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In such circumstances we should insist not only that cabinet should perform, collectively, at the highest possible level, but that every member of it should be the best candidate for the job — that each should possess those qualities of judgment, experience, leadership, managerial competence, communications ability and so on that are required of a minister. That is, if cabinet mattered.

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Euphemisms are among the most reliable of stink-tests. If a government wants to institute a program but doesn’t want to call it by its real name, you know there must be something wrong with it. The only question is how wrong, and the frequent answer is: abysmally.

Thirteen years ago come August, the news leaked out that the federal (Liberal) government had spent $30 million on a program called “Embracing Change.” Kicking in the following March – that is, March 2003 – the program planned to set a quota of 20% for visible minorities in hiring and promotion for Canada’s public service. This would be in addition to other set-asides for native people and women.

The government’s word wasn’t “quota” for the program, of course. Perish the thought. It was “target.”

The use of the euphemism made it unnecessary for commentators like me to explain why quotas were wrong. The very government that instituted them knew they were wrong. That’s why they called them something else.

I’m certainly not going to repeat here the arguments against affirmative action, whether called quotas (honestly) or “targets” (euphemistically), partly because for me it’s like treading water, having been among the few commentators who argued against race- and gender-based “affirmative” policies from their inception in the early 1970’s, and partly because it’s almost unnecessary to repeat them. Others are saying them these days, including journalists, academics, and politicians who used to say the opposite until not very long ago.