Random Access

With the dismissal of his final appeal last week, the story of the magnificent fall from grace of Mississauga Councillor Cliff Gyles comes to its inevitable, and rightful, conclusion.
I remember attending an orientation session for newly-elected school trustees, including Gyles, one Saturday in 1980 at what is now the University of Toronto at Mississauga. The bright shiny new Ward 5 trustee was there and seemed incredibly sure of himself for someone so fresh to the political game.
He had built-in swagger. Impeccably dressed, he also had an abiding confidence in the correctness of his own opinion, and the value of its relative worth. Things haven't changed since.
When he was officially charged with municipal corruption in 2001, Gyles attended the next council meeting and read a statement that was full of bravado and fiery rhetoric about how justice would eventually be served.
In retrospect, his audacity was breathtaking.
“For me, it is like a big boulder in my path and I will surely have it removed,” the Ward 5 councillor and 17-year trustee of the Peel Board of Education vowed. "I have lived in this city for 31 years and for 21 years I have been an elected official. I intend to continue to live here and I intend to stay elected," he said.
With the vigour of his defence and the inevitable machinations of the rumour mill, people were expecting Gyles' defence to be a spectacular indictment of wrongdoings at City Hall, with appropriate finger-pointing at appropriately important people.
Instead, it was a comic-book catastrophe starring Cliff in his own fantasy world as an undercover agent single-handedly trying to catch the bribing bad guy. Unfortunately, the crown attorney pointed out ten thousand inconsistencies with his story, starting with the fact Gyles spent a lot of the money he took and that his voice is caught on tape haggling over details of the bribe, or "apples" and "chickens" as he called them.
The councillor at first denied that the unmistakeable mellifluous tones were his own distinctive voice but eventually, with constant prodding, was convinced that he couldn't say for sure it wasn't him.
Even after his conviction, Gyles fought the reality of his guilt until his final appeal was summarily dismissed last Thursday.
The final ignominy was that he could not even hear the verdict rendered. He had to surrender himself to jail beforehand as part of his bail conditions.
Don't put it past Gyles to run for election again, as he did in November of 2003 when he somehow duped 572 people into voting for him.
Even though he’ll likely be released from jail before the Nov. 13, 2006 election, Gyles can’t run because he failed to file the required statement of contributions and expenses in the last balloting.
But there's still no provision banning those convicted of municipal corruption from seeking office again, as long as they've served their time.
Do not, for a second, think that L. Cliff Gyles is not already planning a political comeback of some sort.
Will Cliff Gyles, convicted felon, ever show any remorse?
Ironically, the only place you might see some regret expressed would be on an election platform.
For public consumption, Gyles would surely have to admit to a mistake even if only to assure voters that it wouldn't happen again.
Either that, or he would have to come up with a new twist on an old campaign theme: chickens AND apples in every pot.