Bill Kelly: Whatever happened to ethics in politics?

It looks like the Trudeau government will appoint Mario Dion to replace Mary Dawson as the federal political ethics watchdog.

We’re told that Dion has impeccable credentials for the job and that’s a good thing, given all the silliness that’s going on in the political sandbox these days.

MPs taking complimentary trips overseas, a finance minister who didn’t see the need to place his substantial financial assets in a blind trust and a long list of questionable spending habits by a plethora of politicians.

It’s come to the point where the term “political ethics” seems to be an oxymoron.

But putting the onus on a federal ethics watchdog is akin to closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

The ethics guru can only be reactive to alleged misdeeds; the bigger question is, where is the moral compass in each political party and in each politician?

Fact is, politicians don’t do a very good job of policing themselves and we, the public, don’t do a very good job of paying attention to what they do.

Integrity, we’re told, is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.

How sad that we need to employ an ethics watchdog to remind our politicians of that simple truth.

Bill Kelly is the host of Bill Kelly Show on AM 900 CHML and a commentator for Global News