What Happens When No One Owns the Damage
BY BOB GALLAGHER MTWX EDITORIAL TEAM
There’s a difference between an honest mistake—and a system that’s set up to never take the blame.
In Canada today, accountability has become a press release. A shrug. A word used to deflect rather than deliver. We’ve let leaders rise through the ranks without ever answering for the trail of broken systems behind them.
Health care fails. Transit collapses. Small businesses fold under weight they didn’t create. But no one steps forward. No one says, “That was on me.”
And so we absorb it. We—the public—become the shock absorbers for political negligence. And with every unaccounted failure, a little more faith in democracy disappears.
This isn’t about being angry. It’s about being honest. And if we still believe in the idea of leadership, we have to start demanding more than damage control.
🔍 WHY IT MATTERS
Because when failure becomes tradition, people lose faith—not just in politicians, but in democracy itself.
Because when no one gets fired, nothing gets fixed.
Because when the people who break things never pay the price, it’s the rest of us who do.
🧱 WHAT ACCOUNTABILITY LOOKS LIKE
Accountability isn’t about revenge. It’s about responsibility. And right now, responsibility is in short supply.
It means standing up and saying, “This happened on my watch—and I will make it right.”
It means fewer announcements and more audits. Less performance and more truth.
It means putting the needs of the public ahead of the preservation of power.
It means that when systems crack, the people at the top don’t disappear into spin—they step up and carry the weight. Even when it’s heavy. Especially when it’s heavy.
Because if no one owns the damage, it only gets worse.
This isn’t just about leadership. It’s about survival. This country is walking toward a storm. And we can’t afford actors—we need anchors.
We need leaders who admit when they got it wrong. Who knock on doors instead of waiting for applause. Who face hard truths with steady hands.
Because that’s what accountability looks like. It’s not flashy. It’s not easy. But it’s everything.
And if we don’t demand it now, we may not get another chance.
But it’s not just politicians and high-ranking officials who bear the weight. Accountability has a second home—in the day-to-day decisions made by employees inside big government and corporate offices.
If you file the paperwork that blocks a refund, delay a response that causes harm, or stay quiet when something clearly isn’t right—you are part of the outcome.
Moral courage doesn’t require a title. It requires a compass. One that points to doing the right thing—even when the rules allow you to look the other way.
Systems don’t rot from the top alone. They corrode one silence at a time.
Accountability means everyone asking: “Did I do the right thing? Or did I just follow the system and let someone else take the hit?”
Especially inside big government—where the most powerful decisions are often made by people no one elected. Who leads them? Who reminds them that power without scrutiny is the slowest kind of corruption?
In systems this large, morality can’t just come from the top. It has to live inside every desk, every department, and every decision. Because when those in the shadows turn away, the whole structure tilts.
That’s the standard. Not for someday—for right now. And it’s time we start holding them to it.
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— Bob Gallagher
bob.gallagher@mtwx.ca
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