Huff and Puff and Blow The House Down

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Good Morning Grace": 
You refer to what Rob Ford did as not being classified as corruption. On the Agenda last week, where 4 experts discussed the no-nos when holding a political office, they did not support that a conflict of interest breach is synonymous with corruption. In fact they were quite clear that he was not deemed guilty of corruption. However, they all agreed that he did in fact breach the conflict of interest clause(s) in the Municipal Act.
Are you defending him against a corruption charge or a conflict of interest breach? He DID commit one but does not fit the profile of the other. I hope you are not excusing the conflict of interest charge.
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Rob Ford has a lawyer to defend him.
None of Steve Paikin's four "experts"  were identified as having served in political office. They were not expert in the subject discussed. 
What I ask of readers is to contemplate a wider view of  the  Conflict of Interest Act  now that we have seen it work. 
Mayor Hazel was charged on the basis of a vote which might have obtained  a pecuniary advantage to an immediate family  member.  Public records  made it appear a conflict was declared while the video tape of the proceedings revealed it was not.
The case was heard  but a decision  withheld. .
The  former Mayor of Aurora is charged with participating in a vote to initiate legal proceedings with a claim of $6 million to  her  advantage..
Legal fees  on her behalf cost the town $55,000.
A consultant fee to advise whether the legal fee should be paid was  $8,200,
A  settlement due to another aspect of the matter cost  taxpayers $186,000.or  thereabouts. 
That's a quarter of a million dollars siphoned from  the public  treasury. 
Rob Ford's act cost the city nothing  at all. 
City Council  had voted not to require him to refund the $3,150   received from private donors to help kids in need. 
Yet the decision made by Justice Hackland, strictly to the letter of  the Conflict of Interest Act, if allowed to stand, as the Aird and Berlis associate, advisor to Aurora's  erstwhile Mayor, opines in the Toronto Star, carries the penalty of reversing the voters choice for Mayor and potentially costing  the city seven million dollars to hold a byelection.
No matter how you cut it, that's a dog's breakfast. 
No person elected to office may take his or her seat until they have sworn an Oath of Office.
A breach of the oath is a breach of trust, an indictable offense  punishable by a term in jail. 
It should be enough to scare the bejasus out of  anyone person who understands the difference between a posterior  orifice and  a hole in the ground.
If  that doesn't do it, I don't know why such a puny instrument  as the Conflict of Interest Act which depends upon a private citizen using personal resources to prosecute, subject to  the vagaries we have witnessed  in  these three incidences alone, should be considered solidly based in common law.   
Absolutely there needs to be consequences for vile conduct such as revealed in the Bellamy Inquiry.
But there were none.
None of the villains of that  piece were charged.  
Mario Gentile a  north York Alderman  on the other hand , was investigated and prosecuted  by a  crown  attorney, with  an indictable offense in the mid-nineties.
He was found guilty and sentenced to a two year jail term. Google has a record of the grim details forever.
What made the difference ? 
Why are lawyers and  professors, such as Paikin's guests,  not talking about the substance of a  law with  potential for creating chaos, instead of denigrating  politicians as a class  in the public media. 
Paikin by the way is paid  more than the Premier of Ontario.
They have colleges for  private discipline. If discipline is imposed at all. 
Is there  a Code of Conduct within the various  Codes of Discipline?
Like repay money stolen from a trust fund. 
Bring a person back to life, like Lazarus.
Refund student fees for failure to teach anything useful.  
Why are their hearings private?
Guilds have existed for centuries. 
Their politics are private.
The purpose the same now as then. 
I doubt it is to protect the innocent as they would have us believe.