Actually, the is supposed to be good news, but, as is often the case, the joy or pain is related to how one views the subject.

This came up when scanning the Globe and Mail this morning, where Canada has been listed as the ninth least corrupt country in the world. I guess this is reasonable because we don’t have to deal with the level of garbage that happens in much of Africa, say, or the “Stans” (notwithstanding characterizations of Canada as Canuckistan), but with the B.C Rail deal, Site C, the Health Ministry Firings, Quick Wins, LNG, the Massey Tunnel replacement and everything else that just doesn’t smell all that clean, it would seem that someone missed something in this little corner of Canuckistan. Allison Redford showed us that our neighbours aren’t ready to let us steal a march on them, Kathleen Wynne is facing some sharp questions about her practices and those of her predecessors, and, certainly since the days of the Big O and the ’76 Olympics, there are few who would attribute lily-whiteness to Québec politics. For brevity’s sake, we need go no further, without even getting started with the Federal governments of many ages, in wondering if, since we’re so wonderful, how the hell does anyone get anything meaningful done anywhere else without a level of bribery and corruption that boggles the mind and bends the definition.

It’s a sad perversion of the idea of beauty being in the eye of the beholder and conjures up thoughts of the press saying anything it thinks would be cute, of ourselves being smug, and of a wilful ignorance on a grand scale.