Jean Chretien has been in politics for 37 years, and Roy Romanow has been in politics for 33 years. You can only imagine how many friends they have been making in their position of power for such a long time. And there are social indications, that in the last 30 years Canada has been living in its past glory, and that is why our power hungry leadership and bureaucratic fabric has been eroding little by little to reach now what seems to be the bottom line. I say the bottom line, because it appears that Canada is rejoicing the present phenomenal economic growth which will provide budgeted surpluses; and I say the bottom line, as I reflect to the Walkerton's E. coli outbreak which ended in seven known deaths and another 2,300 known illnesses(4). I said known deaths and known illnesses because we will never know how much damage has been caused by the management of the Walkerton's Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Stan Koebel, the manager at PUC, and his brother Frank Koebel, foreman at PUC, have both testified that in the last two decades they have been mislabelling water samples, they have been fudging critical safety records, and they have been drinking alcohol at work with their own employees(5). And this situation went on for twenty years, and you just tell me that this is just an isolated incident. No, it was not an isolated incident, and it involved the concerted corruption of the provincial inspectors at the Ontario Ministry of Environment as well; who knows, maybe these same inspectors joined their pals, Frank and Stan, and they all got merry and drank together at the PUC.

Yes, I understand, people would tell me that really I can't mix apples and oranges, and for instance, I am out to lunch when I try to correlate the Walkerton's E. coli outbreak to the political corruption. Yes, I would agree with these people, but just to be sure, maybe, we should commission a statistical correlation study. And for the right price, maybe, we can even be able to engage the services of Dr. David Cassidy(6).

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign

1. Doing Business in Canada: Setting pyramidal paper businesses with the assistance of government? By Mario deSantis, December 17, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000_200/desantis288/paperbusiness.html

2. Premier Roy Romanow: a Magician? a Saviour? a Cheater? By Mario deSantis, July 14, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/desantisArticles/2000/desantis192/Romanow-Jul13.html

3. Provincial Auditor Saskatchewan 2000 Fall Report -- Volume 3. Refer to department of Health, approval of budgets and operating deficits for health districts Http://www.auditor.sk.ca

4. Water chief details years of deception, by Christie Blatchford, December 20, 2000, National Post http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20001220/412275.html

5. Koebel 'was losing it', by SUSAN BOURETTE, The Globe and Mail, December 20, 2000 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/gam/National/20001220/UWALKM.html

6. The Incredible Abuse of Saskatchewan No-Fault Insurance Part 1, by Mario deSantis and reviewed by James deSantis, May 31, 2000 http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign/authors/desantisNG.html