Cabinet ministers will be expected to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing

but the truth in the legislature — as long as it suits their convenience.

This is part of a large fallout from what effectively is the first time in memory that a minister has admitted lying in the legislature.

Charles Harnick, who was attorney general in the former Progressive Conservative government in 1995, told opposition MPPs at that time he had been unable to substantiate a rumor an unidentified person said “I want the f--king Indians out of the [Ipperwash Provincial] park” before police entered to remove native demonstrators and shot one dead.

But Harnick has now testified at a public inquiry that he clearly heard the remark made by then premier Mike Harris, but did not say so in the legislature, because it is merely a political forum in which he did not feel the same obligation to tell the truth.

Harnick technically is not the first minister to admit to having lied in the legislature. New Democrat Shelley Martel claimed in a bizarre case in 1991 that she lied when she said she saw the confidential billings of a doctor who was criticizing her government and he could be prosecuted.

But Martel was suspected to have opted to say she lied because she felt it was a lesser offence than misusing confidential information, and it was not as clear a case of lying as Harnick’s.

Many will now say that if one minister has admitted he lied when called to testify at a public enquiry, others probably have lied, but never been on a witness stand where they were forced to confess it. Some will say this merely confirms what they already knew — that all politicians are liars.

Harnick’s admission also is a blow to those in all parties who are suggesting ways of building trust in politicians and encouraging more residents to vote. Only 18 per cent cast ballots in a by-election in November.

In what may seem odd to outsiders, while ministers clearly lie at times, the legislature’s rules forbid questioners calling them “liars” or saying they “lied” in an attempt to prevent debates from degenerating into mere namecalling.

The many thrown out for accusing opponents of lying include Bob Rae when NDP leader and Lyn McLeod when Liberal leader, who both complained that Harris broke promises to keep user fees out of, and maintain funding for, medicare, and were accurate.

Michael Cassidy of the NDP was another leader who was ejected for saying that an opponent lied, in his case Conservative premier William Davis.

Some have been successful using different terminology trying to avoid getting thrown out. David Peterson when Liberal leader got away with saying a minister was “talking out of both sides of his mouth.”

Conservative Leo Bernier was not kicked out when he said a New Democrat had “as much respect for the truth as Ali Khan has for a marriage licence,” but this comparison is now out of date.

A number of MPPs have borrowed Winston Churchill’s famous phrase and accused ministers of “terminological inexactitude,” and been allowed to stay. But when Harris said a Liberal minister had done “a taffy pull with the truth,” a Speaker forced him to withdraw the comment. Murray Elston, a Liberal interim leader, said he would keep questioning until an NDP minister “becomes an honest man,” but similarly had to withdraw. When Liberal Remo Mancini said a Conservative minister’s` “nose is growing,” a Speaker who said he knew the story of Pinocchio ordered him to withdraw.

New Democrat Mike Breaugh said he would not call a Liberal minister a liar, but “he could walk underneath a snake while wearing a top hat,” but had to withdraw

MPPs also have been forced to withdraw more routine variations, such as saying that ministers were “economical with the truth” or “less than honest.”

The legislature goes to a lot of effort to stop MPPs calling each other liars, but it is more difficult to stop them lying.