The Citizen, 2006-11-23, Page 5T HE CITIZEN,THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2006. PAGE 5.
Other Views
Just, zingin' in the reign
The MacKay/Belinda/Dog thing — is it
over? Please tell me it's over. I'm not
sure I want to even throw the blankets
off one more morning if my newspaper is
going to be full of he said/she said/no he
didn't/yes he did.
It's not the insult that annoys me — Belinda's
a big girl who can take care of herself.
It's not even the question of whether Peter
MacKay lied about calling his ex-girlfriend a
dog. Do bears wear crucifixes? Of course he
lied — and prevaricating through his capped
teeth is familiar territory for Mister MacKay.
This is the guy who, just ttiree years ago, in
order to gain David Orchard's support in the
Tory leadership race, solemnly signed a pact
promising there would be no merger between
the Progressive Conservative Party and the
Canadian Alliance. Then, with the ink still
wet, MacKay turned around and merged the
parties.
Our Minister of Foreign Affairs is nothing if
not adept at slipping a shiv between the ribs
while smiling on both sides of his mouth.
But, hey — he's a politician.
No, what annoys me is the sheer banality of
the exchange. In case you missed it — a quick
recap. In a debate in the House about air
pollution, a Liberal MP asks our Minister of
Foreign Affairs if he's not worried about the
effect of air pollution on his. pet. "What about
your dog?" asks the Liberal.
And Minister Mackay replies: "You have
her"
Puh-leeze. Most grade school kids could get
off a better retort than that.
It's not even original. Ten years ago,
troglodyte Reform MP Ian McClelland
smeared Sheila Copps with the same pedigree
but with greater precision. He called the MP
for Hamilton East a bitch.
L ess than a year before - an Ontario
election the opposition parties are not
hitting on the right issue or combination
of issues to drive out Premier Dalton
McGuinty's Liberal government — but it
should not feel safe.
Four polls in a month have suggested the
Liberals have between 40 and 42 per cent
support among voters, usually enough to win a
majority government, while the Progressive
Conservatives averaged only 34 and New
Democrats 18 per cent.
The Liberals obviously are doing more
things right, because they have had serious
issues running against them since the moment
they were elected in 2003, the most damaging
being they quickly broke a promise not to
increase taxes.
It could be said this was forced on them,
because the outgoing Conservative
government did not leave the balanced books
it claimed, but the Liberals should have seen
this :coming .and restrained their promise-
making.
They also have broken other promises, the
most recent in postponing for a second time a
deadline to close polluting coal-fired
electricity generating plants that had won
environmentalists' votes.
But some focus has moved from
McGuinty's broken promises and may shift
further because Conservative Prime Minister
Stephen Harper has reneged on a high-profile
one to maintain tax breaks for income trusts.
Long waiting times for hospital treatments
have been reduced so the right-wing Fraser
Institute, no friend of the Liberals, has
reported Ontario now has the shortest of any
province.
McGuinty has shrewdly moved some
pressing concerns to the backburner, including
Which, though more specific, is still
pathetically juvenile and unimaginative.
Where is the wit? Where is the verbal acuity?
Where is the Zinger?
"Zingers," to quote New York Times
columnist Maureen Dowd, "should glow with
intelligence as well as drip with contempt."
Exactly. Ah, Winston Spencer Churchill,
thou shouldst be living at this hour — if only to
give these embarrassing, tongue-fumbling
amateurs a lesson in verbal jousting.
Churchill was short, fat, homely and
probably alcoholic. But he was not a man you
would choose to match wits with if you had
your own about you.
Churchill's in-house Belinda was the
hapless politician Clement Atlee whom
Churchill variously crucified as "a sheep in
sheep's clothing", "a modest man, who has
much to be modest about", and "the boneless
wonder".
But he didn't reserve all his darts for the
.political competition.. Churchill was an equal
opportunity zinger Slinger.
As the playwright George Bernard Shaw
discovered after he sent Churchill a note
inviting him to the opening night of his play
Saint Joan. Shaw enclosed two tickets with the
letter, "One for yourself and one for a friend —
if you have one."
Churchill wrote back regretting he was busy
that night but asked if it would be possible to
soaring property tax assessments by freezing
them until a study is completed conveniently
after the election.
His government has bought a cease-fire by
buying land in Caledonia claimed by both
developers and natives, but not tackled the
principle of who really owns it.
He also has promised to answer
municipalities' pleas for financial help he can
ill afford, but his review may not be finished
until after the vote.
McGuinty has been criticized as weak on
law and order, but taken off some heat simply
by naming Julian Fantino, a hard-line cop with
whom he normally would have little in
common, to head the Ontario Provincial
Police.
McGuinty has shown willingness to bend,
in the latest example by revising his overhaul
of human rights law to provide more legal
advice to those complaining of discrimination.
McGuinty has been cautious in expanding
protection for residents. His most recent
safeguards public servants who blow the
whistle on wrongdoing, which offends no-one.
But he has ignored pleas to bring back photo
radar, which would reduce speeding and
deaths, to avoid irritating those who claim it
would be big brother watching over them.
Jobs are being lost in manufacturing and
forestry and replaced often by poorer-paid
change the tickets for the second night — "if
there is one."
The English writer G.K Chesterton was
once mocked for his huge girth by a British
magazine publisher: "Ah, Gilbert...pregnant, I
see," said the publisher.
