Joe held annual Canada Day barbecues in the garden behind his red-brick semi, which stretched over four or five backyards. Hundreds showed up. It was the barbecue to attend — the biggest and the smokiest summer political event in town, with big, beefy Italians barbecuing big, beefy sides of beef and succulent Italian sausages. To be introduced onstage in Joe’s backyard by Joe himself was a political rite of passage, and I ached to be on that stage. But there was more to Joe than barbecues. He had lots of “friends” who could be mobilized to help the right candidate. I would have to sit down and talk to him. “Come see me on Toursday,” he told me.
It surprised me that I could walk right up to Joe’s front door. Some Italian big shot, I thought as I lifted my hand to knock. “He’s waiting for you around back,” said a voice out of nowhere. It was early spring, and Joe’s garden was spectacular. There was the arbour, of course, but also fig trees with the sweetest, tastiest figs west of Italy, right here in my riding. “Come inside,” he said, leading me down the concrete steps into his inner sanctum.
I had heard about Joe’s basement, a cross between an office, a reception room, and a political shrine. The long, narrow, wood-panelled room had a desk, a sofa, and along one wall pictures hanging floor to ceiling — Joe, over and over again, with the great and near-great of politics. One picture, not so much political as historic, stood out: a shot of a young, trim Joe in a black uniform, standing at attention with a big, mean-looking Great Dane at his side, both looking in admiration at the far beyond. Il Duce, I wondered? Is that why Joe came to Canada in the 1950s?
Joe’s tiny wife shuffled in silently, set down four small glasses on the coffee table, and left without being introduced. This was business. “Joe, I’d like to run,” I said, almost embarrassing myself by asking for his blessing. He knew all about my plans (which caused me to shudder a bit) and said, “We gotta win, we gotta be the gubberment . . . I’ll help you with dat.” As if on cue, two young men, Tony and Nick, appeared with a bottle of homemade wine, and we drank a toast to my success. “Dese guys will help you,” Joe said. “They be there the whole way — your sign crew. No one will tear down your signs.” True to those promises, Joe and Tony and Nick never let me down. Every so often in the months ahead, someone would appear and say, “Joe sent me to help out.” Not quite the Mafia don of my overactive imagination, Joe never asked for a favour in return.
The contest for the nomination went smoothly enough. My opponent was a member of the riding executive who told me he’d been out selling memberships before I came along and felt he was entitled to the nomination. Period. But — how to put this delicately? — he seemed to have lost his way. I got an inkling of this when he requested we meet for a drink shortly before the nomination meeting.
He began, “I have a plan . . . I think I can win there,” he said. “Where?” I asked. “There, the nomination,” he said. “So if I win there, I figure you can raise money here and I can’t.” “Where can I raise money?” I asked. “See, I can win there, and you can raise money there and I can’t, so my deal here is this. When I win here, you’ll raise money for me to run there.” Irritated, I attempted to summarize my opponent’s “deal”: “You can win but can’t raise money. I can raise money, so if you win I’ll agree to raise money for you for the election. Is that it?” “Yes,” he answered, breaking into a grin. “And if I win, what will you do?” I asked. “You’ll hire me to work for you. I hate my job,” he answered. “No deal,” I said. He looked genuinely surprised.
Nomination night arrived — a scary proposition, even for a newly minted “legend in his own time.” My opponent spoke first. He launched into the Tory government. “You know what we’ve got in Ottawa today? What we’ve got is ffgs — ffgs, I tell you, and they’re going to take everything.” He went on and on in this vein. Finally, someone yelled, “What are ffgs?” “Fucking fascist goon squads,” my opponent answered triumphantly. The audience erupted. “Shame on you,” yelled someone. “There are children here,” another voice thundered. “And old people, too,” someone added. People got up to leave. My eight-page, neatly typed, earnestly researched, policy-oriented political manifesto about liberalism for our times was not going to get an airing. The audience had to stay. I needed their votes, or ffgs Man might carry the Liberal banner for the riding, an embarrassment to me (never mind the Liberal Party).
The crowd eventually calmed down. I gave my speech, and the voting began. In time, the scrutineers reported the results. I won, in a landslide. My opponent had four votes. Toronto Blue Jay Roberto Alomar got a write-in vote. I had the rest. Other than my opponent, I wondered who else could have voted for him. He had arrived alone, had no visible family support. I eyed my father and my siblings suspiciously.
After being nominated, a former Liberal Cabinet minister took my wife and me to dinner to celebrate. As we began to talk about the realities of political life, a migraine headache took over. A part of my host’s face went missing, or so it seemed. I bolted for home, leaving my wife to absorb all the good news about our new life — another omen, not recognized.
The nominated candidate finds himself in a netherworld, a veritable political Middle Earth. Bathed in self-satisfaction and with a sense of entitlement coursing through my veins, I expected to become an MP and prominent Cabinet minister soon enough. Instead, nothing happened. No newspaper coverage, no reporters or satellite news truck camped on my front lawn, no emissary from party headquarters seeking my input on the election platform. Nothing. I hired a campaign manager and a media adviser.
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