Tip O’Neill, the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives for a decade – and a successful politician for a lot longer than that – knew his way around a political axiom.

Some of the many truisms Mr. O’Neill, the Massachusetts Democrat, left to the political classes include: “Never speak of yourself in the third person” – something certain regal and vice-regal personages more than occasionally forget. Or: “Never get introduced to the crowd at sporting events” – unless, of course, a tidal wave of boos and catcalls is, politically, your cup of tea. And, of course, my personal favourite: “Any jackass can kick over the barn.”

For those imprudent enough to take in the return of Parliament on cable television, just yesterday, jackasses were in abundance – and entirely located within the ranks of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Braying and screeching like a herd of addled quadrupeds, they expressed outrage and demanded ministerial resignations with abandon – paying no attention, whatsoever, to one immutable fact: the so-called “scandal” at the Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) is many things. But a scandal it ain’t.

Notwithstanding the utter disinterest Canadians have exhibited for The Mother of All Misappropriations – as evidenced by the latest Angus Reid Group poll, for starters, which establishes that the Liberal Party’s popularity continues to exceed that of all the other parties put together – let us give the Opposition’s Parliamentary giants the benefit of the doubt. If the political, ahem, movement formerly known as Reform – and which now labours under an acronym with which we have all become sadly familiar – believes there is a problem, let us take a good, hard look at it, shall we? And, while we are it, let’s ask the Opposition a few questions, too.

Question one: which MPs’ ridings received money from these terrible, awful, Satanic job programs at HRDC? Well, pretty much all of them, actually. In the House of Commons on Monday, Reformers and Tories carefully neglected to mention that constituents in their own ridings received gargantuan amounts of funding. In the case of Reform and Conservative HRDC critics Diane Ablonczy and Jean Dube – the principal tormentors of the eminently-decent Human Resources minister Jane Stewart - $7.1 million and $17.9 million, respectively, was received. I do not recall Ms. Ablonczy or Mr. Dube flinging themselves upon the envelopes containing the offending cheques, as they landed in mailboxes in their constituencies - but perhaps I was not paying attention. I do remember, however, Mr. Dube telling the media on January 25 that the Transitional Jobs Fund (TJF) “works quite well.” And was that Ms. Ablonczy’s dapper Reform colleague, Keith Martin, chirping that the TJF “bolsters the economy” in his B.C. riding? It was, it was.

Question two: how many trillions of dollars are missing, thanks to the perfidy of the HRDC bureaucrats and their conniving Liberal political masters? To hear Ms. Ablonczy tell it – or the leader of the former Reform, or CRAP, or the Alliance – a whopping $1 billion has slipped into an accounting Bermuda Triangle. At the risk of putting a fine point of it, no. The facts are that an audit took a look at 459 job creation projects, representing about $200 million within the aforementioned billion. Out of those 459 projects, there were problems with 37 of them – stay with me, here – which is somewhere south of ten per cent. The 37 projects had a value of less than $30 million. For anyone, that’s a lot of money, and Ms. Stewart is right to say that she wants to know what went awry. But $30 million isn’t $1 billion, last time I checked. If you don’t believe me, ask the Auditor General: he gave his thumbs-up to Ms. Stewart’s plans to investigate the controversy.

Question three: if every MP got money in their riding, and a lot less than $1 billion was poorly administered, why is everyone so upset? The pollsters at Angus Reid have the answer to that one, but no one is paying any attention, it seems. With Prime Minister Jean Chretien continuing to the lead the most popular government in the history of Canadian polling, and his Liberal Party readying for another possible majority win, who can blame the Opposition (and, while we’re at it, the ink-stained wretches and wretchesses in the Parliamentary Press Gallery) for being frustrated? APEC didn’t work as a scandal, and neither did all of that hollering about Shawinigan. The economy is booming, jobs are up, and regular folks seem to genuinely like Mr. Chretien. What is to be done? Invent a scandal, of course. Call in the Mounties to investigate! Demand resignations! Invoke the apocalypse!

In case anyone in the Opposition benches is paying attention – and one can reliably bet that they are not – here’s the skinny, boys and girls: when you dial up the outrage meter too high, you lose Joe and Jane Frontporch.

Or, as Tip O’Neill said: “Know when to quit.”

So quit, already!

[Warren Kinsella is a Toronto lawyer and former assistant to Jean Chretien.]