The Governor General's Bunny Hop: And Other Reports from the Nation's Capital

Beverly Rasporich is a professor in the Faculty of Communication and
Culture at the University of Calgary. She is the author of Dance of the
Sexes: Art and Gender in the Fiction of Alice Munro and Magic Off Main:
The Art of Esther Warkov.

Charles Gordon, humour columnist of the Ottawa Citizen, has created a soft satire of the country’s capital city — its politicians, bureaucrats, and snivel servants. In the unforgettable words of one advance reader, Charlie Farquharson, “Ottawar gets wot it de-serves! Capital’s punishment!” Although the book is also widely applauded by the likes of Sandra Gwyn and Larry Zolf, it is unlikely to be fully appreciated either far East or far West of The Glebe. Ottawa is Canada’s Camelot, and those of us outside the moat are probably not as interested as we should be in the claim on the book jacket to a “devastating expose of bureaucrats at work” or the “insider’s ear for the absurdities of official double-talk.” These sections of the book, particularly the earlier ones, had a tendency to put this reader to sleep.

In the second half, however, Gordon is a talented, more universally appealing humorist as he interprets character and peels away social conventions to comically expose social behavior. The description of the preparations of a variety of characters for the Governor General’s Ball and the goings-on at the Ball itself is a comic tour de force. Unforgettable is the romantic duo, the ambassador’s daughter, Oge Gfongnissôn, stoned and speaking Spanish, and the Assistant Deputy Minister who, in a desperate attempt to become bilingual, has learned his French from late-night Kung Fu movies:

The Assistant Deputy Minister recognizes French when he hears it and senses a good opportunity to practise his. Opportunities to enhance one’s chance for career advancement crop up at the strangest times. He is also taken with this young woman, and particularly with her sarong.

“Kiiyuaahh!” he replies, and they slide around the floor in a sensual tango to the tune of The Old Chisholm Trail.

“Tierra del Fuego”; he replies: “I’m going to kick your teeth out with my lethal little toe.” They hit it off immediately. (p. 119).

Unforgettable, too, is the Senator of another section who came by his position of Senator at the age of 27 largely because of his great talent for learning “political telephone techniques — how to be abrupt, and how to hang up first, since the guy who hangs up first always wins” (p.135).

Gordon’s consideration of The Rules for Establishment Tennis and the Royal Commission on the Canadian Identity are also memorable and a must for those of us who aspire to either the Establishment or a Country. Finally, and perhaps most important, is the understanding that Gordon leaves us with of the made-in-Canada zoo policy, in particular the official clarification by a government lawyer of the government’s position on the leopard in the section “Leopards Are Not, Strictly Speaking, Canadian”:

“It is true, in a technical sense, that leopards are not, strictly speaking, Canadian,” he says. “But both pumas and leopards are called panthers sometimes. And since the puma is here, we feel it would be unfair to the leopard to exclude him, or her. It would be injudicious as well, to do so. While we appreciate the idealism behind the proposal, it is simply not wise to antagonize panthers at this point in time” (p.159).

A highly irreverent book, The Governor General’s Bunny Hop will please the gleeful watchers of government in and of the nation’s capital.