Everybody's got their shirt in a knot about a speech Peter Mansbridge gave to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. I know everybody's got their shirt in a knot because a lot of journalists are telling me so. Of course, it's only other journalists who have their shirts in a knot, but it's news because Mansbridge was paid, do you hear me, paid, to speak to this group. Because he took their money, he's supposedly now in bed with those dirty hucksters who run the oil sands and can't possible read the news anymore because he's tainted goods. 

Maybe the real reason so many journalists have their shirts in a knot is because nobody asked them to speak and they wouldn't mind some of the easy money that goes with such gigs. I've got no problem with Mansbridge speaking to any paying audience because I've given such speeches myself. Not, of course, at the mighty fees that Mansbridge charges which are likely in the $20,000-$25,000 range, but I have sung for my supper.

Other journalists do the same and here's what happens. You show up, stand around at a head table reception, give the identical speech you gave three weeks ago and three months before that on what a great country Canada is and how everybody should be able to live their dream and then you take it on the lam as fast as you can. There's no time to get brainwashed by the Association of Canadian Candymakers or whoever it is you're speaking to.

So I'm not worried about Mansbridge becoming a shill for oil or candymakers or anyone else. No, what bothers me is that he's lost his journalistic edge. His interview with Rob Ford was obsequious; his demeanour on The National is boring. He's been the anchor since 1912. It's time to replace him with Ian Hanomansing or Amanda Lang. Then let him speak wherever he wants. I just don't want him speaking to me anymore.

I won't be watching Rob Ford on Jimmy Kimmel tonight but I can imagine how it will go. As usual, Ford will mistake notoriety for renown and a high-profile appearance with appreciation. Even so, I don't know why we're all so fussed about our current mayor, he joins a long line of officeholders who accomplished little and didn't go on to do much after they left.

My memory of modern mayors begins with Nathan Phillips (1955-1962). The best story about him is what he missed. In the dying hours of his time as Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker told his staff in 1963, "Send that fellow Phillips to the Senate." The mayor was so little known outside Toronto that staff thought The Chief must have meant Orville Phillips, an MP and dentist from PEI. He got the appointment instead and sat in the Upper Chamber for the next 36 years.

Then there was William Dennison (1967-72) who once welcomed a dignitary from an African nation. Dennison handed the visitor a pen with which to sign the guest book, saying very slowly as if to a child, "This is a ball point pen." "I know," said the visitor, "I went to Oxford."

Art Eggleton (1980-1991) was mayor for 11 years. I can't remember a single thing he did. It's like his legacy was written on Etch-A-Sketch. Mel Lastman (1998-2003) worried about travelling to Africa in case he ended up in a boiling pot of water as dinner for cannibals. David Miller (2003-2010) brought Major League Soccer to Toronto. That turned out so well he sent back his season tickets in disgust part way through the 2013 schedule.

As Mel Lastman once said of Miller prior to his taking office, "You will never be mayor of this city because you say stupid and dumb things." Apparently it's a prerequisite for the job. In that regard, Rob Ford fits in just fine.

Dear Steve Paikin:

I read your blog about you and your son and I agree, you have a serious problem. As a high-profile journalist covering politics and public issues on TVO, how do you deal with your son Zach's plan to seek the Liberal nomination in the federal riding of Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas? As you rightly ask, can you continue to be seen as neutral, do you have to stop covering Liberal politics, or are you exaggerating your concern? The last question is the simplest. No, you are not exaggerating. But how do you balance being a father with being a journalist?

Let me tell you how this works in the real world. When I was Washington Bureau Chief for The Financial Post, then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney visited President George H. W. Bush. I wrote an article criticizing Mulroney. At the time, my son Mark was an executive assistant on Mulroney's staff. Marjory LeBreton, who was deputy chief of staff and in charge of political appointments for Mulroney, went on the warpath. She castigated Mark and complained to anyone else who would listen about my views. So, if your son becomes a Liberal candidate and you criticize the Liberals in any way, party members will complain to Zach and blame him for the sins of the father. Conversely, if you don't criticize the Liberals as much as the other parties, people will presume you are pulling your punches.

