The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The hottest social evening of the year in Ottawa, that strange town, is the annual Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner. Black tie. With simple rules. The simple rules are that every member of the Ottawa Press GalleryÑthere are now 450 such hacksÑis allowed to invite one guest. The guest must be either a Member of Parliament, or a high member of the swivel servants, who would die for a seat. Of course, the usual cheating goes onÑevery publisher or editor of every main newspaper in Canada ordering their minions in their Ottawa bureaus to get them a ticket, or enjoy their new posting in Inuvik. The theme is a Hollywood-style "roast," a concept that the cerebral Pierre Trudeau could never grasp. Every year, the droll Robert StanfieldÑsuch a wooden figure in publicÑwould wipe out Trudeau because he understood self-deprecating humour was the key. Trudeau, a man with no ego of course, accompanied by his inborn contempt for the ink-stained wretches, was so inept at this idea that Larry Zolf, the manic CBC refugee from Winnipeg, volunteeredÑunpaidÑto write his jokes for him. After three despairing yearsÑTrudeau walking all over his punch lines, delivering Zolf's wit as if he was reading the telephone bookÑZolf in a rage the next day after the latest disaster encountered the prime minister in Parliament corridor and exploded. "Sir," he said, "You couldn't deliver a joke in a Brink's truck! I resign." Such was Ottawa in those days. The main trick to the gig, naturally, was which high-or-low-priced scribbler could garner the highest-ranked guest. Susan Delacourt, a sharp young lady who at the time did not rate in the uppermost feeding chain, was so sharp as to invite as her guest a new cabinet minister named Paul Martin. So much did they get along that she took him to the next Press Gallery whingding. And perhaps too many. And the usual incestuous gang gossip in the country's most insular city had it there was more than the usual professional relationship between the two. It wasn't true, both being happily married. But it has produced a very useful book just out: Juggernaut; Paul Martin's Campaign for Chretien's Crown. It details, with ample evidence from the inside, where all the bodies are buried. Everyone of them. One of Delacourt's most delicious bits is Paul Martin Sr.'s advice to the son going into politicsÑ"Find yourself a good newspaper man." That was a distant, more cynical era of course and the young reporter confesses that in the 15 years since she first ran across Martin Jr. she worried that she was pegged as just that person. She writes: "Please, please, don't pick me". Nevertheless, this tome indicates which side she is on. Mr. Chretien, no dummy he, declined to be interviewed for the book. He knew what was coming. A lady who escorts his mortal enemy to too many Parliamentary Press Gallery dinners is not going to sup the soup at 24 Sussex Drive very often. Ottawa is a very small town. The author has all the inside baseball. How Chretien in private conversation used to refer to "Martin's Italian cabinet"ÑLiberal caucus members Joe Volpe, Joe Fontana, Tony Valeri, Tony Ianno, Albina Guarnieri, Maurizo Bevilacqua, Joe Comuzzi and Nick Discepola. Others on the PM's side nicknamed them the Spaghetti Caucus or the Martinis. And howÑwhich has been on the gossip circuit before nowÑwhen a supposed coup d'etat was mounted by recalcitrant Liberal backbenchers in a down-market Toronto airport hotel, an enraged Aline Chretien "clenched her hand into a fist and uttered three simple words: "Four more years." I've always maintained over the years that she has been the most powerful politician in the land. Only this time, as Delacourt proves, it didn't work. Time and time again, the author who knows Martin so well tries to prove that he is not indecisiveÑthe real reason Chretien hates his rival, thinking him weakÑbut again and again reveals how Martin relies so much on his young and bright aides who have guided him from the day he entered politics. He wants to hear from everyoneÑabsolutely everyoneÑfor their views before making a decision. No Churchill here, no Trudeau, no Stalin. Do we really want a PM run by a committee? Delacourt omits a comment written by the wise old sage of the aforementioned Press Gallery, Doug Fisher. "Ever notice," he has written, "that when Paul Martin smiles his eyes don't?"
