|
'Naked ambition' revealed in race for Canada's Liberal leadership
|
The race to succeed former prime minister Paul
Martin as head of Canada's once mighty Liberal
Party, now in opposition, has exposed a trend in Canadian politics with
candidates appearing in the buff to woo voters.
Bob Rae, 58, a former Ontario premier and ahead in
the leadership contest, swam naked with comedian
Rick Mercer in a cold lake for a political comedy show broadcast on
CBC last month.
His bare bottom has since been viewed by hundreds of
pundits on website youtube.com who mostly lauded the
1969 Rhodes Scholar's pluck.
Not to be outdone, Scott Brison, 39, a former
Conservative member of Parliament who joined the
Liberals in 2004 and became the youngest minister in Paul Martin's
cabinet, posed nude for a calendar to be released
next week.
Brison managed to secure a mere 3.5 percent of
delegate support ahead of a Liberal leadership
convention to be held at the end of November, compared to Rae's 20 percent
support. |
Former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell in September 1993. The race to head Canada's Liberal Party has exposed a
trend in Canadian politics with candidates appearing in the buff to woo voters. |
Both men are looking
to catch up to frontrunner Michael Ignatieff, a
former Harvard professor who has never exposed himself in public and maintains about 30 percent
delegate support.
But a local theatre group hopes Brison's smile will
help sell a lot of calendars, which depict men
dusting, knitting and changing diapers, to raise money for prostate and
ovarian cancer research.
Brison, who exercises daily, was photographed
raiding a fridge.
"It's naked ambition for a good cause," Brison told
the Globe and Mail newspaper this week, noting his
father and uncle died of prostate cancer.
"I think I was less exposed than Bob Rae was on Rick
Mercer," he said of his skinny-dipping fellow
Liberal leadership hopeful.
The openly gay politician also quipped to the
Halifax Chronicle Herald: "I'm just trying to be a
good member (of Parliament). I understand I'm not the only
politician in the calendar, but they're up for some
stiff competition."
Indeed, the mayor of Wolfville, Nova Scotia and a
town councilor also appear nude in the calendar.
The tradition harkens back to former prime minister
Kim Campbell who once appeared in a controversial
bare-shouldered portrait behind a barrister's robe.
Of course, her Conservative government lasted only
five months before losing a general election in
November 1993 to the Liberals, who went on to rule for 12 years until
their own defeat in a January general election.
Although most Liberal leaders in Canada's history
have gone on to become prime minister, the party is
now in opposition.
Alex Swann, spokesman for Rae, told AFP: "Anything
that exposes Bob as a leader and his true
personality is good for his campaign. There was a lot in there for people."
Rick Mercer interviewed Rae during the show, which
boasts one million viewers weekly, too.
"There is something to be said about an unfiltered,
straight forward interview about you as a person
instead of a discussion about public policy," Swann said.
"One woman emailed to say: 'Your answer about why
you want to become prime minister is why I'm going
to support you (Rae),'" Swann said, quite serious.
Last week, Canadians also discovered that an
anonymous Supreme Court Justice has frolicked naked
in public.
Speaking to a Toronto law school audience after a
cruise ship operator alluded to the fact in a travel
article in an April issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, Judge Marshall
Rothstein read a tongue-in-cheek memo from Chief
Justice Beverly
McLachlin, circulated to her colleagues on May 12
titled "Nude Cruising."
The memo said: "I made inquiries into the identity
of the judge, but was rebuffed on a claim of
journalistic privilege ... All this is to say, that our secret is safe."
According to reports, Judge Rothstein assured his
audience that, having been appointed in March, he
could not be the culprit.
--AFP
|
