This week’s column: little shovels, big graves

— 08.31.2016 03:31 AM

Back when he was Liberal leader, I worked for Jean Chrétien. 

I was his Special Assistant. I wrote speeches for him, helped out on Question Period, approved his correspondence, stuff like that. I didn’t ever have anything to do with his trips to different parts of Canada, thank God. Other guys did that. 

Early on, one story made the rounds in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, however. All of us heard about it, and we didn’t forget it. 
Chrétien was out and about in the hinterland – Northern Ontario, I think, but it doesn’t matter. He and his one assistant clambered off the plane, alighted on the tarmac, and they saw It. 

It was a limo. 

It stood there, all shiny and big and black, a beaming local Liberal organizer beside it. The local organizer had rented the limo to squire the Liberal leader around during his visit. 

Chrétien’s face reddened. The assistant stammered. The local organizer frowned. 

“We will not get in that,” said the assistant, trying to be as nice as possible. “We will wait here until someone shows up with a Chevy or a car like that, please, one ideally made in Canada.”

“It shouldn’t be fancy.”

There may have been some swear words somewhere in there, too, but this is a family newspaper. Suffice to say that all of us who worked for Jean Chrétien – and all of the local Liberal organizers, too – got the message. 

The message, per the political bard (Tip O’Neill, natch), is this: in politics, take the job seriously. 

But don’t take yourself seriously. 

That’s the main problem, of course, with the expense account stuff now buffeting the Trudeau government: some people are taking themselves way too seriously. They work hard, so they tell themselves they deserve that shiny black limo, purring as It awaits them at a curb somewhere. They think – to recall that line that will forever live infamy – they’re entitled to their entitlements. 

More than ten thousand bucks to hire a photographer to snap pictures of a Minister and her staff (Staff? STAFF? Um, why?) Thousands spent on limos and lounge passes. Untold thousands to ferry the Prime Minister’s staff and relatives to sunny beaches on government jets – and the evidence later altered to show something else. 

None of these people are corrupt, as some conservative voices are now suggesting. They are not stupid people, either. They are not intrinsically evil, as far as I know. 

They are, however, about to learn Kinsella’s Political Rule Number One: big political graves are dug with tiny shovels. 

Sixteen dollar orange juice. Gucci loafers. Gold-plated faucets on a plane. Claiming per diems for a house you don’t actually live in.  

None of ’em added up to big dollars. But all of them contributed to very powerful losing power. 

The Trudeau regime spinners are now trotting out the same facile spin lines as every government (the Chrétien one excluded, that is) since time immemorial. Here they are. 

• “The other guys did it too!” – This one didn’t work when you were seven and you and your sibling ate all the Halloween candy, and it certainly won’t work now. Saying you are as covered in sin as the other guy isn’t an excuse, it’s an admission of guilt.

• “It’s cheaper than the alternative!” – The Environment Minister gave this one a whirl for a while. Said they: “We could have flown over a photographer from Canada, but we saved you lots of money by hiring a photographer in Paris!” Um, no. Firstly, you have those government-issue smart phone things to take pictures, and government-issue staffers to snap the damn shutter. Secondly, there’s no such thing as a cheap anything in Paris. 

• “Canadians don’t care. Nothing to see here, move along!” – The Harper guys loved this one. They used it all the time. Got them kicked out of government, didn’t it? Ipso facto, Kinsella’s Political Rule Number Two: a significant number of Canadians don’t know how many million are in a billion. But they sure as shit know you can afford to pay for your own parking out of your own paycheque. 

And therein lies the rub. As I sat with Jean Chretien on a Summertime bench on Sparks Street, munching a two-dollar hot dog paid for out of our own pockets – bureaucrats on their way to fancy expense account lunches at the NAC, agape at the Prime Ministerial presence – I made a mental note to scribble down Kinsella’s Political Rules Three and Four for later use. 

They are: Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less. 

And: IT’S NOT YOUR MONEY, POLITICAL FOLKS. 

IT’S OURS. 

(Also, don’t ever get in the limo.)


Comments (19)

Mark Critch is an asshole

— 08.27.2016 06:46 AM

Seriously, he is. Even the Star seems to think so.

Here’s what he put up on the Internet. 

