I found Peter MacKay's alleged remark funny, because it's exactly the alleged juvenile sort of thing I allegedly say
Woof.
I mean, of course, the alleged thing Mr. MacKay said, and which the original Hansard record of the day didn't catch and which he denies saying, but which several Liberals said they heard him say.
Mr. MacKay said yesterday he's not going to apologize, because he didn't say it, which is too bad because it was really funny. In fact, I find it so funny that I think maybe Mr. MacKay should apologize anyway, to me for not having said it, if he didn't, because when I thought that he said it, I felt highly amused, and now that it turns out he maybe didn't say it, my feelings are hurt, and I feel a little the fool.
How Mr. MacKay came to say or not say this thing went like this.
According to David McGuinty, as the Liberal member for Ottawa South and the brother of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was quoted in the Toronto Star, he and Mr. MacKay often exchange friendly and heretofore private ripostes about the dog that appeared at Mr. MacKay's side when he (Mr. MacKay, I mean) posed fetchingly in boots in a field at his Nova Scotia farm after his very public breakup with Ms. Stronach last year.
(You will recall that Ms. Stronach and Mr. MacKay broke up after she defected to the Liberals from the Conservatives, sneaking off to meet then-prime minister Paul Martin for dinner one night without telling Mr. MacKay, who was cooling his jets in her suite at the Chateau Laurier.
So anyway, Mr. McGuinty told the Star, when a spirited exchange broke out in the House of Commons on Thursday about the government's environment bill (it was during the period devoted to oral questions, which I am sorry to say I also find very funny, because of my aforementioned propensity for juvenile delinquency), Mr. McGuinty asked Mr. MacKay if he weren't worried about the dog, presumably vis-à-vis the environmental mess the Tories are allegedly going to bequeath the world's children and dogs.
At this, Mr. McGuinty said, Mr. MacKay allegedly pointed to or gestured at Ms. Stronach's empty chair in the House -- she was, she said yesterday, absent because she was preparing for a "social justice" conference -- and said, "You already have her."
Now, to me, none of this, if it happened, means that Mr. MacKay really thinks his old flame is a dog, but rather that he was being a boy with a guy he mistakenly thought he could kibitz with, the same way that, at coffee with my friends.
Instead, Mr. McGuinty cheerfully ratted out Mr. MacKay, even pronouncing himself shocked. If I were Mr. MacKay, I would use this as a reminder to myself to choose my confidantes, and those I kibitz with, more wisely, just as Ms. Stronach herself provided a similar lesson on the need to carefully choose intimates.
As for Ms. Stronach's notion that Mr. MacKay's alleged dog remark is terribly revealing of his and his party's discomfort with women in politics and that it will have a "chilling" effect on potential female candidates, that is clearly nonsense.
Just yesterday, the federal government, through an announcement from Health Canada, demonstrated its solid commitment to the women of Canada with the exciting news that, once again, silicone gel breast implants are going to be available in this country.
They're back, baby. Woof, what woof?
*With excerpts from CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD, Globe and Mail
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