Last week, Pontiac MP Will Amos re-emerged from six weeks of radio silence following a pair of embarrassing incidents this spring.
In a briefing for local media provided by Mr. Amos and his wife, Regina Flores, the MP apologized for putting everyone ‘in such an awkward position’ and described how he is going about his rehabilitation. He says he is struggling with distracted focus, the result of hyperactive multitasking, which he attributes to driving himself too hard, trying to do too many things at once, and to stress.
Welcome to 2021.
We live in the age of multitasking. Ask any parent, especially a mother, what their life is like in normal times, and then overlay the challenges of a 16-month pandemic with children at home. Whether you are juggling family life and one or more jobs, or the demands of a farm or other business, the stresses on our mental health and the risks of burnout for people throughout society are real.
Add digital technology which turns the possibility of over-achieving into an expectation. Anyone who wants to deliver good value for money to whomever is paying their salary is susceptible to reaching too far because they think they can.
No less if you are an MP, where the daily barrage of issues can make you feel like a juggler on the Ed Sullivan show, spinning plates on the ends of multiple sticks. With political opponents, the media and constituents constantly expressing their disappointment, it is unsurprising that a well-intended MP might over-reach.
Mr. Amos has owned this incident. He hasn’t blamed someone else. He hasn’t attempted to minimize its importance. He has apologized for it and he has developed a plan to address it.
It is probable that, if the consequences of his distracted focus had been forgetting to provide his comments on a draft letter for a minister’s signature, or forwarding a file to the wrong department for follow-up, we would never have heard about it.
Unfortunately for him, he committed his faux pas in a very public place. But his mistake was not just leaving his camera on, as he claims. It was showing up for work without his clothes on.
While many found it possible to chalk it up to an innocent mistake the first time, the whole matter turned a sharp corner about six weeks later when, unbelievably, he did it again. Any generosity of spirit he may have garnered quickly began to evaporate.
In last week’s press briefing, when Mr. Amos rhymed off a list of health professionals that comprise his wellness team, it was hard not to think of the many Pontiac residents who don’t even have a family doctor, let alone a psychologist, an occupational therapist and a psycho-therapist. It came as a bit of a clanger in a speech that was intended to position him as being as human as the rest of us.
Millions of people across the country put in long hours, juggling all kinds of demands, carrying personal risk in terms of an investment that is on the line or their own personal health, or both. People working for a fraction of an MP’s salary, without any support staff and with no prospect of a pension anything like the one MPs get. People who know that if they showed up for work naked they probably wouldn’t have a job to go back to the next day. They wouldn’t get a chance to make that mistake again.
For some, this raises the specter of a politician who is out of touch with the people he claims to represent. Of elected elites who either feel immune or are oblivious to the normal standards of behaviour to which the rest of us are expected to abide. It conjures up memories of a prime minister who once found it acceptable to put on black face, receive the gift of a vacation from a billionaire philanthropist and try to protect a powerful Quebec construction firm from prosecution.
There are, of course, many issues of actual importance to the future of the Pontiac and the country that we would much rather be discussing than this absurd distraction. Perhaps we should be more like France where voters will go into the streets in a heartbeat over an increase in fuel taxes but will remain fairly blasé over a politician’s personal indiscretions.
In her eloquent and compelling statement, Regina Flores says she and her husband look forward to discussing policy issues such as climate change, rural internet and Indigenous reconciliation. We couldn’t agree more and would add concerns such as the local economy, minority rights and nuclear waste, among others.
So, what’s to be made of all this? For now, nothing.
Mr. Amos won the election with roughly half the votes in 2015 and again in 2019. Under the winner-takes-all rules of the first-post-the-post system, some would say we got the MP we wanted. In a country where there is no mechanism to recall MPs, the Pontiac seat in the House of Commons continues to be his to do with as he wishes.
While we may not like the fact that Pontiac’s 15 minutes of fame came as the result of our MP appearing naked in parliamentary Zoom meetings, there’s really nothing we can do about it.
At least, not until the next election.
This may happen sooner than later, now that the prime minister has a governor general with whom to raise the dissolution of parliament and the dropping of the writ.
Charles Dickson
