Brown-John: Humour, or lack thereof, says lots about politicians

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By: Lloyd Brown-John

I am of the opinion that humour and the capacity to laugh at oneself are qualities of which intelligent politicians take advantage.

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Over many decades I’ve worked for, around and with elected officials. Far and away those with a mature sense of humour, and the willingness to be self-effacing now and then, have proven themselves successful.

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Humour opens doors not only to personality but to the ease with which that politician copes with stress and controversy. Former prime minister Lester Pearson had a marvellous sense of humour, often at his own expense.

At rehearsal for a Governor General’s funeral, with television cables scattered along the corridor to the Senate Red chamber, Pearson remarked: “Wait and see, at the funeral I’ll trip and fall over these damn cables.”

Prior to his retirement Pearson fancied he’d make a final world tour to visit Commonwealth colleagues, but he wanted to skip India and Pakistan and go straight from Australia to Mauritius to visit his good friend, Prime Minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. That entailed a jump across most of the Indian ocean, but one which would require a refuelling stop somewhere.

I served on Pearson’s world tour planning committee. The Department of Defence proposed that our Navy would position HMCS Bonaventure, Canada’s only aircraft carrier at the time, in the Indian Ocean as a refuelling stop. Pearson, in somewhat unbefitting language, responded that there was “no ruddy way” we were getting him to land on an aircraft carrier. World tour plans were terminated.

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Other major politicians with a sense of humour included Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark. John Diefenbaker had a rather terse sense of laughter — it had to be organized. John Turner by contrast took himself far too seriously and his sense of humour was almost contrived.

A politician with a sense of humour was Jean Chrétien. On a visit to the University of Windsor, Windsor Star editorial cartoonist Vic Roschkov gave me a cartoon he had drawn of Chrétien. I asked Chrétien to autograph it and he did so with flourish.

Only problem was that he misspelled my first name and when I quietly mentioned it to him he laughed: “Hey, now I given you two names. Damn lucky for you, eh!” We both laughed. I treasure the cartoon to this day.

Humour gives us insights into the personality of an individual by way of their capacity to indulge in it and occasionally be self-effacing.

I am not a great fan of CBC’s often-juvenile comedy series “This Hour Has 22 Minutes.” Once almost as humorous as Rick Mercer’s famous comedy and satire show, “22 Minutes” does not appear to have a significant grasp either of its audience or of serious political satire.

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Nonetheless, in a recent episode cast member and Pierre Poilievre impersonator Chris Wilson lined up at a Poilievre pep rally in Halifax. It paralleled the amazing non-interviews that Mary Walsh used to conduct as either Marg Delahunty or the Princess Warrior.

Wilson tried much the same with Poilievre, who responded by verbally attacking Wilson and belittling media reporters in general and the CBC specifically. Wilson tried twice to do a humorous interview with the Leader of the Official Opposition. Finally, he was escorted from the room by security staff.

What was so vividly evident in this encounter between Wilson and Poilievre was that the latter apparently has no sense of humour. Poilievre lost an opportunity to demonstrate that he might just be more human than his usual drone-like and tedious political personality suggests.

Perhaps Poilievre’s apparent lack of a sense of humour and his tedious approach to politics is more characteristic of those of the extremely conservative view of life in general. In any case, I cannot imagine such an insipid personality in the prime minister‘s job.

But then again, we did survive Stephen Harper and his intensely insipid prime ministership.

Lloyd Brown-John is a University of Windsor professor emeritus of political science and director of Canterbury ElderCollege. He can be reached at lbj@uwindsor.ca.

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