Punish him. Make it hurt.

When this writer — an aspiring painter — heard that someone had thrown paint on Tom Thomson’s masterpiece Northern River, I was very angry.

It happened this week. A man came to the National Gallery in Ottawa and smeared pink paint across the front of it. He was a member of an “environmental” group called On2Ottawa, reports said. After he defaced Thomson’s work, he glued himself to the floor.

A “climate activist,” some media called him. A “terrorist,” others might call him.

I come from a family of artists, you see. “Art is the greatest form of hope,” the British artist Banksy once said, and it’s true. To deface Thomson’s painting — which took two years to complete and is considered one of the greatest works of art ever produced in this country — was to deface hope itself.

My initial reaction, I confess, was that someone should break the fingers and arms of the paint-thrower, so that they can never do it again. I was that angry.

But, no. That’s extreme. That’s the kind of thing the Taliban does, isn’t it? Ironically, the paint-throwers share quite a bit in common with the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist group that now rules over Afghanistan. They try to murder art, too.

The Taliban burn books, prohibit music and — infamously — kill works of art. Upon seizing power in the 1990s, the Taliban systematically and efficiently destroyed thousands of works of art at the Afghan National Museum and elsewhere because they were “un-Islamic.”

In all, 70% of the museum’s artifacts — some 100,000 individual works — were destroyed by the Taliban. In 2001, they obliterated the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan because they were considered un-Islamic and blasphemous. The statues were more than a 1,000 years old.

The destruction of art — the extermination of art — was not something invented by the Taliban, however. Over the centuries, it has happened many times.

Acid thrown onto a Rembrandt by a mentally ill man in Russia. A Velazquez ripped to shreds by a British feminist who later embraced fascism. A shotgun blast fired into a Da Vinci depicting The Virgin and Child in London’s National Gallery.

And, of course, fascists and extremists often target art first. The Nazis destroyed thousands of works of art by cubists, expressionists and impressionists in Germany and France — because they considered them “degenerate.”

So this week’s attack on Thomson’s masterwork is not without precedent. (It was not permanent, either; glass protected it from permanent damage.) Lunatics and monsters are always using beautiful works of art to make a political statement.

And Thomson’s Northern River is unquestionably beautiful. It is extraordinary.

Our greatest artist worked on it on a large canvas — unusual for him — over two years in 1914 and 1915. It depicts thin, dark trees reaching for a Canadian sky, some water glinting in the background. It is a scene that every Canadian has seen or should. It has been described as perfect. It may not be that, but it certainly seems like a perfect rendering of the Canadian wilderness.

It’s not known where Thomson saw what would later become Northern River. Algonquin Park formed the subject matter of many of his masterpieces, of course, but a friend of Thomson’s later said it wasn’t a scene from there. So it could be anywhere in Canada, really.

Why would anyone want to destroy something like that? Why attack beauty? Why would they smear paint on it?

On their website, On2Ottawa says that they are prepared to break laws because “the state is acting immorally.”

Maybe. Perhaps. But the ones who try to destroy art that depicts the very environment that On2Ottawa claims to be concerned about?

They’re the ones who were the most immoral this week.

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BOSTON – A few years back, Jean Chrétien said this:

“A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It’s a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.”

Get that? It’s quite a few years later, and I still don’t. And I worked for the guy (some say I still do).

I mean, you could read those words 100 times, backwards and forwards, and you’d still have a hard time figuring it out. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s like a Rubik’s Cube with 17 sides. You can’t do it.

Politics being a business for people who are nasty, brutish and short-tempered, I thought Chretien’s words – uttered in a Parliament Hill scrum, back when he was Prime Minister – would be roundly mocked and ridiculed.

I thought Conservatives, with their tiny black hearts, would belittle him. I thought us Chretienite spin doctors would be sent out to explain the unexplainable.

Nope. Not needed. Nobody understood what Chrétien had said, really, but it didn’t matter. They loved it.

I later mentioned my bewildered befuddlement to a Tory friend. He laughed. “Oh, I loved that,” he said of the now-legendary Proof Is A Proof thing. “Classic Chrétien.”

Which brings us to Joe Biden, another politician I have worked for, full disclosure and all that. I’m down here in the U.S. of A., and my gal brought it to my attention. “Did you see what Biden did in Hawaii?” asked E. I winced.

In politics, when you get a question like that, it almost always precedes bad news. Like: did you see Robert Stanfield try and catch that football? (He didn’t.) Or: did you see Preston Manning actually read French cue cards at the French debate? (He did.) And so on.

So, when he was in Hawaii to survey the terrible damage and destruction and death caused by the Maui fire, my guy Joe Biden said he understood what the people of Hawaii had gone through. Because he’d almost lost his ’67 Corvette one time.

Seriously, he said that. This is exactly what he said: “Lightning struck at home, on a little lake that’s outside of our home—not a lake, a big pond—and hit a wire that came up underneath our home into the heating ducts and air conditioning ducts. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette, and my cat.”

His Corvette. And his cat.

Is it bad? It’s bad. Is it embarrassing? It’s embarrassing.

Will it matter? It won’t matter.

Stay with me, here. I know you conservative types already hate me for working for Chretien and Biden. I get it. How can I work for two guys who can’t string two sentences together, you’ll say on Twitter or whatever the Hell it’s called now.

Except, conservatives, if you are being honest with yourselves – hard, I know – you’ll admit that you’ve got your fair share of politicos who mangle meaning, gut grammar and shred syntax. You’ve got conservatives who deal in multiple malapropisms and mistakes, too.

