At this point I know I need a good laugh (or a stiff drink, but it's too early in the day...):
The gaffes and the gaffe-nots
Mark Steyn
National Post
The Canadian Alliance faced further accusations of intolerance and bigotry yesterday after homophobic remarks by Redd Neck, party candidate for the riding of Putrid Backwater West. On a campaign stop at the headquarters of the Canadian Association of Gay Bartenders, Mr. Neck asked 22-year-old Kevin Gussett if he could give him any tips on how to make a fruit cordial.
"I was just totally stunned by his right-wing hostility," said Kevin, filing an official complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. "I mean, I had no idea a political candidate could just walk in off the street and commit that kind of a hate crime."
Struggling to stay on message during a speech to the Ontario League of Lesbian Motorcyclists in Sudbury, Alliance leader Stockwell Day sought to play down Mr. Neck's anti-gay tirade. "Although I certainly do not approve of his comments," he said, "we should remember that, in the course of an election, individual candidates say all kinds of things. In a long and arduous national campaign, a party leader shouldn't have to put his finger in every dyke ..." Mr. Day eventually shook his audience off at Elliot Lake, where he was treated for minor cuts and bruises.
Conservative leader Joe Clark attacked Mr. Day's response as "insufficiently sufficient." Speaking to an audience of no one during a Tory victory rally at Maple Leaf Gardens, Mr. Clark called on the Alliance to fire Mr. Neck. "These comments are deeply offensive to Canadians, who have a long tradition of tolerance. When we see some of the people around Stockwell Day, Canadian concerns about his human rights record are fully justified."
Visiting the Vatican, where he paid a courtesy call on His Holiness Pope John Paul II, Mr. Day explained that obviously he'd like to fire Mr. Neck but that, having got rid of the guy who made the scalping joke and the one who'd made the unfortunately pejorative comments about an illegal immigrant baby killer, the Alliance was now down to its last four candidates. Yet, even as he appeared to neutralize this latest mis-step, the gaffe-prone political neophyte walked into another storm over his links to extreme fundamentalist sects such as "Catholicism" and its strident right-wing leader known as "Der Pontiff."
"Da religion is da religion and da politic is da politic," said Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, addressing a Brazilian prostitutes' collective. "Stockwell Day believe in da creation, I believe in da creation of da jobs. He believe in da virgin birt', I believe dat's virgin' on da ridiculous. He believe in da right to life, I believe in my right to be Prime Minister-For-Life. He believe da baby Jesus was born in da stable, I say well dat's Alberta Social Services for you. He believe God made da worl' in seven days, I believe da worl' was made by a convicted criminal from Shawinigan wid da grant from da HRDC and just because he's a bit behind wid da repayment, dat no reason for concerns."
The Prime Minister, unveiling a 30-foot statue of himself in Shawinigan, was later asked by a CBC reporter if a belief in a mythical outmoded patriarch such as "God" should automatically disqualify someone from serving in Parliament. "Not at all," he replied. "We have da funny guys wid da turbans and all da udder types. But you have to have da separations of church and state. My late friend, Pierre Trudeau, he didn' become a practising Cat'lic till the funeral. Dat's da way to do it."
Seeking to defuse the issue, Stockwell Day, appearing in a gay bathhouse in Vancouver, quipped that the only dinosaur he'd ever walked with was Jean Chrétien. The Royal Canadian Paleozoological Society in Ottawa immediately issued a statement deploring the Alliance's frivolous attitude to scientific study. "This cheap stereotyping is deeply damaging to our members' sense of dignity, and exposes Mr. Day's alleged 'agenda of respect' as the cynical ploy it is. We do not normally endorse political parties, but with so much at stake in this election we are now urging all our members to vote for Tyrannosaurus Jean."
Before Mr. Day could respond to this latest setback, Joe Clark earned a standing ovation from the Canadian Association of Geriatric Ingrates with a spirited attack on Alliance ageism. "It's so easy, is it not, to use the term 'dinosaur' to devalue the wisdom of our elders. The idea that some bag of bones buried out in Alberta lying undisturbed for decades is not worth digging up and putting in the House of Commons is supremely damaging to the social fabric of Canada. I call on Mr. Day to discipline himself."
Hanging upside down in a bondage dungeon in Mississauga, the Alliance leader found himself on the defensive yet again following a column by The Toronto Star's Joey Slinger: "Imagine Heinrich Himmler is living in Canada. How do you think he'll vote? Imagine Adolf Hitler is living in Red Deer, possibly as Stockwell Day's car mechanic. How do you think he'll vote? How about Augusto Pinochet? Pol Pot? J. R. Ewing and Alexis Colby? Er, what was the name of that cat who used to creep up on Tweety-Pie?"
Mr. Day insisted that he would not respond as he was trying to run a positive campaign. But accompanying reporters pressed him on how that squared with the comments of Ray Cyst, Alliance candidate for Abandoned Feedstore North, in a question-and-answer session with the Canadian Union Of Veterinarians Of Colour. Asked for the Alliance policy on cat neutering, Mr. Cyst said personally that he'd always called a spayed a spayed.
Though Mr. Day immediately disassociated himself from Mr. Cyst's "wholly uncalled for remarks," Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan demanded that the Alliance abandon its "agenda of respect." "Mr. Day's supporters are Holocaust deniers, prominent bigots and racists," she told a press conference. "They must be heartbroken to see Stockwell Day going around pretending he's not a Jew-baiting gay-bashing hate-filled racist. Stockwell, I beg you, for the sake of your ugly neanderthal supporters, stop this unconvincing pose of being a mainstream political moderate and, for the health of our tolerant, diverse, multicultural democracy, just stick to pandering to those nutcakes on the fringe. You do it so well!"
In a late development yesterday, it emerged that, while backpacking across Europe in the Seventies, Mr. Day had forged ties with an extreme right-wing organization known as the "British Conservative Party" and had attended a speech by its notorious leader Margaret Thatcher in which she said that at the end of a long day she liked nothing better than to light up a fag.
"These attacks must stop," said the beleaguered Alliance leader, speaking to First Nations Chiefs. "I have personally repudiated Mrs. Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Conrad Black, and the entire conservative movement. I am running on an agenda of respect as a Filipino lesbian of a warm, fuzzy, vaguely New Age spiritual bent and fully committed to a woman's right to choose." But journalists continued to question Mr. Day about rumours of an Alliance referendum to bring back scalping.
Meanwhile, in a widely predicted decision, the Florida Supreme Court ruled late last night that all ballots cast for the Alliance next Tuesday would count towards Al Gore's total in Palm Beach County. "I welcome this development," said the Vice-President, "because it truly represents a solution that is fair and equitable for all. Many Canadians who winter in Florida were unable to vote illegally for me because we held our election too early. I believe the decision to give all Governor Stockwell's votes to me is in the best interests of renewing our democracy." Mr. Day was reported as unlikely to contest the judgment.
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