There's a wonderful survey that comes out of Ryerson University on why people mistrust politicians. The reasons are the failure to deliver on promises—I'm speaking to retired parliamentarians on Thursday on this topic—the avoidance of accountability, refusing to apologize for mistakes that are made, and so on. The system makes it too easy to slough off responsibility. Too many politicians today—and I would probably do this if I were in public life—say, “I apologize, I take responsibility”, but there are no consequences, and Canadians think there should be consequences when policy blunders are made, when bureaucrats screw up, and when the minister dodges the responsibility for it in the House of Commons or beyond.
It's a complicated problem. I've written endlessly about accountability, the big “A” word, and we have to define accountability more strictly and—