Defence Minister Peter MacKay is sworn at, publicly admonished for his tardiness, bossed around and made fun of. This treatment is at the hands of soldiers who technically work for him. But it's also part of a new CBC television show, Make the Politician Work , in which Mr. MacKay becomes Private MacKay and for two days is put through combat boot camp in Petawawa, Ont.
All sorts of hilarity and humiliation ensue. Never mind the lecture for being late, he is also filmed getting his hair shaved off, and there's the misstep on the obstacle course in which Mr. MacKay lands hard, awkwardly straddling a concrete-type balance beam (ouch). He's dressed in full fatigues. He also goes through a nighttime exercise, involving live ammunition.
“I had a fantastic time,” Mr. MacKay said in an e-mail yesterday. “They treated me just like a new recruit and it gave me a glimpse of what you go through when you first sign up. It was a challenge. They really put you through your paces and push you to perform to your potential. I loved it. It made me want to sign up.”
The show airs next Sunday night. What's next, Transport Minister John Baird piloting an Airbus? The producers aren't saying.
Peter MacKay gets a taste of military life in a CBC show called Make the Politician Work. He goes to boot camp. — Jen Grantham
Hot, Not and Toxic
Toxic: The now-defunct Conservative/Liberal employment- insurance-reform working group. The Conservatives on the committee, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley and Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre staged a theatrical performance on Thursday, sitting at a table waiting for their Liberal counterparts to show. It was to mock the Liberals, proving that the Tories were not the ones to walk away from this committee that Michael Ignatieff had so desperately wanted. The Liberal Leader won that committee in return for supporting the Harper government last June and narrowly preventing an election.
Meanwhile, Marlene Jennings, one of the Liberal MPs on the committee, said the Tories sabotaged the group from the very beginning, refusing to offer any proposals, ignoring Liberal requests to sort out the agenda and misrepresenting Liberal positions. She said that at the Aug. 13 meeting, Mrs. Finley “lost her cool” and started “screaming at me at the top of her lungs” when she challenged her on a point. “I have a right to my opinion,” she screamed, said Ms. Jennings. “You are not going to tell me what to think! So I let her go on and on, literally screaming. ...” Fun and productive.
Hot: Paying tribute to Brian Mulroney. The list is in and it's impressive, especially since these Conservatives were once prohibited by Prime Minister Stephen Harper from speaking to the former Progressive Conservative prime minister as a result of the inquiry into his dealings with Karlheinz Schreiber. But that order appears to be null and void because Laureen Harper, and cabinet ministers Mr. MacKay, Jim Flaherty, Peter Kent, Greg Thompson, Tony Clement, Mr. Baird, Jim Prentice, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Lawrence Cannon and Lisa Raitt are attending the gala later this month in Montreal honouring the 25th anniversary of Mr. Mulroney's big majority government win.
Mr. Harper cannot attend because he will be in the United States meeting with President Barack Obama. It's doubtful he will be missed by Mr. Mulroney. In a CBC interview last night, Mr. Mulroney said, “He severed relations with me, which, when you've been prime minister, doesn't really mean very much to you. There's nothing I worry about that Mr. Harper can or cannot do. That's his decision.”
Not: Mr. Ignatieff's search for a campaign plane. Wanting to avoid having to rent an airplane from Air Inuit again for a potential fall election campaign, the Liberals are shopping around for another airline. Remember, the Dion Liberals got caught out and ended up with an old bruiser of a plane for the 2008 campaign.
But even with a few weeks lead time before a possible vote, Mr. Ignatieff may have some trouble. During the 2006 leadership campaign, the Liberal Leader managed to insult 25,000 Air Canada employees when he said on the popular Quebec television show Tout le monde en parle , “What scares me is Air Canada. They are not courteous enough. One thing which unites us, in this country, is our hatred for Air Canada.” Now what would be uniting Air Canada employees?
