Why the McKay Incident Matters

Posted by Kate Butler Oct 23, 2006

On Thursday, Peter McKay, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, referred to Belinda Stronach, a Liberal MP and his ex-girlfriend as a dog. This comment was in response to a jeer by a male Liberal MP who asked McKay “What about your dog” during a discussion of how the Conservative environment plan would affect children and animals. McKay gestured to Stronach’s empty seat and said, “You’ve already got her.”

Since then, McKay has vehemently denied saying such a thing, even though this comment can clearly be heard in audio tapes of the discussion in question. The media have covered this story, due in part to how much interest Canadians have shown in McKay’s ridiculous and offensive behaviour.

What is troublesome, however, is the number of columns and op-eds that are specifically trying to minimize the importance of this situation. These mainly conservative journalists claim that McKay has every right to use whatever type of language he wants to refer to his ex-girlfriend, and that any concern over such a comment is the result of an overly concerned liberal media. One blatant example of such behaviour was Christie Blatchford, a columnist with the Globe: she loved the comment and thought that she would say the same thing about an ex to her friends. Fair enough, but McKay wasn’t with a group of friends- he was debating a serious bill about climate change in the House of Commons.

Blatchford and other like-minded journalists are kidding themselves if they think that language such as this does not matter. If what the media does and says matters, then use of language must be considered important. Blatchford and others like her surely use words they mean when writing their columns or speaking on television; why then should McKay not be held responsible for what he says in the House of Commons?

Referring to a woman as a dog is a chauvinistic action that demands an apology. This apology is more likely to happen, and future comments like this least likely to happen, if the media takes this incident seriously and demand that Peter McKay acted immaturely on Thursday when he took such a low swipe at Ms. Stronach.