"Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."

So said Douglas MacAurthur, the American general who earned fame in the Korean and Second World Wars.

But what happens to old politicians? Well, if you look at some of our former Prime Ministers of late, it seems they neither die nor fade away, but rather ascend to a kind of corporate heaven of their own making.

They step out of office flush with connections and contacts, which they then parlay into consulting fees, corporate directorships, commissions...in short, a lot of cash.

And power. They often end up with more influence as brokers than they had as politicians. It makes you wonder if the PM's job represents more of a corporate apprenticeship than the pinnacle of public service.

If you think about it, the role of Canadian Prime Minister carries with it a lot of networking opportunities. Imagine all of the exclusive clubs that Canada belongs to, each of them presenting a chance to hobnob with a different set of world leaders.

Look it from any PM's perspective. We're in the Group of Eight, which gives you access to the leaders of the world's major economies. We're in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which puts you in the same room as the heads of most of Europe. We're in the Organization of American States, which takes care of Latin and South America. Then there's the British Commonwealth, which lets you schmooze with a vertable smorgazboard of honchos; Caribbean leaders, Australia, New Zeleand, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, just to name a few, plus half the dictators in Africa. And of course La Francaphonie, the assembly of French-speaking nations, which gives you many of the other African heads and a handful of Arab strongmen to boot.

Think of how many names you'd have in your little black book after nine or ten years of this kind of glad-handing.

Let's look at the last two guys to have held the office of Prime Minister for any length of time; Brian Mulroney and Jean Chrétien.

Not long after leaving office in 1993, Mulroney scored a $300,000 consulting fee from German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber. That's small potatoes nowadays for the boy from Baie Comeau. Mulroney has since made multi-millions through various commissions and directorships.

He's now got a swank home in Palm Beach, Florida, to go with his Montreal mansion; a new base from which to move through the ranks of the mega-powerful. Well-connected to the Bush dynasty, as well as various other international moguls, Mulroney has never been riding so high.

According to author Peter C. Newman, Mulroney "nurtured and expanded his relationships among America's corporate elite while he was in office." Since then he "has emerged as a major player in the shadowy world of international geopolitics, constantly consulted by the rich and powerful, who hand him lucrative assignments and endow him with greater global clout than he had as Prime Minister of Canada."

Peter Munk, who presides over the gold mining giant Barrick and real estate powerhouse TrizecHahn, told Newman that Mulroney "has got this unbelievable network that he has spent years and years developing." (Newman also quotes Munk as saying that Mulroney "knows every dictator in the world on a first name basis," but Munk has since denied making the comment.) Munk shrewdly nabbed Mulroney for the boards of both Barrick and TrizecHahn in 1993, on the heels of the latter's departure from offce. They were the first of several such appointments for the former Conservative Prime Minister.

As for Chrétien, he was out of office for all of two months when he took off to China to do some moving and shaking.

"By moving so quickly into the Chinese business world," wrote Globe and Mail reporter Geoffrey York last February, "Mr. Chrétien will be able to capitalize on his extensive political dealings with Chinese leaders over the past decade. As Prime Minister he visited China six times, led two Team Canada trade and investment missions to the country and met frequently with its top leaders."

Even more recently, Chrétien landed himself an advisory position with a firm called PetroKazakhstan. The firm is based in Calgary, but, as its name implies, it does much of its business in the former Soviet republic. A quick glance at a map will reveal that Kazakhstan is located right beside China, and in fact PetroKazakhstan is actively seeking to export oil to China.

It turns out that most of Chrétien's February trip to China was organized by the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC). CITIC is a huge commercial arm of the Chinese government, involved globally in everything from energy to finance to real estate to military hardware. It's directors report to China's State Council, the nation's executive ruling body. Not a bad contact to have if you're trying to navigate through a Byzantine bureaucracy en route to a massive and potentially lucrative industrial and consumer market.

Perhaps it's impolite to suggest that Chrétien was getting a head start on his new job while he was still in the old one, but the fact is he toured China just before stepping down late last year, and made a point of meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on his last day in office on December 12th, 2003.

And Chrétien is not new to the game of marketing his own "judgment and experience" to well-heeled corporate clients. Between 1986, when he quit public office, and 1990, when he re-entered the political arena as Liberal leader, he made good money providing his services to various business interests in Ottawa. His current dealings in China can be set alongside a number of positions he has landed for himself in the brief time since he left politics. So far he's ensconsed himself with three separate law firms, each of whom presumably hopes to benefit from his circle of influence.

Is any of this illegal? Oh, heaven forbid. Keep in mind that most of these guys begin their long politi-corporate careers in law school; the smarter ones tend to know exactly where the line is drawn and which side of it to stay on. And there's nothing wrong with making a buck, even if it is on top of a pretty lucrative pension package paid for by the Canadian public.

But is there not something rank about the idea of the highest office in the land serving as a mere stepping stone, a chance to make some contacts and fatten the rolodex? We go to the polling station looking for statesmen on the ballot, but what we get are a bunch of careerists climbing the corporate ladder. A ladder in which the office of Prime Minister appears simply to be another step, and one that's notably below the top rung.

Not to mention the example this sets to politicians at lower levels of office. We are continually told not to be cynical about politics, that there are many good elected representatives seeking to serve the public. Fine. But there also seem to be a hell of a lot of them who see a political role as another way of wrangling invites to various high-rollers' backrooms.

All of which provides some food for thought as we head to the polls on June 28th. If you're a little unsure of who to vote for, if you're a bit uncertain as to who can best handle various issues, relax. After all, it's not like you're electing a future leader.

You're merely electing a future lobbyist.