A minister resigns, plus Ottawa after dark
I wish him and his family luck. Ottawa doesn’t make this kind of problem easy.
On the Hill, the hours are crazy. So are the demands on you and your family. There’s a lot of pressure, there’s a lot of isolation, and there’s a lot of scrutiny – so people dealt with all that in different ways. Back in my day, there weren’t as many bars and whatnot around. But there was certainly a lot of people who would go for a drink after work. They’d do that every single day. That’s how they’d deal with how it is in Ottawa.
I was (and am) weird: I’d come from a punk Straight Edge scene, so I just never did that sort of thing. And – I confess – I didn’t often hang out with, or ever hire, those who did. Loose lips sink governments, etc. If you were a regular on a bar stool at D’Arcy McGee’s, I kept away.
Anyway, for those of you who are in Ottawa, peering at this on your government-issue device, wondering if what happened to this formerly powerful cabinet minister could happen to you, this is a useful rule of thumb. Fifteen or more a week? That’s a problem.
If you’re doing that, day in and day out, you need to do what Hunter Tootoo did. Get help.