The Top Ten Scandals in Canadian Political History

Author:
stimpy
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"A British politician is usually caught with his hand up a woman's skirt while a Canadian politician is usually caught with his hand in the till."
- Sun Media columnist Valerie Gibson

"This is the biggest scandal in Canadian history."
- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on the sponsorship fiasco

Both the above statements are debatable to serious students of Canadian scandal. Much has been done in secret over the years by federal politicians who really should have known better, in both the skirt and till departments.

Consider the case of Henry Robert Emmerson, for example. According to the Parliament of Canada website, the minister of railways and canals resigned his post in April of 1907 after being "accused of being in a hotel in the city of Montreal with a person of ill-repute." The website is silent on whether that person of ill-repute was another politician.

Some scandals become scandals in the absence of any evidence proving wrongdoing, because partisan foes labelled them that way. They're still scandals, in our eyes, going by the definition of "disgraceful gossip about the private lives of other people" or "conduct that causes or encourages a lapse of faith."

As for judging what "the biggest scandal in Canadian history" might have been, we'll leave that up to you. Here is a list of 10 contenders:

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