So, in his defence, Critch allegedly does comedy. I haven’t ever watched his show or whatever, but I would imagine trying to be funny is hard. (I guess.)

Anyway, on the day Stephen Harper packed it in as an MP, Critch posted the thing above. It’s apparently a joke about Harper hiding in a closet on the day a self-appointed jihadist murdered a Canadian soldier and stormed Parliament Hill, shooting at people. 

I’ve talked about that day with MPs from all parties. All of them say they are still a bit haunted by what happened, and they’ll never forget it. All of them were hiding on the Hill, that day, hoping to avoid getting killed. All of them. 

One said to me afterward: “The shots were really, really loud. They were happening right outside our caucus room door. We didn’t know what was happening, but we knew we could could get shot. We were all texting our families.”

Here’s the thing, Mark Critch comedian guy: if Stephen Harper was in a closet, it’s because the RCMP pushed him in there, you feckless moron. 

I’ve worked for a Prime Minister, and walked around with him on the Hill and off, and I can tell you that’s the RCMP’s  job. Just like that time a bunch of Secret Service agents threw themselves on top of Ronald Reagan to keep him from being shot again, remember? That’s the job. It didn’t look like John Wayne in the movies – all swagger and indifference to bullets flying – but it probably saved the President’s life. 

Stephen Harper, and now Justin Trudeau, didn’t sign up to get killed. They didn’t ever claim to be experts on personal security, either. Leaders and their families deserve every bit of the protection they get, and more. When there’s a real threat, the RCMP take over, not the politicians. 

And if that means the cops have to push the politicians into a fucking closet to protect them from an active shooter, that’s a good thing. They are being smart and brave. 

You, meanwhile, are being an asshole. 


Comments (78)

It is a sin to despise anyone

— 08.26.2016 05:51 AM

I didn’t say that. God did, in Proverbs 14:21. 

Hillary Clinton’s meticulous, pedantic speech about the sin of Donald Trump’s racism  yesterday – about which many of you sent me emails and text messages, thank you – was a major speech. It was big. Not because of the subject matter – all of us have known for some time that Trump has built his campaign on a foundation of hate. It was extraordinary that, in this day and age, it was a speech that would need to be given in the first place. 

To wit:

1. A major candidate for the office of President of the United States is a proud racist, and he doesn’t hide it. 2. He regularly spews hate. 3. A third of Americans (at least) like what he says. 

Think about that. 

Hillary did, clearly, and she came up with a speech that read like an papal indictment of a blasphemer. It was sermon – thus my invocation of God, at the outset – and it was delivered with barely-controlled clerical fury. No music, no hoopla, just step up to the podium and lay waste to Trump, point by footnoted point. She eviscerated him. 

You can read it all here. You should.
As most of you know, I have been documenting and writing about racism and anti-Semitism and organized hate for more than three decades. I’ve written two books about the subject, Unholy Alliances and Web of Hate. Yesterday, in reaction to Hillary’s speech, most people referenced the latter. But it’s the (lesser-known) former book that is actually more relevant. In that book, I describe how white supremacists and neo-Nazis always devote considerable resources to coming up with a kinder, gentler names for themselves – and how the media are too often suckered into going along. (Back then, they called themselves “the third position.”)

Regrettably, Hillary went on, at some length, about the “alt right” yesterday. You can lose a lot of time trying to define it, which is what it’s adherents want you to do. They are big on semantics. Along with alt right, they variously refer to themselves as nativists, nationalists, populists, and sometimes even white nationalists. 

But they’re just racists. Racists. 

They hate immigration (because it brings in non-whites). They hate the financial system (because it is run by Jews). They hate cultural change (because it has given power to gays and lesbians and others). They hate everyone who isn’t like them, basically. 

Ipso facto, they’re just garden-variety bigots. And, therefore, it’s a mistake to do what Hillary did yesterday – call them “alt right,” when they’re simply “racists.” It’s a mistake to assist them in masking their true purpose. It’s a mistake to assist them in their lie. 

That criticism aside, her speech was one that will be remembered by history. It made me proud of her that she wanted to deliver that anti-racist sermon when she is so far ahead. 

And it made me sad that she needed to. 


Comments (19)