Libranos Poster Reaction

A couple of days ago Ezra Levant kindly emailed me a copy of some of the published reaction to the “Libranos contraversy”. It’s relatively long, so I’ve put it in the extended entry for those of you like me, who don’t subscribe to half the newspapers in the country.

---

KKK comments way off base
The Calgary Herald
Fri 06 May 2005
Page: A20
Section: The Editorial Page
Source: Calgary Herald
It would be nice to see Immigration Minister Joe Volpe show the same degree of outrage over the millions stolen in the sponsorship scandal as he has over a satirical poster poking fun at Liberal misconduct.
This week, Volpe blew a gasket when he saw a photograph of two Conservative MPs posing with a poster of the Libranos, the Western Standard magazine’s humorous portrayal likening Liberal MPs and cronies to the Sopranos TV gangster family.
“Notwithstanding that they don’t have their cowl and their cape, the (Ku Klux) Klan looks like it’s still very much alive,” said Volpe, in reference to MPs Werner Schmidt and Lee Richardson. “I think these are a couple of fine upstanding members of the new Conservative Klan.”
Talk about someone who can’t take a joke. It takes a vigorous stretch of the imagination to suggest the poster is in any way an expression of racism against Italians. It takes no effort to see the poster as it was intended: Likening the Liberal sponsorship kickback scheme to a mob-style protection racket.
Richardson held a press conference Thursday to demand a retraction.
Yet Volpe’s overreaction is sadly typical of the intellectual vacuousness that has overtaken Parliament Hill in recent years. Whether Hedy Fry’s remarks about crosses being burned on the lawns of homes in northern B.C. or Elinor Caplan’s absurd assertion that the Canadian Alliance was dominated by “Holocaust deniers, prominent bigots and racists,” Volpe has once again shown how intolerant the Liberals are of criticism — even when it is wholly justified.
Although the Tories say they don’t keep track of visible minorities in their caucus, at least seven of the 99 members of the Tory caucus are ethnic minorities, including those with East Indian, Chinese and Japanese heritage: It’s hardly a cabal of white supremacist bigots. Rather than discredit the opposition, Volpe has only discredited himself.
He should apologize immediately.
Edition: Final
Story Type: Editorial
Length: 315 words
LETTER OF THE DAY COLUMN
The Edmonton Sun
Fri 06 May 2005
Page: 10
Section: Editorial/Opinion
Column: Letter of the Day
JOE VOLPE can spare us with his Grade 6 Michael Moore logic! Just when I think the Liberals have stooped to new lows with their mud-slinging, marginalizing, vote buying, and name calling, Volpe proves me wrong. Let me get this straight: the Western Standard prints a picture of the Liberals depicted as Mafia-type figures. The Mafia is predominately Italian. The Conservatives are photographed with this photo; therefore, the Conservatives are KKK members in disguise! Is it just me, or is the pathetic grasping at any scaremongering tactics reaching all-time lows?
Paul T. Fawcett
(It’s typically Liberal.)
Edition: Final
Length: 96 words
My meeting with Joe Volpe
National Post
Fri 06 May 2005
Page: A22
Section: Issues & Ideas
Byline: Francesca L’Orfano
Source: National Post
Two years ago, the CRTC ruled on a complaint I’d originally filed in 2000 with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) concerning the negative stereotypes of Italians contained in the popular television program The Sopranos. Unfortunately, despite the fact that our broadcasting laws prohibit “any abusive comment or abusive pictorial representation that, when taken in context, tends to or is likely to expose an individual or a group or class of individuals to hatred or contempt on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin,” the CRTC rejected the complaint. (The text of the ruling can be found on the CRTC’s Web site, under decision code 2003-112.)
In 2000, when I first brought my concerns to the CBSC, I had an opportunity to confront MP Joe Volpe about the issue in person at a gathering in Toronto. Given his recent hysterical remarks about the Western Standard magazine’s “Libranos” satire, one would have thought he’d support my position.
But in fact, he said he was not much interested in helping me because I was not one of his constituents. He also stated clearly that he had never been personally or professionally affected by The Sopranos.
Mysteriously, almost five years later, Mr. Volpe is now outraged at the Libranos satire — which plays off The Soprano’s to mock the Liberals’ sponsorship scandal. Apparently, the stereotype now affects him both personally and professionally.
