Georgia Straight
for January 1995, Article 2

Much has been said and written about remarks made by Mr Justice Wallace Oppal at a boozy police smoker a couple of years ago

The incident raises a number of issues not the least of which is the secret taping of the event, a couple of years ago, by one who calls himself a journalist.

The incident raises a number of issues. While this is not my main point, there is something very unclean about this sort of activity which is reminiscent of the Bud Smith tapes affair which proved, as later investigation showed, no wrong doing by Mr Smith, only some embarrassing personal matters. Those who now think back to that incident are likely the think they remember great wrongdoing because Mr Smith, unlike the present attorney-general, knew that it was proper to resign when under a cloud of suspicion. That Mr Smith was exonerated of any wrongdoing is forgotten.

Another disturbing aspect of the Oppal matter is why two years later?

The main point is this - Mr Justice Oppal's remarks, innocent or otherwise, display a male characteristic which goes back into the mists of time and one which we could all do without. This is the macho cigar and brandies while solving great matters of state syndrome, the womenfolk being expected to stay behind and gossip. It is the "get-the-beer-for-the-boys-honey-we're-watching-the-big-game-you-know" part of the male psyche which won't go away because men have made little or no effort to make it go away.

Certainly - at least I am so told - women tell naughty stories when they get together but this is not part of the feminine persona. Stag parties, which can run all the way from two guys and a beer into regimental smokers, are macho - they let he-men be he-men by saying and doing things which no decent society normally tolerates.

Apparently the male of the species still needs - perhaps more than ever now that his bastions are being successfully stormed - the guffawing approval of the pack of hunters. He must be able to one-up his pals in inoffensive behaviour. It's a contest and the dirtiest or most racist anecdote wins approval, all the more prized because, like the kid smoking behind the barn, it has the air of mystique which accompanies being naughty.

Some of this instinct to show off has been eradicated both by enforcement and peer pressure. No longer does the guy show up in the office on Monday saying, to the appreciative gathering of male colleagues, "God I was so shitfaced on Saturday night I had to shut one eye and watch the center line with the other." This is no longer funny and most men know that.

What is still funny is the racist joke - and we all, and I mean all make them. The anti female joke, once considered ungentlemanly, is making a comeback, it seems, perhaps because men feel threatened and don't know how to handle it.

Let me make one thing clear - not all jokes which point out the differences between various racial groups are offensive. Nor is it wrong to make fun of some of the more outrageous things which are now happening to us, thanks to an overbearing political correctness. We must, even in these trying times of great and long overdue social change, retain a sense of humour.

But humour which hurts (the exception being political humour) is no longer socially acceptable.

I am going to, for the sake of argument only, put Mr Justice Oppal's remarks in the worst light, something which flies in the face of much of the evidence, incidentally, Assuming he made the remarks in the worst possible taste and for the sole purpose of amusing the crowd of celebrants, I don't believe we should judge him quite as harshly as Premier Harcourt would.

3. For if Judge Oppal did say these things for less than noble reasons, he is in a very large camp indeed, a camp which, I daresay, includes most males now reading this article.

One writer - a woman - asked the best question of all. Where were the gentlemen? Where indeed? How many men, reading this, would, had they been present, stood up and remonstrated with the speaker? How many would have, at the least, walked out? Would any of you have even written a letter of protest to the organizers of the event? Be honest, now!

Wallace Oppal is a fine man. If he did what was alleged - and his apology does suggest that he is not comfortable with what happened - that conduct must be censored but it must be set off against the enormous contribution he has made to his society.

What Wally Oppal has done, unwittingly, is to make all of us, most particularly men, examine our behaviour.

I don't for a moment believe that Mr Justice Oppal showed an inherent misogyny in his remarks. If actions speak louder than words, this fine judge must be seen as one of women's most committed allies.

What Mr Justice Oppal did was to remind us all that when it comes to what we find funny and, in our relaxed moods to be mocked, we have a long way to go before we can truly say we are decent, tolerant people.

Of men that is especially true.