MARK-ALAN WHITTLE
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OLD-TIME CIVIL SERVANT WOULD BE APPALLED

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Toronto Star
My father, Bert Whittle, was a life-long civil servant who worked for Customs and Excise Canada. At the end of his career, he was an auditor for excise taxation and dealt in the millions of dollars on a regular basis. If he were alive today, he would be sickened by the apparent corruption of the civil service. It is fast becoming a pack of trained seals for the big red Liberal election machine fronted by Jean Chrétien.
I vividly recall a story my dad told me about an incident that happened when he worked out at Pearson International Airport. There were always passengers who tried to smuggle illegal goods into Canada. Among the banned items, bottles of expensive booze were always discovered and confiscated. It was my dad's responsibility to destroy the booze at the end of his shift as per protocol.
One day, a new recruit inquired why my dad was pouring perfectly good booze down the drain and not waiting for the district supervisor to arrive as he was instructed to do. He assumed that my father could be corrupted by the system. He was not. My father reminded the trainee that he had taken an oath when hired by the federal government to abide by the law and government protocol. My father had a level of integrity and honesty that is unheard of in the present corrupted Liberal government.
If my dad were alive today, he would be outraged at the sullying of the reputation of the civil service he was so proud of. I feel sad that the legacy of government service my father spent his life improving has become so politically compromised and rife with self-interest.
I vividly recall how excited my dad was when he got home from work on the day that marked his 25th year of service to the betterment of Canada. Then-prime minister Joe Clark had personally signed a parliamentary dispatch thanking my dad for all he had done. It is framed and prominently displayed next to all his war medals on the wall over at my mother's house. Perhaps Clark will remember what it meant to have integrity and honesty in government. He needs to rally the troops in each and every riding for the Tories in time for the next federal election. Canadians need Clark to go to war against Chrétien and remove his corrupting influence from the civil service by beating his Liberal horde in the next federal election. Go, Joe, go; you've got my vote.

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