Sadly lacking, not just in Durham Region!
By Bill Fox/Columnist
If we had more of this, I am sure we would be a happier and more trusting society. However, it is sadly lacking in so many aspects of our lives.
Example #1 – I’m buying a new vehicle and the salesman initially told me that there were no discounts on that model. “Are you kidding? That model is so popular and sells out so fast, no one offers discounts on it.”
Our next meeting, I bring him a competitor’s offer that includes a discount. “Okay we will offer a discount to meet that price!” Then when I sign the offer and get home, I notice that it appears they simply have bumped up other costs. Between pre-delivery expense and freight, I think that they have virtually erased my discount.
Then I am promised delivery on the day after Labour Day. An email later tells me that this 2017 model has not yet been released by the parent company and so I will not have it on the day promised. The salesman tells me that my vehicle is presently in the GTA waiting the release date. Unbeknownst to him, I phone the head office and find that the vehicle model has indeed been released, and it is simply a matter of the dealer getting my car from where it was initially transported! Talking to friends, I’m told that many car salesmen are sadly lacking this!
Example #2 – One of my brothers is a great fellow in many ways, but he sometimes needs more of this. At the end of an enjoyable dinner together, he tells my wife and I about a product he is currently selling. He is very enthusiastic about this health product and my wife and I can see the results attributed to this product. At the end of our evening together, he starts talking about how Obama is a Muslim and has supported ISIS. I think I know where he got this erroneous information! Regardless, everything he said about the product he was promoting now seems a little less believable.
Example #3 – As a rookie town councillor, long before moving to Oshawa over 30 years ago, I was a little astonished at a public meeting the council had called in order to get feedback on a certain issue. Council had already decided their course of action, but having a public meeting allowed citizens to feel they would have some influence in our decision. They wouldn’t!
As you read in the headlines in the Oshawa Express recently, Durham Region had planned to have an integrity commissioner in place this fall. “However, those plans have been delayed…The idea for a regional council code of conduct and an integrity commissioner to enforce it were first approved by council last year, when councillors voted in favour of creating both, as well as the creation of a regional ombudsman.” I hope it wasn’t that they couldn’t find anyone with integrity!
So you may have thought that I was talking about honesty! However, there is a difference between honesty and integrity. Sometimes, people express honestly what they think, based on certain factors, and in their mind they are honest. In ethics, many people see integrity as honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. The opposite of integrity includes incompleteness, deceit and dishonesty, dishonour, corruption and eventually disgrace.
I could not believe the recent news that the Fords had written a book. What Doug Ford is calling “the most exciting book that this country has ever seen when it comes to politics” will be published about his family’s story this fall.
“This is a book that’s going to be calling out people, other politicians … that were drinking, were doing drugs, but they were untouched, they were unscathed,” Ford said. “There’s no politician safe in this country when this comes out, from the prime minister to the premier to the mayor…. It’s going to rock the political world.”
I heard a wise man once say, “My light does not glow brighter by blowing out yours.” In my mind, Integrity extinguished Ford Nation long ago!