Gordon Campbell had his Five Great Goals. Now we have another Liberal premier dabbling in quasi (or is it queasy?) Maoism. Taking a leaf out of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, which proclaimed the virtue of government leaders getting their hands dirty with the masses, Christy Clark is trying to be a worker, too.
On Saturday morning, she marked the new minimum wage by taking orders, pouring coffee and adding HST to the bill during a two-hour stint as a waitress. It's a way to connect with people, the toiling Premier said. Or at least those who don't go to all-candidate meetings.
She vowed to tackle more workaday jobs, including, wait for it, "stocking shelves."
Ms. Clark isn't the only B.C. leader to sample the working class. Back in the 1970s (sigh), premier Dave Barrett thought it would be cool to doff his slippery city shoes for some summer wages earned elsewhere. He chose a commercial fishing boat. I've never forgotten his first words to the bemused crew. As he came aboard, the roly-poly premier demanded: "When do we eat?"
Meanwhile, I await with interest Ms. Clark's stab at the worst profession known to civilization: newspaper reporting. I can see her first story now: "NDP leader hates babies."
*****
Fortune being what it is, I'm an old journalism student chum of the University of Toronto's new lecturer, Michael Ignatieff, lately leader of the diminished Liberal Party of Canada.
Mr. Ignatieff was a decent fellow in those distant days, and, near as I can tell, he remains so today.
But he did not fit well with what has become of politics in the 21st century. These are not the times of Lester Pearson and the early Pierre Elliott Trudeau, which shaped the young Ignatieff. Ideas, social policy, Canada's place in the world, decent discourse don't amount to a hill of beans on the campaign trails of today.
It's all sound bites, photo ops, stage-managed "rallies," cynical targeting of voters and, in particular, savaging one's opponent. Mr. Ignatieff, clearly more at home in a university lecture hall, didn't master any of this.
There he was, with a week to go in a campaign desperately in need of a kick start, patiently answering questions from the audience at an East Vancouver social club. His solid, thoughtful answers were a measure of the man, but they mattered not a whit to the electorate.
Mr. Ignatieff's failure is no tragedy. Nor is it unfair. Politics, as the philosopher Todd Bertuzzi so aptly observed about life, is what it is.
But the fact that his return to Canada six years ago from a brilliant and diverse career abroad could be savagely mocked to such effect cheapens us all, methinks.
I wish my pal well, as he resumes academic life. I also like the idea that his sherry-sipping digs at Massey College are right by where we once worked together on a lively student newspaper known as The Varsity.
****
Whew. We got a short census form. No grappling with that onerous long census document that the accommodating Stephen ("No homework tomorrow, class") Harper said we didn't have to bother with, if we preferred to spend more time worrying about the declining crime rate.
The shortie is plumb easy. It reminded me of the Welsh coal miner in that Beyond the Fringe skit, who recounted the complete lack of rigour involved in passing the mining exam. "They only ask you one question. They say: 'Who are you?' And I got 75 per cent on that."
****
No greater love hath any mom for a son who does rap adaptations of Chaucer. And so it came to pass that Liberal MP Joyce Murray asked her assistant to post links to a poster promoting offspring Baba Brinkman's gig at the Rio on her Facebook and website.
Alas, it was the day before the election. Ma Murray's assistant got a tad nervous that 14th-century Geoffrey Chaucer was too hot for 2011 sensibilities.
"It may be inappropriate [to post]until after the polls close tomorrow," she advised her boss. "The [poster]blatantly has people having sex in a tree."
Ms. Murray took the warning to heart. Although the depiction was tucked into a top corner of the poster, thousands of voters might have noticed and forgotten its literary value as a scene from The Merchant's Tale. They might have thought Ms. Murray advocated people having sex in trees. There goes the Dunbar vote.
The cautionary non-posting worked. While her son may have lost a few tickets, Ms. Murray won Vancouver Quadra by 2,000 votes.
Afterward, Baba Brinkman professed to take it in stride. "Democracy should never be confused with entertainment, I guess." And he still loves his mom.
****
They love us south of the border. Headline in the Los Angeles Times: "Canada's election proves surprisingly interesting."