When the media come to talk with the Newfoundlanders

It happened a full three weeks weeks ago, yet I still can't get it out of my mind.

Peter Mansbridge, host of CBC's The National, talking it up with the boys who were no celebrity slouches either.

The setting was a fishing shed. The boys were Mark Critch, Alan Doyle, and Allan Hawco. The topic was the Newfoundland joy of politics.

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Fair, considering former premier Danny Williams had just poured another pot of hot tar over soon-to-be-former prime minister Stephen Harper and followed up with a few choice feathers.

But something didn't quite work. Mansbridge is a man of impeccably cultivated gravitas. Maybe that's where things went a bit off the rails. Maybe, if the question of what makes Newfoundlanders so different is to be asked at all, it should be fiddled and danced, not pondered.

Mark Critch of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, sharp as a tack and mercilessly funny; Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea, who can make even stones burst into party song with his infectious music; Allan Hawco of The Republic of Doyle, who's had everybody in the country wanting to come here and see whether the place is really that colourful and crime-filled. The only thing missing was the beer.

Mansbridge opened the conversation by asking in his thoughtful way, "Why is politics so important to you?"

Having to start somewhere, he pointed at Critch.

Well, Critch answered, Newfoundlanders are a passionate bunch and love to argue, and when it comes to arguing over politics, they've had plenty of opportunity all the way back to Confederation and beyond.

Some banter followed over the fact that, with only seven seats, Newfoundland and Labrador is hardly a deal maker or breaker in federal politics.

Isn't everybody different, though?

"But do you think differently, is what I mean," Mansbridge wondered out aloud. "Do you think differently to the rest of the country?

Mark Critch's Stephen Harper impression

9 years ago

Duration 1:06

Comedian gives his take on the PM's response to comments made by Mrs. Universe

And the cat was out of the bag.

Different? Isn't everybody different? Aren't British Columbians different? Torontonians? Quebeckers? Nova Scotians? Even the bureaucrats in Ottawa?

Still, when Newfoundlanders are thought of as different, the same old train of stereotypes comes chugging around the corner. We all know it.

We hate it when it gets stamped with that otherN word; we love it when it's lived out spontaneously as just the way things are around here.

"Tell me about the culture of this place," Mansbridge insisted as the conversation started to drift. "What makes it different here than elsewhere?"

Politics is just plain entertaining, Doyle said laughing.

And, of course, there's the old anger at past injustices, Critch added. Broken promises. Lies.

Views of the young

How about the young people, Mansbridge wanted to know. Do they still feel that way?

Maybe not, Critch conceded. There's a long history of the cap in hand, the Newfie joke, the mainland disdain, the chip on Newfoundland's shoulder that's starting to lose relevance. Today's young Newfoundlanders grow up as citizens of a have-province. They don't have to fight for their place in the nation's sun anymore.

A scene of some 30 years ago popped into my mind.

St. John's had been flooded with reporters from all over the world, here to cover the arrival of the Tamil refugees. We'd been jammed into a media bus. Local photographer Ray Fennelly, who was taking pictures for The Evening Telegram at the time, decided to be a generous host and entertained us with an hilarious but also outrageous Newfie clown act.

At the time I felt embarrassment. Now I know that I completely misunderstood. The joke was on us, not on him.

Listening to Critch giving Mansbridge the background to what makes Newfoundlanders what they are, it occurred to me that it's not about thinking differently at all, it's about how you breathe your life, how you suck things up and spit them out.

And I think that's what Critch meant by describing Newfoundlanders as passionate. They're no more afraid to suck in miseries than they're afraid to spit them out as song, and dance, and story telling, and all the other things for which they have a collective reputation.

Taking life seriously, but laughing at it, too

What more was there to say?

"What's your message to the rest of Canada?" Mansbridge asked.

The question seemed like a plea for desperately needed advice on how to take life seriously without forgetting to laugh at it.

Go out and vote, Hawco replied. Even if you don't know whom to vote for and just go to spoil your ballot, vote.

Goofy Newfs?

Maybe, but not without civility.

They played along with Mansbridge, sucked it all up, and spat it out very gently.

If that isn't doing it the Canadian way, what is?

And just to prove there were no hard feelings, Doyle closed out The National that night by singing one of his songs, a capella, with the night lights of St. John's harbour winking and laughing behind him.