But his response has been just as offensive as the underlying television show. Seeking to score political points, Mr. Volpe used a sweeping analogy to vilify another group — the federal Conservatives — as racists. One would think a man who claimed to be outraged by poisonous stereotypes would not be trading in them himself. Just as The Sopranos lowered the standards of broadcasting in Canada, Mr. Volpe has lowered the standard of political discourse.
That is a shame, because Mr. Volpe had an opportunity to address a widespread problem in the media in a serious way. The same negative stereotypes that appear in The Sopranos have been reinforced by thousands of films and television shows featuring mobsters whose names always seen to end in a vowel.
The authors of the Libranos spoof and those, such as Stephen Harper, who supported it, owe Italian-Canadians an apology for exploiting a negative stereotype. But for a community leader like Volpe to stand up now at this point to attack a parody of a television show, when he refused to lift a finger to address the offensiveness of the original is pure hypocrisy. He owes us an apology, too.
And if Mr. Volpe really does want to help his fellow Italian-Canadians, he can start by talking to the CRTC.
Edition: National
Story Type: Opinion
Note: artista@comnet.ca
Length: 446 words
Ottawa’s Trailer Park Boys
National Post
Fri 06 May 2005
Page: A21
Section: Letters
Byline: Tim Wiebe
Source: National Post
Re: ‘Sopranos’ Poster Fury, May 4.
I have to disagree with the Western Standard poster comparing Liberals to mobsters in The Sopranos. The characters in that show may be crooked, devious and devoid of any morality, but, unlike the Liberals, they are competent crooks. Ottawa’s Liberals are more like the characters in Trailer Park Boys. Randy and Julian, or Jean and Paul, as I like to call them, provide much merriment to viewers, much like Trailer Park Liberals do to the Canadian public.
As for Joe Volpe, he should get his facts straight. The Sopranos does deal with Italian mobsters. But it also portrays the Russian mafia, American black organized crime and my favourite character, Hesche, a Jewish criminal mastermind. It’s not just about Italians. Then again, Mr. Volpe’s remarks prove what I have always believed: Hyper-ventilating irrationality is colour blind, and is blind to ethnicity.
It’s time to clean up the Trailer Park known as Ottawa.
Tim Wiebe, Calgary.
Illustration:
. Black & White Photo: Illustration by Andrew Barr, Original Photo Provided by HBO/Showcase / (See hard copy for photo).
Edition: National
Story Type: Letter
Length: 160 words
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR COLUMN
The Ottawa Sun
Fri 06 May 2005
Page: 13
Section: Comment
Byline: BY OTTAWA SUN
Column: Letters to the Editor
If the Liberal Party of Canada has conducted them and their business practices in a mob-like fashion as the Western Standard has satirically pointed out in their May 3 edition, then it is incumbent upon them to refute why that is not the case.
The heads of Crown corporations and the minister of public works have been fired in disgrace for corrupt, unethical behaviour. Paul Martin’s actions are the proof of this.
But to state categorically that the Conservatives are all members of the Ku Klux Klan is outrageous, irresponsible, and offensive to all its honourable members of Parliament.
Joe Volpe must apologize immediately, and do the honorable action and resign his seat in caucus. To do any less only lends more credence to the fact the Liberal Party of Canada is immoral, unethical and dishonorable.
Keith McPhail
Ottawa
(The Liberals are completely unlike the Mafia — the latter has an oath of silence, the former don’t know when to shut up …)
How can the Conservatives expect an apology from Joe Volpe for comparing them to the Klu Klux Klan, when he was responding to the Conservatives for comparing the Liberals to the Mafia?
Talk about hypocrisy! Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer should realize that the Mafia also practise “hatred, violence and murder.”
Rhys Boswarva
(Laughing at a parody of a TV show, even one involving the Mafia, is not grounds to accuse a person of being a Klansman)
oped@ott.sunpub.com
Canada could use more satire, less racial rhetoric: When government ministers and MPs shoot from the lip, Canadians get the feeling we must be getting close to an election
The Edmonton Journal
Fri 06 May 2005
Page: A2
Section: News
Byline: Alan Kellogg
Column: Alan Kellogg
Source: The Edmonton Journal
A spring election call beckons and stupidity rises like quack grass in empty lots.