Chesterton retorted, "Well, at least I don't
suffer from your monthly periodicals."
When it comes to bloodless verbal
decapitations the English have a decided edge.
One time the Hollywood blonde bombshell
Jean Harlow was introduced to Lady Asquith.
Harlow's first mistake was addressing Lady
Asquith by her first name, Margot.
Her second mistake was pronouncing
Margot as if it rhymed with 'foot rot'.
Lady Asquith purred: "My dear, the 't' is
silent. As in Harlow."
Not that all Americans are also-rans in the
zinger department. The New York wit Dorothy
Parker once crashed into Clare Booth Luce in
a narrow doorway. Mrs. Luce stepped aside
and murmured acidly, "age before beauty".
Gliding through the door, Ms Parker replied
blithely, "Pearls before swine."
What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall
had Mr. Churchill and Ms. Parker ever
engaged in a duel of wits. No doubt Nancy
Astor would have gladly changed places with
Dorothy.
At a dinner party in London, Ms Astor
hectored Churchill long and loud about
"women's rights. Churchill, well into his cups,
argued and rejected every point she made.
Frustrated and exasperated, Ms Astor
declared, "Winston, if you were my husband,
I'd put poison in your coffee".
Churchill looked at the woman balefully and
said: "Madame, if I were your husband, I
would drink it."
Now, THAT'S a zinger.
work in retail stores and fast-food outlets and
this will become a bigger issue when the
Ontario economy declines next year, as
economists predict.
But one indication there are few burning
issues around has been the opposition's
hammering for months at McGuinty's
needless re-design of the trillium emblem,
which was worth criticizing, but will never
spark voters to storm the legislature.
Governments have lost elections in recent
decades because they had policies that clearly
antagonized many. When McGuinty won,
voters had had their fill of Tory premiers Mike
Harris and Ernie Eves weakening services to
provide lower taxes.
New Democrat premier Bob Rae was
defeated because he piled up billions of dollars
in deficits; Liberal David Peterson because he
called an election a year early, trying to get it
over before a recession; and Tory Frank Miller
because he refused to debate opposition party
leaders on TV and prompted voters to look for
reasons he did not want to be compared.
But it is worth noting two of these
governments lost because of issues that did not
come up until an election was called. There
still is a chance one or more of the existing
issues against McGuinty will catch fire and his
lead is not huge — this election is not over yet.
Final Thought
The true secret of giving advice is, after you
have honestly given it, to be perfectly
indifferent whether it is taken or not, and
neveryersist in trying to set people right.
— Hannah Whitall Smith
A special man
It takes a special kind of person to reach
beyond the boundaries of community and
friendship, to deeply affect the' lives of
strangers as well as intimates.
13) all accounts Ontario Provincial Police
Const. David Mounsey was that kind of
person. As one acquaintance said after his
passing last week, you have to feel sorry for
anyone who'd never met him.
I know I feel privileged to have known him.
And as was also said about Dave, it hadn't
taken too many meetings to feel as if I had
made a friend. He was just a really nice guy
and had the rare ability to relate to people on
many levels.
It is a testament to this that when I asked for
words of tribute to be included in the news
report of his death, I had more than I could
use. However, if there's one thing I might be
able to do for his family it is to let them know
• how others felt about their loved one, so those
tribute are being included in this week's paper.
And I would like to add mine to them in this
space.
My first encounter with Dave was on the
Greenway Trail. A friend and I were getting
some exercise and he was working on a case
involving the theft of some ATVs. I was struck
by how he managed to be both authoritative
and unfailingly polite. I had a feeling he'd get
his man, and when he did, he'd somehow make
the arrest with the utmost respect.
The next time I saCfiim was while I was
covering court. He was testifying and met the
somewhat confrontational cross-examination
with what I could only describe as respectful
grace under fire.
But it was when he began his campaign to
raise money for a defibrillator for the Blyth
Fire Department and I met with him to do a
story about it, that I was able to see him in a
more relaxed way. I laughed a lot during that
interview. Dave had a great sense of humour
and didn't seem to mind making a joke at his
own expense. I thought then that this is one
happy man. His positive attitude and
enjoyment in being was contagious. And as
anyone who knew him would tell you, a smile
was rarely off his face.
He talked at length about his career and how
much he loved being a police officer. But he
also spoke openly about his gratitude to the
firefighters from Blyth who had helped him at
the scene of his car crash in 2004. Being a cop
and a volunteer on the fire department, as well
as with the board of MADD had to keep him
awfully busy, I remarked.
"But I love it," he said with that smile.
I went home that night and told my husband
about this cop I had interviewed that day and
what a nice guy he was. Over time and in
conversations with closer acquaintances of his,
I learned that the side I'd seen that day was the
norm.
The last time I saw Dave, was back in that
courtroom, just before he was departing for his
marathon. We chatted for some time about a
number of things, but he kept coming back to
the eagerly anticipated challenge. He poked
fun at himself, at taking this on at his age and
how he might feel by the end of those
kilometres.
Since hearing about the crash that ultimately
took his life my heart has gone out to his
family. This was a special man, a man who
could be as comfortable with strangers as with
friends.
All of this was even more remarkable in
light of the fact he worked at a job where
remaining upbeat wasn't always that easy.
It's a loss to us all that he's gone.
Liberals top but not safe