SOME SEPARATISTS HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR

SOME SEPARATISTS HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR

After a six-month break in writing this column, I'm back in harness. Or is it back in the saddle? The first - equine - metaphor puts me in a servile role; the equestrian metaphor puts me in charge. Having to grind out this column once a week, in my view, makes me more of a servant than master. Ah, but people do read my column, right?

Anyway, a lot has happened in the mayoring game since I last put my pen down: renewed threats of amalgamation, a half-billion downloading bill from Quebec, a Montreal mayor with crumbling support. And, I might add, quite an upheaval in my personal life.

But, on the lighter side, I'm sure most of you missed a little gem published in the Journal de Montréal in August. A columnist - whom I've never met - actually suggested I should be the next mayor of Montreal. I (bashfully) quote from this obviously observant journalist: "I like this man. I like this mayor. Intelligent, competent, level-headed, with a quiet strength and a pleasing sense of humour". He goes on to say that I would not leave the verdant slopes of Westmount for the infernal politics of Montreal, but one can dream, can't one?

Well, dream on. It won't happen, chum.

By the way - and this is the best part - guess who wrote that piece? Why, it's none other than Pierre Bourgault. Imagine. It's as if Mordecai Richler encouraged Josée Legault to run for mayor of Westmount.

Was his tongue imperceptibly in his cheek? Was he damning me with feigned praise? Doesn't he know that a blessing from such as he is the kiss of death in these parts? But you must admit it's kind of fun to have such whimsy from an ardent separatist.

Speaking of Josée Legault, whimsy, and separatists straying into federalist territory, most of you also missed a great evening of Bowser and Blue humour at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in July. Following Legault's deft (and, to some, controversial) take-off on the Queen offering her sovereign services to an independent Quebec, the audience was subjected to fifty anglo celebrities singing: "We are here to stay, and we are têtes carrés and we are proud to say that we're here". (I guess you hadda be there.) Yours truly, who bellowed with the best of them, seems to have been elevated (or reduced) to the status of an "Anglo icon" by inclusion into what could be called the Fed Army Chorus.

But last week, Pequistes proved they can take both themselves and Howard Stern seriously. Not that I find Stern's brand of buffoonery up my alley, but when Serge Ménard threatens action under the criminal code for Stern's scatological hatemongering, he risks being accused of having an amputated funnybone. And going way too far. Had Stern been a Montrealer, this tempest in a toilet bowl would have taken on biblical proportions.

A sense of humour should be a prerequisite for membership in the PQ.

TrentStories

• 25 Sept THE DAY WE LEFT THE UMQ
  
• 2 Oct TAXATION BY MISREPRESENTATION
  
• 9 OCT Westmount and I lose a friend Richard E. Bolton Dead
  
• 12 OCT on $500,000,000 TAX GRAB Tax grab turns into burlesque
  
• 16 Oct A MEETING WITH BOUCHARD
  
  

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