As Canada’s political debate becomes more partisan, personal, acrimonious and grim, the powerful weapon of humour has largely been discarded.
That is a pity because a well-crafted humorous jab or explanation can be an incredibly effective way to define or deflect an issue.
At a political rally that included both the local Liberal candidate and Canada’s founding prime minister, John A. Macdonald showed up skunk drunk and as the opponent spoke, Sir John went to the edge of the stage and threw up.
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When it was his time to speak, he explained that every time he heard the Liberals speak, his stomach turned.
He had a long career.
Montreal poet and CCF partisan Frank Scott said of William Lyon Mackenzie King after his death in 1950 that he was a man “who never did in halves what he could do in quarters.” Witty.
In 1981, as Bank of Canada governor Gerald Bouey was cranking up interest rates, then-NDP MP Bob Rae rose in the House to ask a question about “Bouey the 16th”, a reference to the French king Louis the 16th who brought on the French revolution. Even the Liberals laughed.
Rae still has a sense of humour, introducing leadership rival and now Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff at a party function as a man who had written more books than the Conservative caucus has read. Partisan it was, but funny.
Then there was Conservative heavyweight John Baird performing in Parliament after a rare mutter of praise from the opposition.
He is one of the most partisan of this humourless Conservative lot but one of the few who seems to be having fun. Dabbing his eyes with his tie, he did a great impersonation of a famous Academy Award speech – “They love me. They really love me.”
It was funny and endearing.
But that sense of humour and sometimes self-deprecation is in short supply these days when put downs and personal attacks are more often the political order of the day.
So it was a great joy to read a recent International Fund for Animal Welfare response to comments from pro-sealing Liberal senator Céline Hervieux-Payette that characterized opponents of the industry as extremist vegetarian carrot-eaters with no sense of humour.
Sheryl Fink, a researcher with IFAW, rose to the bait with an invitation to dinner for the senator. She says she is not a vegetarian.
“I yam extending this invitation as a gesture of peas, even though it was leeked to the press,” she wrote.
“If it has bean a while since senator Hervieux-Payette has had a vegetarian meal, she will be a-maized. There is so mushroom for creativity. If she will lettuce have the honour of her presence and turnip, we promise to beet and squash all corny vegetable puns. Or maybe she won’t carrot all?”
Now that is funny.
Love or hate the IFAW, they won that skirmish with their wit.
Perhaps the current crowd of self-important and partisan politicians could lighten up and see the power in humour.
Long after the passion has gone, we still love the partners who can make us laugh.
