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.
Well, you see, it is the Grand Ballroom in the Sheraton Hotel in Tranna, Centre of the Universe, and there are some 1,100 idolators collected for the speech of Belinda Stronach. It is before the combined audiences of the Empire Club and the Canadian Club, the two non-profit outfits that provide a platform for the most important person in the world this week. The esteemed sponsors have offered, in front of the rubber chicken, the three contenders, in a fortnight, for the championship of the new Reform/Alliance/Tory dog's breakfast known as the Conservative Party of almost-all Canada. Tony Clement drew 350 bodies. Stephen Harper drew 430. BelindaÐBay Street obeys what Bay Street is ordered to doÐdraws the afore-mentioned 1,100, all of them identical in dark suits. The wineÐthe Empire and Canadian clubs being the nest of WASP EstablishmentÐflowed like glue. The Empire Club always toasts "to our Queen", who happens to live far away across an ocean in a castle. The Canadian Club, more politically-correct, calls for "a toast to Canada." It comes in ice water. The 37-year-old who would be prime minister is quite good this day. She has sharpened up her speech writers, joking up that she has been labelled "Magna Spice," the "It Girl" and "Bionic Stronach." A good touch, for the daughter of an immigrant who arrived in Canada from Austria with $4 in his pocket, started his auto parts dream in his garage and now is a billionaire who owns all but three of the most important race tracks in the Excited States of America. The strangest part of her father's dream is that Stephen Harper, the intelligent obvious winner of the Tory race who is a man very hard to like, is more than somewhat worried about the 37-year-old who is sharpening up her platform style. Because of the bizarre (i.e. goofy) party rules extant, each of the 301 ridings in the land have an equivalent vote. See 'Wintry' P.# Con't from P.# Which means, in the wintry wastes of the Gaspe, where Conservative back-room boy Tom Long foundered, where perhaps non-existent Conservatives can be bought (or, ahem, sold memberships) that riding will have the equivalent weight of a Harper riding in Red Deer that has 25,000 real people. Such is life. That's how Brian Mulroney, supposedly Belinda's secret guru, became PM. It is noted, at the head table larded with heavyweightsÐtwo Tory premiers, Bill Davis and Mike Harris, not to mention former lieutenant-governor Hilary WestonÐis Elmer MacKay (father of Peter), former solicitor-general in the Mulroney cabinet, flown in from Nova Scotia to add some clout. She said, "Martin wasn't the steward on the Good Ship Chretien. He was First Mate." She's not going to win. But, under the rules, on March 20 at the leadership convention in Tranna, if Harper doesn't win on the first ballot, she and Clement will decide who goes for who on the second. X x x QUOTE OF THE MONTH "I don't think anymore."Ð Jean Chretien, replying to reporters asking him about his response to the $100 million advertising boondoggle. X x x It was British Labour prime minister Harold Wilson, succeeding Harold Macmillan, who coined the phrase: "In politics, a week is a long time." As only now, Peter Mansbridge and the CBC have learned that truism. Poor Mansbridge, off in Kabul, schmoozing with our lonely troops in Afghanistan, having to lead off his broadcasts with the latest scandal on lonely, snow-filled Ottawa. Someone had a great idea. Too bad. X x x SECOND BEST QUOTE OF MONTH "The president is not a statistician."Ð White House press secretary Scott McClellan, over the George Bush prediction that the U.S economy would generate 2.6 million jobs this year, over last year's projection of at least 1.7 million new jobsÐwhich turned out to be a loss of 53,000 jobs. X x x BEST JOURNALISTIC JOB OF THE WEEK Christie Blatchford of the Globe and Mail, pointing out that Ron Osbourne, fired as president and CEO of Ontario Power Generation with a salary package of $950,000 last year (and seated just beneath the salt at the Belinda lunch) submitted a bill for $16.79 for an in-room movie. X x x ALL TIME QUOTE "One of the greatest myths of the industry: that journalists are essential to producing a newspaper."Ð Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour.
