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Recording conversations is commonplace in today’s society

Editor: If Dr.

Editor:

If Dr. Jane Philpott and lawyer Jody Wilson-Raybould are "strong women" who "spoke truth to power," are Carla Qualtrough and her fellow Liberal MPs -- men or women -- weak and dishonest for bobbing their heads in support of Justin Trudeau as he deflects questions in Parliament about his role in the SNC-Lavalin scandal?

And what's wrong with recording phone calls? Nixon's recordings gave Americans the evidence they needed to see him as the crook he denied being? Wilson-Raybould's recording of her conversation with the head of the Privy Council revealed him and Trudeau to be liars and colluders. In both cases, recordings gave voters the facts they needed.

More generally, recording conversations is condoned in many instances: marketers and businesses do it as a public relations ploy; calls to the fire or police departments or 911 are recorded without our being informed or reminded; traffic controllers are recorded; train dispatchers, too; reporters record their interviews all the time thus eliminating politicians' ability to lie about being "misquoted" and so on. And let's not forget that anybody can record a phone conversation without informing the other party?

(And need we be reminded that video cameras record our every move when we're out and about? What the public used to see and remember us doing is recorded. We're used to it.)

Besides, anything a politician or bureaucrat utters with a straight face needs to be recorded. Why? They're just the ilk who can fool lie detectors -- and the naive.

Greg J. Edwards