Snap
By Eric Dowd
Toronto – There are times a picture is worth a thousand words –
although a columnist who uses words to make a living may be reluctant to
admit it.
This was the case when a Progressive Conservative aide spotted an
Ontario Liberal cabinet minister outside a company in which he has a
financial interest and photographed him, knowing ministers are not
supposed to be involved in businesses, because they make decisions that
affect them.
The
picture prompted an investigation by the integrity commissioner, who found
Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar broke another rule, because he
appointed a friend to manage his assets in a blind trust instead of the
required arm’s length manager.
This
has shaken Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government and would not have
happened without the picture as proof. The Liberals and probably most news
media would have dismissed it as just another opposition party allegation.
It
now goes in a small gallery of memorable pictures in Ontario politics. One
showed McGuinty smiling broadly in the 2003 election as he signed a pledge
not to raises taxes sought by a taxpayers’ group.
The
promise brought McGuinty his biggest grief, because he found the books
were not balanced as the outgoing Tories promised and had to raise taxes
and has barely smiled since.
Another
well-remembered picture of McGuinty, circulated by the Conservatives in
the 1999 election he lost, showed the usually presentable then opposition
leader looking uneasy and grim, as in a police mug shot, and reminds
anyone can be photographed displaying the whole range of emotions in an
average day.
One
memorable picture was of Mike Harris while Conservative premier golfing in
Florida in baggy shorts, cigar jutting from his lips, flag in one hand,
club resting against his leg, prominent paunch and looking every inch a
bloated plutocrat living off the fat of the land.
It
fuelled talk Harris lived in comfort after slashing welfare benefits and
stayed away from his office while concerns were not dealt with and
Ontarians struggled in a the cold.
Harris’s
Tory successor as premier, Ernie Eves, was in a noted picture finishing a
hospital inspection with health minister Tony Clement in the SARS crisis
with their protective masks hanging below their chins, which nurses said
set a bad example because there was still danger.
The
most famous photograph of long-serving Conservative premier William Davis
showed him descending the steps in the forum at Ontario Place, the
spectacular waterfront entertainment centre, after his party chose him
leader and premier, transformed from small town to big city looks with
trendy flowing sideburns and double-breasted suit and students clamoring
to shake his hand.
Davis
liked the picture so much he used it as the centerpiece of an election
campaign, but his close aide pictured with him, David MacLeod, was not
mentioned much afterwards, because he left government quietly after being
convicted of indecent assault, went to the United States, was charged
there with similar offences, disappeared, was put on the FBI’s most
wanted list and found dead on a frigid Montreal street.
The
most famous and influential political pictures taken in Ontario were in a
federal election three decades ago, but are worth noting because the full
stories behind them emerged only a couple of weeks ago.
They
showed federal Conservative leader Robert Stanfield dropping a football in
North Bay and eating a banana in Toronto and made him look fumbling and
unstatesmanlike.
A
retired chief of picture services at Canadian Press has written to a
newspaper his agency sent newspapers several pictures of Stanfield
catching the ball at the same time and it was unfair some published only
one of him dropping it.
TV
already had snapped Stanfield eating a banana and newspaper photographers
missed it, so the news agency sent a photographer with a banana to catch
him at the airport and Stanfield graciously peeled and ate it while he
took his picture, which showed him warm and patient. Pictures tell the
truth, but not always the whole truth.
-30-
