenda? What do we think the public needs to know about their position and the way they use their power?
And of course, we write about them. Sometimes our cartoonist lampoons them.
It’s our job to hold their feet to the fire and hold them accountable to the voting public.
But it’s also our job to shine a light on the positive things they do. It’s all part of balanced reporting: we’re nobody’s public relations mouthpiece and neither are we social satirists like Rick Mercer (our cartoonist excepted).
Graydon Smith, Tony Clement and two former mayors came out in the driving rain on Saturday to lift their shovels at the groundbreaking of highway improvements that will make it possible for an industrial park to be built on Ecclestone Drive. Clement brought 163,000 FedNor dollars to the party. He does that. In his time as Parry Sound-Muskoka MP he’s come across with cash to support and grow the region time and time again.
Smith brought his enthusiasm for the community and for the economic growth of Bracebridge. He does that. We believe him when he says he wanted to be mayor in order to serve.
In fact, we believe that of most municipal politicians. They’re not it in for personal gain, and if they’re in it for their ego or personal glory, they soon learn that they have to put up with more criticism than accolades in a fairly thankless job.
We believe them to be honest, hard-working and committed to our community. But power corrupts. Fortunately our society has safeguards in place to keep the powerful in check. We are one of them.
We imagine that those we hold up to scrutiny get pretty sick of us now and again.
So when the shovels went into the ground on Saturday and it was suggested that the politicians toss some literal muck at the reporters present, everyone laughed.
Because despite the tension inherent in our relative positions we really are both on the same side. Yours.
We both exist to serve the public and while our positions can sometimes seem adversarial our hearts are in the same place.
And we celebrate our country and our freedom of the press. It is our great good fortune that we can take one of the most powerful men in Canada to task and just days later face him and feel no more threat than a pun at our expense.
It isn’t the case in other parts of the world.
So a tip of the editorial hat to our local public servants – to Clement and Smith in particular this week. We have held them up to scrutiny and they’ve come out clean, almost like knights in white shining armour.
PS

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