How much do you believe in coincidences?
That is a rather important question as one tries to grapple with the latest string of events at city hall. Last fall city council decided to launch an inquiry into a complaint made a few years ago by a former bylaw officer about the head of the Municipal Enforcement Department.
Council seems to have wanted to clarify what the complaint was about and if it had been handled correctly.
An outside law firm is reviewing the whole affair and now two senior administrators have suddenly decided to quit or retire.
This might all be just a coincidence, but it is a rather convenient one. It also makes you wonder if the scope of the inquiry should be expanded to look at some of the other tomfoolery, shenanigans and possible skulduggery that was going on at city hall. Also, I think all levels of government should be periodically subjected to forensic audits to ensure that taxpayer money is being well spent, that various contracts have been tendered properly and that nothing fishy or untoward has been going on.
I love the words tomfoolery, shenanigans and skulduggery; their origins are fascinating.
Tomfoolery goes back to the 1600s and basically means someone acting foolish or the fool. So, imagine a group of people are fooling around and in the process someone falls onto a car, leaves a scratch and the car alarm goes off. The car owner or a police officer runs up and demands to know what is going on and who scratched the car. Suddenly no one in the group knows anything or saw anything and they pretend they don’t even understand the question.
Governments take tomfoolery to a whole new level. If you walk into a government office and ask a question you’re often met by that “I don’t know look,” as they hand you two hundred pages of regulations written in legalese with the assurance that “the answer will be in there somewhere.”
Or if something happens and people are trying to get answers, everything gets referred to a communications officer that refuses to communicate in any meaningful way. That is also tomfoolery and it happens all the time.
Shenanigan is an interesting word that apparently originated during the California gold rush in the 1800s. It could be a combination of Irish, Spanish or other languages. Basically, it means to play tricks, con or swindle. A lot of that tends to go on during gold rushes, just think of the Bre-X scam a decade ago, and a lot of Shenanigans go on in government as well. There is a lot of nudge, nudge, wink, wink where one person gets a building permit or is allowed to proceed with their plans, while another person hits nothing but detours and road blocks.
Skulduggery is Scottish in origin and used to mean immoral behaviour of a sexual nature, but its definition soon expanded to include trickery, fraud, corruption and misdeeds of all sorts. I reckon there is a lot more skulduggery going on than people realize. If you are tendering out big contracts, it is tempting to ask for an illegal kickback. Or if you get a bit of news that will affect the stock market it is tempting to buy or sell accordingly. You get away with these things because of the fortress of secrecy governments hide behind.
How many times have you heard a politician talk about having an open, honest, transparent and accountable government but then once they get elected nothing really changes. In my books that would certainly count as tomfoolery. Then they make things so secretive and complicated that you can’t see the shenanigans and skulduggery going on.
So, we need some rules, laws and enforcement to make governments more honest, transparent and accountable. The public, city council, the GNWT and the federal government all have to be a lot more proactive on these things then they have been in the past.
Lets put an end to the tomfoolery, shenanigans and skulduggery and hold those who engage in these activities to account.