Margaret Trudeau dances with rock musician Tom Sullivan, nattily attired in a cowboy hat and snakeskin boots, at New York’s Studio 54 discotheque in 1978. (AP PHOTO)

During the years when I was Pierre Trudeau’s press secretary, a major scandal hit and I was in the thick of it.

Trudeau’s wife, Margaret, had left 24 Sussex for Toronto — where she hung out and smoked dope with the Rolling Stones — then New York, where she partied at the best discos. It was international news and I was regularly pulled from by bed in the middle of the night by European tabloids wanting a quote or reaction, and sad Canadian journalists assigned to cover her, asking where she was.

I couldn’t satisfy them, since the boss’s total silence on the breakup of his marriage completely shut his aides down as well. Only his loyal executive assistant at the time, Robert Murdoch, knew what was happening, and he still doesn’t talk about it.

I had one tense discussion about the media’s apparent “right to know” with the eminent CBC-TV journalist David Halton. I still believe that what I told him should apply to any and all political scandals: The burden rests on the media and opponents to prove that what happens in one’s private life seriously affects his or her ability to carry on in a leadership role.

That lens was applied to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell when he was arrested in 2003 in Hawaii, charged with drunk driving. Despite vocal calls for his resignation, and the classic lack-of-judgment accusations, he survived handily and became the symbol of the highly successful Vancouver Olympics. Trudeau’s unwillingness to fuel the media’s insatiable curiosity about his marriage kept the Margaret story where it belonged. He remained in office and went on to become the most eligible bachelor in North America — again.

Now, a different standard applies south of the border and in Toronto. In the U.S., sex scandals involving the likes of Anthony Weiner and David Petraeus have quickly iced careers. Weiner’s “sexting” of suggestive photos of himself to several women caused a media frenzy, his eventual resignation from Congress and a humiliatingly quixotic New York mayoral bid. And just as the Toronto Police are involved in exposing Rob Ford’s questionable activities, so the FBI exposed Petraeus’s extramarital affair with his biographer, leading to him being hounded mercilessly by the media and his resignation as director of the CIA.

Still, Rob Ford is trying to live by my test. It remains to be seen how effectively he manages it. He is arguing that, despite the circus surrounding his private life, it’s business as usual for him. He boasts about what he has accomplished for the city, and vows to continue doing what he was elected to do: save taxpayers money.

The burden rests on the media and opponents to prove that what happens in one’s private life seriously affects his or her ability to carry on in a leadership role.

But you have to admit that Mayor Ford has expanded forever the definition of political scandal, and in doing so has become an unlikely global celebrity. By his admission, he’s been on occasion in a “drunken stupor” and “extremely inebriated,” to say nothing of his use of crack cocaine, or his drunk driving admission. As a New York Times headline aptly put it: “Toronto’s mayor rampages on, to city’s shame”. His serial admissions, foul language, outright lies, meandering apologies and the escalating evidence of his bullying raise the bar for political misbehaviour.

This is what stymies the brains behind several mayoralty candidates who hope to bury both Ford and Ford Nation in the municipal elections this year: What he has done, and what he stands for — saving taxpayers money and reducing waste — will be hard and fast features of the next campaigns whether he is still standing or not. And as with Stephen Harper, his disdain for the media will live on with the denizens of Ford Nation, who blame the press for his woes.

This kind of victim positioning works for some, depending on where the narrative leads. Everyone loves a redemption story (see Bill Clinton). Because when you really analyze what has happened in Toronto (barring a criminal conviction), what is trumping Ford is not so much how he has run the city, but the international soap opera and embarrassment he’s caused. He and his brother Doug are counting on it not lasting another six months.

These salacious morality plays that so disastrously distract from the business of government have become a sad feature of our public life here and in all western democracies. They are greatly exacerbated by the availability of citizen video and irresponsible social media. The ability to expose the private lives of public figures has grown to horrific proportions. In some cases, disqualifying degrees of malfeasance or stupidity are exposed — but in many more cases, behaviour that should never have been anything but private is judged on blurred lines and a lack of context.

Add to this the absolute obsession of major mass media with these prolonged outings of public figures, and the willingness of aides whose advice has been ignored to fuel the fire with “what the butler saw” revelations, and we have what I consider to be a real threat to the ongoing sound management of civic society.

The low opinion so much of the public has of politicians is made worse. Voter turnout is reduced. A churlishness replaces any real interest in public affairs or respect for office holders, and fewer and fewer people seek public office.

In the permanent state of war that characterizes contemporary politics, real debate over solutions to glaring social and economic problems is replaced by personal attacks, media exposure of personal failings, and a general meanness in our public discourse.

We are a long way from my conversation with David Halton some 35 years ago — when, in fact, the media and the opposition left the personally beleaguered Trudeau alone. Scandals certainly are more lurid and more widely covered than they used to be. And it’s not likely to get better. Canada will come of age in the sex scandal department soon — and our public life will be further diminished.

Patrick Gossage is the founder and chairman of Media Profile, a Toronto-based communications consulting firm. He is the author of the 1987 bestseller, Close to the Charisma, about his years with Pierre Elliott Trudeau. [email protected]

This article appeared originally in Policy, Canada’s magazine of politics and public policy.

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