You've already run afoul of the problem. Those photos on the weekend showing you, Zach and Justin Trudeau cheering for the Canadian men's hockey team made it look like you'd gone over to the dark side. I understand you were caught up in a situation beyond your control, and the next time a similar possibility presented itself, you skedaddled out of sight, but it won't be the last time you find yourself where you shouldn't be.

Transparency is obviously helpful, but is it enough? On BNN, for example, when someone is commenting on stocks, their holdings are listed onscreen. Viewers are made aware of a potential bias but the notices serve another purpose. The commentator is seen as an expert on those holdings because research has been done and money invested. An onsceen crawl announcing that your son is a Liberal won't help you in the same way.

All journalists have biases. The critical issue is do those biases get in the way of their reporting. In your case, recusing yourself from political commentary would be professional death. Too many topics would be offside. The Agenda would be the worse for such skimpy coverage.

So, by all means, carry on. Tell it like it is. And root for your son. If he does win the seat, there's no reason why you both can't do your respective jobs, but it won't be easy for either of you. And you probably thought the teenaged years were supposed to be the toughest.

Update: Two job titles have been corrected from the original version.

Notice anything about your hydro bill recently? Prices are up, year-over-year, anywhere between 9 per cent and 14 per cent depending on time-of-day usage. The biggest increase, 14 per cent, is for off-peak. So much for doing a load of laundry at 10 p.m. to save money. And it's only going to get worse. Ontario used to have a ready supply of the cheapest power in North America. Soon we're going to be among the jurisdictions at the top end. The cause? Decades of poor management and worse political oversight.

The original goal of Ontario Hydro, back in 1906 when Adam Beck founded the electric power system, was public ownership selling power to consumers at cost. Now we've got the worst of all worlds; it's still public but there's no accountability. Hydro can run up huge debts and users must pay. In 1995 the Mike Harris government set up a commission of inquiry under former federal finance minister Donald Macdonald to see how competition could be introduced to the system. Macdonald had done a much larger Royal Commission in the 1980s that led to free trade but politics trumped him this time. After Macdonald's report, Harris took a few tentative steps toward privatization, then his successor, Ernie Eves, who was premier for about five minutes, cancelled everything.

The government of Dalton McGuinty made matters worse by cancelling low-cost coal-fired plants. It's all well and good to care about our air quality, but Ohio and Michigan still have coal-fired plants. The prevailing winds bring their pollutants across southern Ontario, so there's no improvement. Two new gas-fired plants were cancelled to win a couple of seats in an election at a cost to taxpayers of $1 billion. Prices paid for solar and wind are so far out of whack that I read about one householder who sells his solar power into the grid, gets an annual return of 10 per cent on his investment, and will send his child to college with the proceeds. 

Parker Gallant, a retired TD banker who now blogs for Energy Probe, keeps a close watch on the atrocities that are being committed. Here's a small sampling of his findings. Since they were first introduced, off-peak rates have increased 140 per cent, moving them ever closer to on-peak rates. Taxpayers have ponied up $12 billion to pay down the stranded debt of $7.8 billion – but there's still $3.9 billion to be paid. The number of employees at Hydro One is up 1,700 or 39 per cent since 2005 even though they distribute less power now than they did then. Pricing has become so weird that when you conserve energy your local distribution company can apply to the Ontario Energy Board for a rate increase because they lost revenue. And finally, my favourite boondoggle, according to Gallant we pay to build meteorological stations at wind developments to monitor power they might have produced, but we can't use, and pay for it anyway.

It's clear that no politician of any stripe can control the run-amok engineering culture that produces our electric power. The answer is simple; follow the same procedures as natural gas used for heating our homes. Private companies control the assets, regulators set the rates, and end users know where they stand. 

In the bird world, there are wonderful descriptions of groups and flocks. Just to cite three examples: a murmuration of starlings, an exaltation of larks, and my personal favourite, a charm of hummingbirds.

Why not apply the same possibilities to human gatherings? So you'd get a tribulation of politicians, a banality of sportscasters, a trepidation of lawyers, a pugnaciousness of hockey players, an exhaustion of Olympics and a reach of bloggers.