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 Martinis ? presently encamped in a tent on the lawn of 24 Sussex Drive ? are in a very nervous mode in the dog days of summer. The prime minister, having been revealed as a robot run by his Earnscliffe lobbyists who knew how to overthrow the previous guy who couldn't speak either of the two official languages but didn't know how to run an election campaign, are for the first time reading the history books and learning about John Diefenbaker. Herle and The Rest surely should have remembered. But perhaps they weren't born then. Surely Herle, who dresses like a bum at formal affairs to allegedly show his contempt for Ottawa, should remember, since he is after all from Saskatchewan. What they might learn from Dief the Chief is that the unwashed electorate, once tasting blood, go for the kill. The Man from Prince Albert ? immortalized by Peter C. Newman in his Renegade in Power ? astonished us all in 1957 by overthrowing C.D. Howe ("minister of everything") and the arrogant Liberals, thanks to the pipeline debate. Canadian voters, flushed with pride at what they had done, given the chance in 1958 gave Dief what he really deserved ? a smashing majority government wowing even Quebec, where his painful "Diefenbaker French" gave nightclub comics great material. Paul Martin's wobbling minority government must be contemplating the lessons of history. Having survived ? only due to the incompetence and inexperience of the Stephen Harper advisers ? the wobblers know that the electorate is licking its lips, prepared to finish the job the next time. Possibly by Christmas, after the nervous ones, knowing their peril, finally re-open the House of Commoners zoo on Oct. 4. Peter C. changed Canadian political writing forever with his wildly-selling Renegade in Power (with the result every academic in Canada hates his guts ? along with Pierre Berton because they made politics actually readable.) Newman ? now removed temporarily from his London residence and sitting on his yacht in Toronto harbour awaiting the autumn flog of his memoirs ? of course knew the title of his ground-breaking book was a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron: how can you be a "renegade" while in "power"? But that was what Dief was. Always suspicious of the hostile high swivel servants in Ottawa who resented him. Always thinking there were devious Tory plots to unseat him. As there were ? hello there, George Hees. But what is Paul Martin a "renegade" from? From Power Corp.? From Canada Steamship Lines? And now ? what irony ? he is trying to become a renegade, disengaging himself from Andre Ouellet, an inside power-broker from Quebec he has known for years and now the shaky Martin minority government is trying to fire (while salary still paid) from being the highest-salary fat cat in ? $400,000, to deliver the mail? ? Ottawa. Whose expense account makes the unfortunate George Radwanski look like a piker. See 'Cynical' P.# Con't from P.# From the Ottawa audit, the slush ? no receipts required ? came to, assumed he took Sundays off, $1,041.67 a day over eight years. The 67 pence, we presume, was for the tip. And, by pure happenstance, the thorough audit on the Canada Post boss was delayed by the PMO to come out only after the June 28 election. Are we cynical? Of course not. But the voters are. Martin has a weak front bench. The shrill Anne McLellan hasn't the strength to be deputy PM. Tony Valeri, with no French, can't really cope with being House leader. Pierre Pettigrew is a poseur as Foreign Affairs Minister. The people camped out in the tent on the 24 Sussex Lawn are more than nervous. They are terrified. The example of Dief the Chief awaits them. X X X AND ANOTHER THING Dick Pound, the very smart Montreal lawyer, is among other things a former Olympic Games medallist in swimming for Canada and now head of the Olympic anti-drugs mission. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, at a cocktail party at the Canadian consul-general's pad, he was asked how he thought the preparations for Athens were coming along. "Well, I'll tell you one thing," he replied. "You won't be able to get a single hotel room. The terrorists have already booked them." It was a great line, got a great laugh. Unfortunately for Pound, I suspect he told it too many times at too many cocktail parties. Which is the reason ?he the favorite ? did not win the vote to be the new head of the International Olympic Committee. That going to the previously little-known Jacques Rogge of Belgium. We will see if Pound was prescient.
