Ethical Issues in the Watergate Scandal and Canadian Politics

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the Watergate scandal, detailing the principal ethical issues that arose during the Nixon administration. It explores the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, the involvement of Nixon's staff, and the subsequent cover-up. The essay also examines the impact of the scandal on American politics, including the erosion of public trust and the implementation of reforms aimed at preventing future abuses of power. Furthermore, it draws parallels between the Watergate scandal and ethical issues within Canadian politics, specifically focusing on scandals during Stephen Harper's government, such as the in and out scandal and the F-35 jet fighter contract. The essay highlights instances of corruption, abuse of power, and disregard for ethical standards, offering a comparative perspective on political misconduct in both the United States and Canada.

Running head: POLITICAL SCIENCE
Political Science
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Watergate
The principal ethical issues in the Watergate scandal in Washington in the early 1970s
The Watergate scandal arose when plenty of robbers were being arrested in the
office of the Democratic National Committee, that is located in the Watergate building. As a
part of the illegal activities, five men broke in to the headquarters of the Democratic National
Committee at the complex of Watergate. The White House is a mile away from the
Democratic National Committee. The FBI executed investigations and they were able to
determine a relation between the robbers and E Howard Hunt, an ex-CIA officer. Later it
was disclosed that he was one of Nixon’s plumbers tasked with fixing leaks and who was
linked to the special counsel of the President (Morris, 2017). The scandal of Watergate
altered American politics since it led plenty of Americans to doubt their leaders and to think
more critically about his presidency.
The controversy of Watergate came into the scenario due to its reforms including the
conditions that campaign and the political parties routinely to surrender the lists of their
contributors to the Federal Election Commission (White, 2016). The debate of Watergate
deals with the abuse of ambiguity formed by the reforms, which included the power of the
parties to lift up and spend unlimited amounts of soft money. The reform was created when
the House and the Senate adopted codes of conduct in the early 1970s. At that time, it
constrained the franking privileges that permitted the members to send mails to constituents
at taxpayers’ expenses that diminished the funds and enforced preventions on income earned
outside. These rules were also forced limits on lobbying by the former members of the
Congress and former staff members.
It is worth mentioning that the members of Nixon’s Committee re-elected the
President. It broke into the Democratic National Committee’s Watergate headquarters that

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wrapped the copies of top-secret documents and bugged the phones used office. The reporters
of Washington Post merited a good pact of the credit for disclosing the intricate facts of the
scandal of Watergate (Ruderman & Nevitte, 2015). In this case, the wiretaps, failed to work
in a continuous manner and however, a group of five men returned to the building of
Watergate. Since the prowlers were arranging to break into the office with a new microphone.
The security guard observed that someone had taped over the door lock of the buildings. It
was not figured out on spot that the robbers were linked to the President. In this regard,
uncertainties were elevated when detectives figured out the proof of the process of re-election
of the committee’s White House phone number among the belongings of the burglars. Later,
Nixon where he stated and swore that the Staff of White House was not associated in the
robbery scenario delivered a speech. Majority votes had faith in the President and believed
that the President was not involved with the murder case and hence, he was re-elected in a
victory. The impact was the rules of Congress had become law under the 1978 ethics act. It
expanded the possibility of restrictions to comprise the high-ranking officials in the executive
and judiciary sectors. The existing lawmakers denied on criminal sanctions for violations,
therefore, that the act enforced civil penalties. In the late 1980s, the House in exchange
presented itself a pay-raise to ban on income from honoraria completely. A campaign by the
President appeared to be mandatory to the president and some of his key advisers. The
techniques included which resulted in illegal espionage. However, being dishonest was
unethical. No individual can prohibit dishonestly. In regard to this, it is worth observing that
Nixon never ordered for a break-in at the Watergate complex. The former Attorney General
approved this. It was very much unethical on his part since being a President he committed a
series of crime with his staff. The scandal of Watergate was considered to be the worst
among all the scandals since it focused on the behaviour of the President (Spence, 2017). The
Watergate scandal was filled with unethical issues during the presidency of Richard Nixon

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and it was arguably the high point of journalism’s role in the politics of America. He was
involved in the scandal himself that led to the reason of his resignation. Due to the crime
committed by President Richard Nixon it made the American people judge less of their
system of government. However, Nixon was known for successful and overlapping wars
against the anti-Vietnam War movement (Suri, 2017). It somehow reflected the behaviour
outline and the mind-set, which was unique. A willingness to disrespect the law for an
advantage in politics and an interest for secrets about his rivals served as a principle of his
presidency. The scandal of Watergate acted as a prescription to modify the legal and political
structure in the United States and therefore it had become a standard for scrutinizing the
political behaviour (Walker, 2014). As a memory, Watergate shaped public discourse even
when it was deformed. Watergate spurred wishes for reformation to stop the future abuses of
power as scandals inevitably do. The 1978, ethics needed financial disclosures by the judicial
and executive branch and not by the members of Congress. The law prohibited the changing
door though which the public officials moved into the private sector (Maier, 2015). The act
determined the Office of Government Ethics to supervise its financial disclosure and conflict
of interest provisions. Watergate inspired the formation of mechanisms for judicial
appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by officials of
the Executive branch. Therefore, these were the principal ethical issues in the scandal of
Watergate in Washington in the early 1970s.
Similar ethical issues been present in political scandals in Canada
Another scandal that is similar to the ethical issues present in Watergate was when
Harper was declared as the worst Prime Minister of Canada. In the year 2010, President
Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron had reached at a swanky resort
that is situated two hours north of Toronto to take part in the annual Summit. During that
time, no individual was aware of the fact that Clement had lifted $50 million from the public.

