Hec Clouthier dishes it out in his meaty memoir
Clouthier’s political memoir dishes on colourful ex-MP who’s lived a Hec of a life
Hector (Hec) Clouthier was a maverick politician, a small man with a big hat and bigger ambitions.
Thus has he written a maverick’s memoir, full of horses and guns, fightin’ and cussin’, grudges and treachery — great stuff to spill around the campfire.
Clouthier, now 67, was the memorable MP for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke from 1997 until 2000, but his political career spanned nearly 30 years, concluding with a failed run as an independent in 2015. Unmistakable in his signature fedora, he projects a highbrow backwoods kind of image, as he reminded me one day this week when he used the word “vituperative” — maybe even correctly — in a complete sentence.
(It is all the more odd, given the hat, the dark suit, the creased eyes, the Jimmy Cagney look, all gangster but for a machine-gun. A household name in the Upper Ottawa Valley, the man can — as they might say Up the Line — talk the leg off a chair.)
Five highlights Give ’em Hec! gives us:
1. He was defeated by Cheryl Gallant, an Alliance turned Conservative — still the sitting member — and the pair appear to detest each other, as evidenced by a bizarre road incident along Highway 17 in May 2002. It began with a minor conflict in the parking lot of Tim Horton’s in Arnprior and continued with a weird slowing-down, speedingup dance, as the two vehicles headed west, Gallant in the lead. Little did Clouthier know the MP had called the OPP from her van and the police were waiting near Renfrew. “Just past the lights, on the shoulder of the road, there’s an OPP officer, weapon drawn, and he’s waving me in. Cheryl drives on, and I’m waved over at gunpoint.” After a brief investigation, nothing came of it.
2. Clouthier first made a name for himself by challenging the long-standing MP, Len Hopkins, for the Liberal nomination in 1988, thus creating simmering divisions among Grits in the riding. He was finally elected in the 1997 election, but lasted only one term. His defeat is widely attributed to his telling hunters to “get a life” at a packed meeting of Pembroke-area outdoorsmen seething at the implications of C-68, the gun registry law. His remarks were misconstrued, he writes:
“In the middle of an answer, and after a couple of hours of this abuse, mostly from this one dude, who had called me a frog, an Indian, and had given me repeated choke signs, I paused and, looking the individual right in the eye, advised him of his need to “get a life.” ... The reporter fellow jumped all over it, took it, and ran with it. In a blink, he had accused me of telling all hunters and outdoorsmen to get a life, and in that blink the 2000 federal election was as good as lost.”
3. His 1997 victory was so hard-won (his third crack at it) that defeat was bitter after only three years in office. “I’ll not lie to you. When the final election results were made official, I went into my den at home and cried.” When he congratulated Gallant that evening, he writes, the response stung him, and does to this day. “Then, finally, while shaking her hand and congratulating her, Gallant leans over and whispers in my ear, ‘Remember the best person won.’ I mean, really?”
4. Clouthier developed a strong relationship with prime minister Jean Chrétien, as they both shared humble roots and big franco-Catholic families, the little guys from Petawawa and Shawinigan. Things got off to a rocky start, however, when in 1993 Chrétien told him he wouldn’t sign his nomination papers to challenge the sitting MP. “Then Jean, go f--- yourself,” he writes, then telling a horrified chief of staff Jean Pelletier, “F--- you, too” for good measure. The PM, apparently, admired his spunk. They later became buds, skiing, golfing and hunting together, taking trips all over the world.
5. One day, Chrétien thought he’d have a little fun with Clouthier, whom he called ‘Ector, pretending to don his hat in the curtained area outside the House of Commons. Nothing, apparently, comes between Hec and his lid. “I took several steps back, through the curtain and into the House of Commons proper, then ran back in the caucus room, launching myself, fully airborne into the Prime Minister’s chest, tackling him like a defensive linebacker bent on crushing a quarterback. Over the back of a couch we go, French cuffs and all, two grown men, one the leader of his nation, scrambling and fighting over a hat.” And it turns out to be the PM’s hat, not Hec’s, bought as a gag.
There’s lots more. He shot his first moose at age 13, ran 35 marathons, quit boozing in 1984 before things got messy, met Nelson Mandela, George Bush and the Queen, raced horses, adored his father, lamented the early death of his mother, raised three sons with wife, Debbie.
Gave ’em Hec? Didn’t he though. (The book is available on Amazon.)