The Alberta government pays for an international health-care conference in Calgary, but refuses to talk with the federal health minister. Only a last-minute deal prevents the nation’s political leaders from shunning the 60th anniversary of VE-Day in Europe. Chuck Guite, an oleaginous hack who sullies the Cowboy Way along with thousands of dedicated civil servants, morphs from a duplicitous buffoon into a credible witness at the Gomery inquiry. A bill in the Texas legislature promises to crack down on sexy cheerleading.
And then we have l’affaire Libranos, a tawdry current affairs footnote that sets the tone for the big campaign fun ahead.
Rage had no bounds for Immigration Minister Joe Volpe on Tuesday, as he fulminated mightily on a crime heinous et vile, as Hercule Poirot might put it. Somebody get the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the line.
Never let it be said that newspapers have lost their capacity to ignite debate. Thumbing through an Ottawa daily, Volpe noticed a photo of Conservative MPs Lee Richardson and Werner Schmidt yukking it up, holding another photo. Under the headline: “The Libranos — Canadian Politics Redefined,” it substituted the images of Gomery stars Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Alphonse Gagliano and Jean Brault for cast members of The Sopranos.
It originated from the Western Standard, a magazine that promised humour and wit, but heretofore has delivered little, never mind its blundered worldview. The Spectator, let it be said, it ain’t. But it pulled one off.
“Notwithstanding that they don’t have their cowl and their cape, the (Ku Klux) Klan looks like it’s still very much alive,” thundered Volpe. In full John Cleese mode, he twitched with righteous fury. “I think these are a couple of fine, upstanding members of the new Conservative Klan. These are the same Conservatives who think that every immigrant is a potential terrorist,” a party that is “nothing more than a lynch mob.”
Not surprisingly, this drew a response from the official Opposition. “Volpe is trivializing the hatred, violence and murder practiced by the Klan. He has sunk to a new low,” countered Edmonton Strathcona MP Rahim Jaffer, calling for Volpe’s dismissal. MP Bev Oda helpfully reminded that Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel ran for the Liberal leadership in 1967.
In a perfect world, patent nonsense like this would be tossed off as the dross that it is. But it’s election time, and stupidity at this level might beg a little deconstruction.
With years spent in the supposedly less elevated entertainment world, I confess that the mind turned back to Hollywood at first blush. TV relic Tony Danza, like Volpe, a North American of Italian heritage, was holding forth at a sound stage to a few of us on a press tour. Lending the same impeccable standards of intellect and insight to public policy which have guided his acting and singing careers, he launched into an astonishing rant on The Sopranos. It was racist, insulting drivel, he bellowed, a virtual hate crime that should be removed from the air. By the end, he was hinting darkly on the motives of series creator David Chase, given his (Jewish?) lineage. We walked away shaken, to the open bar.
The idea that pointed political satire, however lame, should be excised from the nation’s journals is ridiculous, a true outrage. In fact, we’re in desperate need of it, especially in times like these. Britain’s Private Eye runs far more “wicked” — and funny! — covers each issue than the Libranos prank it inspired, and most of the skewered politicians love it. How provincial, dour, boring are we?
Jaffer and his colleagues were right to scream, and get a pass this time for their own somewhat overheated rhetoric. Volpe should take a hard look at the faces of the opposition benches before he pulls the race card again. The Conservatives of 2005 are looking a lot more like Canada, excepting the scandalous lack of women shared on all sides, and deserve credit, not scorn, for its efforts on the diversity front. You’d like to see some openly gay members there too, and if the Conservative party is to meet its aspirations, it will have to reach out to that community, just as winning parties of the centre-right have done elsewhere.
Racial insensitivity is a legitimate issue, and the immigration policy, social platforms and even the boneheaded views of unreconstructed backbenchers are fair game in a campaign. But the Libranos blip didn’t seem like any of that, and the verbal idiocy came from a senior government minister who should know better.
It’s Canada, and in the end, Volpe delivered a reportedly barely audible apology of sorts, blaming his “intemperate” remarks on moral outrage. The PM called for civility in the House. While he was at it, he might have also called for a shared sense of humour, an understanding of the problems that deserve real anger and the electoral folly of stupid, shoot-from-the-lip posturing from caucus members. If he needs advice on the latter, he could consult Preston Manning or Stephen Harper, who could explain a thing or two about the topic.
akellogg@thejournal.canwest.com
Edition: Final
Story Type: Column
Length: 865 words