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When the Auditor General Sheila Fraser determined what happened to the $50 million and
then she found the paper work, which proved how they decided to spend money. Admission
to the Information Act proved that Clement was cheering mayors in his riding to opt for the
money that was required in the election. After the $50 million scandal came into the scenario
Clement was not eliminated from cabinet and neither was he reprimanded. Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister had given him the responsibility of the Treasury Board. This Board was set up
for overseeing ethics and accountability in government. Recently, Harper’s inclination for
bribery that was covered in the budget of 2015. The government got free from the registry of
the long gun as the RCMP was instructed to diminish its records. Therefore, having access to
information was done with permission later (Copeland & Potwarka, 2016). The permission
was cancelled since an allowed access request is treated as a criminal offence. The
information commissioner of Canada suggested charges to be laid against the responsible
members of RCMP.
The in and out scandal of Canada occurred in the election of 2006. The scenario that
took place was when the Tories were charged of getting around by spending limits by
transferring money between the riding offices and the party. A sum of $1.3 million to 67 was
transferred to spend on advertising (Rhodes, 2016). Tories did an investigation sitting on the
Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Approximately four members of the
party were accused for getting involved in the method and therefore the party was bound to
reimburse the amount. Harper’s former staff was involved in the scheme.
In the scandal of the F-35 jet fighter contracted, it was observed that the plan was to
purchase 65 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters with the Tories claimed the price tag, which
would be $9 billion to buy and $7 billion to retain (Bakir et al., 2017). However, the contract
was never made specific to tender even though Canadian law needs and it should happen for
maximum defence purchases (Greer & McLaughlin, 2017). In the year of 2012, the Auditor

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General’s report stated that the government did not hold a fair rivalry. Adding to this, when
the government gave its ascent in an agreement with Lockheed Martin in 2006, it did not
assure a lesser amount of production in Canada. Tories did not answer the questions about
estimates instead told them that the planes costed less. After years of lies and denial, the
government shelved the order (Neu, Everett & Rahaman, 2015).
The Bruce Carson influence peddling scandal stated that a former senior adviser in
Harper’s PMO, there was a disbarred lawyer named Carson who had gone to prison for
innumerable charges of fraud that is prior to joining the inner circle of Harper. Carson was
alleged with influence-peddling in the year 2012. He was also charged for lobbying
ministerial staff at the Department of Aboriginal and Northern Development. Stephen Harper
was always open about his contempt for the cultural sector (Gray, Hanson & Kousser, 2017).
At the time of elections, he had claimed that ordinary people does not bother about art and
have no empathy for rich artists who assemble for whining about their grants. Harper was
determined to destroy CBC. Before Harper was elected as the Prime Minister, CBC was
considered as one of the most poorly funded public platform in the world. The government
of Canada helped the CBC ranks close to the bottom compared with the Western
industrialized nations (Hedgecoe, 2017). When Harper became the Prime Minister, the
operating budget of CBC was less. It steadily decreased. Harper stacked the board of CBC
with his political supporters. CBC had been presided over by Tory donor who was an
employee at the most powerful law firm in Canada. The proper shift of CBC under Harper
was observant as well. Harper attacked Canada’s historical institutions. He cut down the
budget of the national library by making it more complex for historians to research the past
and background of the country. Governance of Harper had altered the guide of citizenship,
which reflected a shallow and pro-business view of the Canadian history by explaining the
role of Canada in wars (Yu, Zhang & Zheng, 2015). Harper modified the museum of

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civilization in Ottawa to the museum of Canadian history. This is because it highlighted the
role of Canada in military engagements. Canada’s major peacekeeping forces have been
eliminated. China had invested over $30 billion in the Canadian energy sector and its
companies are important investors in the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline (Forni et al.,
2017). The Chinese investors wanted to sue Canada for plenty of its activities. It was related
to the Chinese assets that are connected to the Northern Gateway Pipeline. From the time
Harper became the Prime Minister, Lebanon was invaded by Israel by killing 1,125 lebanese
as compared to the number of Israelis. In spite of the international condemnation over what
was noticed as Israel’s over killed in these instances (Hass, 2014). The governance of Harper
had consistently hustled in defending Israel. Canada was on side with Israel to frustrate the
efforts of Palestinians for having their own state. The foreign policy of Harper had alienated
the communities of Muslims and Arabs. The government wanted to keep Omar in prison. The
federal government had deleted $1 million of funding for the Canadian Arab Federation
because of the organization’s criticism of Israel. He was involved in a fire flight in
Afghanistan when he was 15. The government of Canada had chartered a justified and not so
strongly biased attitude towards the Muslims. The war on ISIS was used by the governance of
Harper to whip up to provide assistance for the legislation of anti-terrorism and terrorist
attacks on the soils of Canada.
However, there have been plenty of unethical scandals in Canada. It can be observed
that these political scandals of Canada have an unethical effect on the public. The political
leaders are known for their political, social, economic and cultural pressures, which are
majorly formed by issues of ethics. From the above mentioned unethical issues it can be
concluded that these political scandals has unethical principles.

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