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INDEPTH: ELECTION INSULTS
Them's fightin' words
CBC News Online | March 26, 2004
Don Boudria said on April 6, 2001, that Alliance M.P. Jim Pankiw's question on bilingualism was probably the most insulting question he had ever heard in the House of Commons. (CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand)
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As the clock ticks toward a federal election, the political war of words will only escalate.
Political insults have a fine old tradition, perhaps reaching their height with Benjamin Disraeli's many zingers directed at rival William Gladstone in 19th-century Britain. Asked to differentiate between the words "misfortune" and "calamity," Disraeli quickly shot back: "If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune. If someone pulled him out, that would be a calamity."
More recently, an insult backfired into the re-election campaign of Ontario Tory Leader Ernie Eves, when a staff member sent out a fax to media that contained the now-famous line about the Liberal leader: "Dalton McGuinty. He's an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet." The kitten-eater now comfortably occupies the premier's office, and the Ontario PC party is seeking a new boss.
We've gathered a few prime insults from the current Canadian winter of political discontent. Please nominate your own favourites by e-mailing us at letters@cbc.ca.
Insulting the Liberals
Stephen Harper to his troops as he accepts the leadership of the Conservative party: "The tired, old and corrupt Liberal party is right now cornered like an angry rat."
Interim Conservative leader Grant Hill dismissing Paul Martin's first throne speech: "It's nothing but legacy leftovers and puffy promises, the stuff of Cottonelle ads… We have helicopters that won't go up, submarines that can't go down, and a government that sends combat troops to desert theatres wearing jungle fatigues. If there was a political equivalent of the Keystone Kops, they would be sitting across the aisle there."
NDP House leader Bill Blaikie on Paul Martin's promise to change the way government operates, after a decade in Jean Chrétien's cabinet: "[It's] like he came upon a crime scene and he's able to pretend, 'This is a shame. This hasn't been done. This should have been done.' Well, he's crawling around a crime scene that's got his fingerprints all over it."
Stephen Harper called then-defence minister John McCallum an "idiot" and a "clown" on April 1, 2003, over the government’s position on Iraq. (CP PHOTO/Tom Hanson)
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Stephen Harper on Paul Martin's pledge to take the cronyism out of Ottawa: "Here he is, the guy who's going to come in and clean up all the corruption of the past decade. Sounds great until you realize Mr. Martin was the number 2 man in the government."
New Democrat MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis to former Liberal public works minister Alfonso Gagliano as he played coy about the sponsorship program in front of the public accounts committee: "You're making us play a game of Clue, and asking questions like 'Was it Chuck Guité in the laundry room? Or Mr. [Jean] Pelletier in the PMO?' If you're so determined that we get to the bottom of this, then you tell us... who should we talk to?"
Insulting the Conservatives
Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison, who jumped from the old Progressive Conservative party to the Liberals rather than accept Stephen Harper as a leader: "He's an erudite extremist… Stockwell Day with a library card."
University of Calgary political scientist David Taras: "If Stephen Harper were a colour, he would be grey. He seems perpetually burdened. There is nothing light or whimsical about him. In some ways, he is the oldest young man in Canada."
University of Prince Edward Island political scientist Peter McKenna on the Conservative party's chances in Atlantic Canada under Stephen Harper: "Somewhere between slim and none, and slim just left town."
Former Liberal member of Parliament Mary Clancy on Belinda Stronach's sometimes stumbling performance on the campaign trail for the Conservative leadership: "It was like watching a train wreck. If this woman stays around, we might lose the right to vote!"
Stephen Harper on the Canadian political right's fractious recent history: "We wouldn't be conservatives if the feud was ever over."
Insulting the NDP
The usually low-key Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, losing his temper when told the NDP leader was portraying the Liberals' plan to pay down the national debt as taking money from education and health care: "I'm just amazed at either the stunning ignorance or the stunning misrepresentation of Jack Layton…He's nuts. Absolutely flipping nuts. All Mr. Layton has to do is go to Economics 101 and find he is 100 per cent wrong. Sorry. He works me up."
The Liberal Party of Canada, on an anti-Jack Layton website (www.liberal.ca/SayAnything/) set up to rebut Layton's anti-Paul Martin website (www.flyourflag.ca): "Is it Howard Stern? Is it Tom Green? No, it's the 'King of Shock,' Jack Layton. Tell us another one, Jack."
Stephen Harper, refusing a dare to debate NDP Leader Jack Layton over Harper's comment that a minority government that included the NDP would damage Canada as much as one including the separatist Bloc Québécois: "I am here to debate the prime minister. That's what the leader of the Opposition does. He doesn't debate the also-rans."
A news release from Liberal MP Dennis Mills after the NDP leader appeared on the CBC Radio program The House (Layton is challenging Mills in his Toronto-Danforth riding): "After this humiliating radio interview, we would suggest Jack Layton stick to his beloved 30-second TV soundbites and 'game-show style' stunts. Shorter exposure to the public will mean less time for him to tear his credibility to shreds."
Insulting the Bloc Québécois
Paul Martin on the Bloc Québécois, which threatens to unseat Liberal MPs in Quebec due to the sponsorship scandal: "What Quebecers need on the national scene are players on the ice and not mere spectators in the stands whose only role is to boo and jeer."
Jean Lapierre, a former separatist who is now running for the Liberals, on the failure of the Bloc Québécois: "Instead of giving Quebecers more force, it puts Quebecers in opposition, and frankly I think Quebecers deserve more than that."
Liberal MP Scott Brison, ruling out an alliance with the Bloc Québécois should the Liberals win a minority government: "The raison d'etre for the BQ is to tear apart the country. It would be sulphuric for most Canadians to see a coalition government formed with the Bloc."
Back-handed compliments
Pollster Darryl Bricker of Ipsos-Reid on new Conservative Leader Stephen Harper: "Ottawa needs an enema and Harper can present himself as just the man to administer it."
VIEWER E-MAIL:
Former Liberal member of Parliament Mary Clancy on Belinda Stronach's sometimes stumbling performance on the campaign trail for the Conservative leadership: "It was like watching a train wreck. If this woman stays around, we might lose the right to vote!"
Victor Wells
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