Take George W. Bush. Remember this gem? “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.” Or: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.” Or, my all-time favorite: “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”

And you know what happened after W. said those sorts of things? He got re-elected, that’s what. People didn’t get mad. They laughed.

Donald Trump, too. Most of the time, it sounds like the cheese has slipped off the Mango Mussolini’s cracker. “The buck stops with everybody,” he said once. Another time, speaking about trade with China, he said: “We have the cards, don’t forget, we’re like the piggy bank that’s being robbed, we have the cards.”

Seriously: what does any of that have to do with trade or China? Beats me. And: Would you like a cup of covfefe to wash those down?

The point – and I have one – is this: humans make mistakes. Everyone does. It’s one of the things that makes us human.

People therefore like politicians who make mistakes, too: it makes them seem more like humans, and not lying, conniving criminals, which is what many of them are, most of the time.

So, cut Biden some slack. Bush and Trump for their verbal missteps, too. Nobody’s perfect.

You want proof? Well, a proof is a proof. Because it’s proven.

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Dear Mr. Poilievre:

Not to get all conspiratorial, here, but we need to talk. About, you know, conspiracies.

All cards on the table, big guy: the country has had its fill, and then some, of Justin Trudeau. From coast to coast, old to young, male to female and all points in between: we want Justin to leave. Go cobble together a ghost-written memoir in time for the Xmas season, Lucky Sperm Club guy, and hit the WE lecture circuit. Go.

See, Pierre? We’re not necessarily against you. We know that, if Justin doesn’t leave of his own accord, you are the figurative bailiff: you’re the only guy with the wherewithal to move Justin and his sock collection onto the sidewalk on Sussex.

But, Pierre: we’re not necessarily for you, either. The jury is still out on you.

Because of you.

For quite some time, the country has been saying: Trudeau, go. But the country has also been saying: Pierre? No.

There was a bunch of reasons why the country didn’t embrace you right away, most of which you’ve now addressed. You used to be pro-life, now you’re pro-choice. You used to dislike gay marriage, now you do. You used to be seemingly against a bunch of things – more immigration, Indigenous reconciliation – that you are now for.

You hung out with Covid-denier convoy types who occupied bridges and major Canadian cities, but not anymore. You used to talk a lot about vaccinations, but no longer. You used to wear glasses and look a bit nerdy. No more: you’ve ditched the glasses and started using Brian Lilley’s former trainer.

It’s all good, Pierre. Except…conspiracies. They’re back, apparently. Like a stain on the rug in the sitting room, the WEF one is back. And everyone can see it.

CTV (no Lefty bastion) was the first to circulate the Canadian Press (owned by newspapers, not the CBC as you falsely claimed) story. Here’s the lede:

“Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been hitting the summer barbecue circuit with ramped-up rhetoric around debunked claims that the World Economic Forum is attempting to impose its agenda on sovereign governments.”

Big allegation, one that CP knew would be damaging to your ambitions. So they backed it up. They quoted a Conservative Party fundraising appeal you sent to thousands of people: “It’s far past time we rejected the globalist Davos elites and bring home the common sense of the common people.”

“Globalist elites.” We’ll get back to that one in a minute. 

CP then quoted you at a Penticton, B.C. rally: “I will ban all of my ministers and top government officials from any involvement in the World Economic Forum.”

So, you’re back at it, on the WEF nonsense. 

What is the World Economic Forum, anyway? Well, on its web site, it defines itself in this way: “The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

The Britannica people say this: “The World Economic Forum (WEF), international organization (https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-organization) that convenes (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/convenes) an annual winter (https://www.britannica.com/science/winter) conference, traditionally in Davos (https://www.britannica.com/place/Davos), Switz., for the discussion of global commerce, economic development (https://www.britannica.com/topic/economic-development), political concerns, and important social issues.”

Your former boss, Stephen Harper, used to go and speak there. So did your cabinet colleagues, including one who chaired your leadership campaign. You yourself used to be found on a WEF web site. Big deal. 

Crazy people think the WEF secretly rules the world. Crazy people have always believed stuff like that, just like the things they used to believe about the Freemasons or the Illuminati or the Trilateralists or the Learned Elders of Zion. 

Personally, I’ve always thought the Davos gatherings are awful, too, Pierre. But not for the same reasons as you. 

I opposed them because they were wankfests of rich, pompous, wildly-out-of-touch jerks who talked a lot but did precisely nothing. You, however, leaned into the conspiracy theory that the WEF has boundless power over the lives of “common people,” quote unquote. 

It doesn’t. It actually doesn’t do anything, and you know it. 

In fairness, Justin Trudeau regularly dabbles in untruths, too. When he does, we call it “lying.” When you do it, we call it “conspiracy theories.”

I prefer “lying,” myself. That’s a better way of describing it. 

Oh, and the “globalist elite” thing? The American Jewish Committee says that’s a trope “used to promote the anti-Semitic conspiracy that Jewish people do not have allegiance to their countries of origin.” 

The Anti-Defamation League says “white supremacists and other anti-Semites frequently use the term as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.”

I know quite a bit about white supremacists and anti-Semites, Pierre, and you are decidedly not one. Nor are you stupid. 

But the stuff you’ve again started spewing about the WEF and “globalist elites,” Pierre? It’s stupid. It’s beneath you. And it’s unnecessary. You’re way ahead in the polls, and you didn’t get there by peddl
ing crap to knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers. 

Smile more, Pierre. Be upbeat. Talk about your ideas to help people. Tell the truth. Do all that, and you’ll win. 

But keep it up with the conspiracy theories, and you’ll lose. Guaranteed. 

Sincerely,

Etc.

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