Agricultural minister in hot water

Gerry Ritz, the federal minister of agriculture, has recently been under fire for tasteless comments made at a government conference call about listeriosis. He opened the call with "This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts." Later, after being informed of another death in PEI, he quipped "Please tell me it's Wayne Easter." Wayne Easter is a liberal MP in PEI who has followed Ritz's ministry closely. Ritz later apologized to Easter and to the public at a press conference on September 18th.

It's interesting that these comments are coming to light now, considering they were originally made on August 30th in a private conference call. The implications of these comments coming to light are astounding. On the one hand, the media is able to bring to light the minister's inappropriate use of gallows humour and make the him pay for his callous comments. On the other hand, this represents a breach of informational security from within the government.

Although currently a minority government, the government still needs to present a united front so that the public can have faith in their ability to lead the country. The current focus on everyone's mind seems to be the upcoming election, which will likely have us see a change in the political powers that be. Rather, the current focus on all politicians' minds is the election. The rest of the world is being thrown off by all of these "scandals" that keep popping up from within the Harper government.
I am mildly amused by the dirty tactics that are being used for this election; the Liberals must be really worried about the sway of the Conservatives if they're hounding Ritz so hard about a comment made during a private conference call. I won't support Ritz - his comments were completely inappropriate - however, the Liberals and NDP are positively drooling over this mess up and calling for his resignation. (I'm sure that it's not only the Liberals and the NDP that are coming up with these ideas, but they seem to be the most vocal when it comes to the news.) These parties are playing up the comments and downplaying the timing. Ritz's comments were made on August 30th, which was at the beginning of the crisis; when his comments are taken out of context, such as during the present day, they seem more cruel than they were meant to be.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't politics be more about public relations and less about backstabbing? With all of these scandal stories that have been leaking about the current government, I'm not so sure that I'm comfortable enough with the current state of all of the parties to vote. Here's hoping that something changes between now and October 14th.