Angry in the Great White North

[Update: I've rewitten this post now that more information has become available.]

From Warren Kinsella's column in the March 2 edition of the National Post:

Between the swaths of preening vanity and ham-fisted prose contained in Inside Gomery -- a new book written about the famous Quebec jurist by his obliging press flak, Francois Perreault -- there are a handful of revealing details.

One comes mid-way in the slender booklet, and describes the day in February, 2005, when Jean Chretien arrived at the Gomery Commission to testify. Surrounded by "an entourage of lawyers and cronies," Perreault sneers, and "looking extremely pleased with himself," the former prime minister "ripped a marker" from the hands of "a bold spectator" and, "unable to restrain himself," autographs the man's forehead.

"Appalling," Perreault writes. "Chretien's coterie guffawed as one man."

Actually Warren Kinsella doesn't do the passage justice. It appears on page 67. I know, because I took the time to read it myself. Chretien is described as "irritated". The person getting the autograph is a "poor man". The whole sequence sounds like a case for assault, if it happened as described. This is serious stuff.

Or maybe not:

But here's the thing: The "bold spectator" was a comedian from CBC's This Hour Has 22 Minutes. If Perreault had been physically present to witness the encounter, done for laughs on both sides, he would have known that. But he wasn't.

If that's true, it would certainly suggest that Perrault did not actually see the comic encounter. It's hard to say, because Perrault never actually says whether he saw the incident himself. The book lacks any notes whatsoever. No secondary sources of information are listed in footnotes or endnotes.

If I was writing a book, or for that matter relating this particular story in my blog, and I was getting it second-hand, I would try to find some sort of independent verification of the event. An account in a newspaper, for example, just to avoid describing the event in entirely the wrong way.

It's important, because the account did get it entirely wrong. Thanks to reader Jessica, we have the video of the 22 Minutes "interview" described by Perrault as Jean Chretien accosting a private citizen just looking for a simple autograph.

The video is available here (look for the video "Mark Critch and Jean Chretien" from February 11), and I've included some screen captures below:

If Perrault had asked around, he should have been able to find someone who recalled the event. Someone who remembered that the "poor man" was a well known Canadian comedian holding a microphone and surrounded by a camera crew. Perrault could have asked Jean Chretien himself. Warren Kinsella did, which is why he knew it was a piece of street comedy by Mark Critch. Executive assistants Bruce Hartley and Charlie Angelakos confirmed it.

But Perrault seemed happy to write this strange incident up as he heard it. His publishers at Douglas & McIntyre seemed unconcerned as well. As a result, we have an account of the events of the Gomery Commission that completely misrepresents one of those events, an event that was broadcast on national television.

You have to wonder how good the rest of the scholarship is.

It's a shame that a book that sought out the permission of Justice Gomery in order to be written, and to which Justice Gomery wrote a foreword, was not written with at least an attempt at applying some minimum standards of evidence. I would have expected better from lawyers and judges.