My letter to Peter MacKay about this Tie-Belinda thing

Dear Peter,

First of all, I have to admit that I don’t get it. Belinda had you and she evidently put little stock in that relationship as she jumped ship from your Conservatives to the enemy Grits last year. Okay, so she decided to swap political alliances and that meant she couldn’t be with someone of a different party. We get that. It’s old news. But what about her taste in men? Given the recent state of affairs (excuse the pun), the people of Canada may not understand. Can you offer any insight?

The way I see it, you’re a good-looking guy with brains, ambition and a bright future. Which ostensibly means you have four things that Tie Domi doesn’t have – well, at least not to the same extent as you. You’re the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, a reasonable step up in importance from Tie’s new gig as a sports commentator, fresh off his years-long tenure as a successful NHL pugilist.

Yet here Tie is splashed on the front page of all the papers with your ex-girlfriend, the fervent Ms. Stronach, being yanked mercilessly into the fray. It certainly seems they had a lurid affair, which is bad judgment running afoul on both sides, him being a married man with two kids and her a high profile Liberal Member of Parliament, currently unmarried but with two kids of her own. Don’t you think they’d know better than to not only allegedly have sex, but to be seen together, frequently? Surely they both realized the press would have a field day with them. No doubt they understood they couldn’t keep their wanton little tryst under wraps for long? I’m sure you’d make a wiser choice if you were in the same boat. Well, you probably wouldn’t have an affair in the first place, even though I’m sure you have the opportunity. You seem like too devoted a guy. I mean that in the best way.

I must ask if you have any opinion on why Belinda would be interested in a recently-retired hockey enforcer, a guy known more for pummeling his on-ice opponents into submission than more any intellectual pursuits, least of all politics? There’s also the fact that Tie’s not exactly Tom Selleck to look at: he’s neither tall nor handsome, he’s balding and he’s pretty mean-looking. Sure he’s popular with the Leaf faithful, because he’s beat up so many of their opponents. Although I don’t want for a minute to imagine it, maybe he’s also quite a force in bed.

And after all, Belinda does have more than a passing interest in athletes, one of her two former husbands being Norwegian speed skating legend Johann Olav Koss.

As an aside, I wonder what her two kids think of all this shameful press she’s getting? It can’t be easy to deflect among their peers at school.

I'm honestly trying to put this story into perspective as relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. But it seems at least a little important in your corner of Canada. You and your Tory mates have to face Belinda and her party on a regular basis in the House of Commons and I’m sure you run into her on occasion. Though I understand that given your acrimonious break-up and the fact she couldn't bring herself to say goodbye face-to-face, you probably don’t speak much.

I wonder if, during the last couple of days when this story became big news, you felt any sort of kinship with Tie’s now ex-wife, Leanne, as she played the part of the scorned and betrayed mate. Perhaps you appreciated the upheaval she went through as she felt compelled to sue the man she once loved dearly and whose offspring she raised, putting aside her own career as a merchandising manager.

No doubt you’ve heard that Tie told her (according to Leanne) that if she kept the affair with Belinda quite, he’d give her a pretty decent payout but if she didn’t she’d get nothing. Tie apparently also said the press wouldn’t want to hear any of her weeping about her husband and his extramarital goings-on. Which forced her hand and made her go straight to the press. Now a court has decided that he gets to fork over for all of her expenses and the kids’. And he gets only limited access to them.

We don’t know the inner-workings of the Domis’ relationship and I wouldn’t want to go so far as to call him a lousy scoundrel. He’s done some good charity work here in Toronto. But maybe he’s been a bad husband all along. Or perhaps she’s been horribly mean to him for years. We just don’t know.

However, it seems (again, according to Leanne) that he’s been unfaithful before, notably with a certain TV Relic Hunter named Tia Carrere a few years back when she was in the Big Smoke filming. Oh, did you know her real name is Althea Janairo?

Back to Belinda. I wonder if you hear the flushing sound of her political career going down the toilet faster than Tie could deck a rookie goon. Well, at least she’s still got all her daddy‘s Magna money to fall back on. Okay, I guess she did actually run the company for him in recent years. I’ll give her some credit. It's clear she's an awfully good businesswoman. And, it’s not like many men who run these big companies don’t go off screwing women who aren’t their wives, or somebody’s wife and mother.

In wrapping, I should apologize to Canadians on this day for not aggressively dissecting your government’s new budget cutbacks, which, as one editorial noted, seem to be shoring up your Conservative base nicely while apparently having little to no impact on the federal economy – on the large scale that is. But since the rest of this letter has such a friendly tone, I won’t go on about how your buddies (surely you have little say in these money matters) are going to be seen as picking on women, youths, Aboriginals, jobless youth, illiterate adults, among others. I’ll refrain from going further.

Oh, I meant to ask: what’s going on between you and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice? You two seem to have spent a lot of time together while she was in Canada commemorating the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. On second thought, you’re both single people with no kids, so whatever you do is your own damn business.

Much happiness to you, Peter.

And have a great 41st birthday. You don’t look your age.

Regards,

Erich