Talk about knowing your audience. In late July, author Yann Martel (The Life of Pi) was invited to deliver a lunch keynote at the Midwestern Legislators Conference in Saskatoon in front of a 400+ crowd of Western Canadian and US legislators, company reps, and other stakeholders. The invitation apparently came from members of the provincial opposition NDP who were on the conference organizing committee — although, presumably, government members also approved it. .EDITORIAL: Au revoir, Quebec: A bon voyage for the battered West.Let’s just say Martel’s 30-minute ramble on “fiction and the politician” went over like a lead balloon. Weighing in on Jesus (an “illiterate” whose birth and death are merely “symbolism”) and MAGA (“facts do not matter”), he managed to gravely offend many attendees, including several — mostly Republican — US lawmakers, whose states trade heavily with Saskatchewan and Canada. It was, as they say, bad for business.Martel may have achieved international recognition for Pi. But he is not an economist. And this conference was neither the time nor place for sophomoric musings about Jesus’ existence. .Let’s not forget Martel is the guy who launched a “guerrilla book club” in 2007, sending then-PM Stephen Harper (who also spoke at the Conference) a favourite novel every two weeks. “With Harper, we have an existential blank who cares more to be in power than to exercise it wisely,” Martel wrote at the time. “Novels won’t change him now. But they might have earlier. Because that’s what great novels can do.” In his Saskatoon speech, he said we are all “circulating libraries” and should make connections by exchanging life stories: “What books can you take from someone’s library into yours?” — something he might have asked himself in his guerrilla days. After all, Harper has a Master’s in Economics and likely a few favourite books of his own. Martel is well-known for weird comments. In a commencement address to University of Saskatchewan students last year, he said dental floss was the most important item to carry in your metaphorical backpack. “What do we want to do to be kind, open-hearted, and non-judgemental? We smile. Flossing will help you smile.”.EDITORIAL: Not every forest fire is ‘climate change,’ majority are human stupidity.He urged graduates to “end the reign of old white men” like himself. “We want a future where women, BIPOC people, queer people have their say — for the collective good. Flossing will help you with that, because no privileged group has ever given up their privilege willingly. So if you’re going to bite them so they step aside, you’ll need good teeth.”In his most recent foray, of course, he decided to bite off the very existence of Jesus himself, contending that if you have a “good story,” the “facts don’t matter.”It was hardly fresh material on the historical record: that Jesus’ birth and death dates were later blended with the winter solstice and spring equinox, or that the writers of the Gospels and St. Paul never personally met Jesus..No mention of the lost Gospel source of “Q.” No mention of the Turin Shroud. No mention of what’s believed to have been lost in the destruction of the Alexandria library. No mention of Jesus’ half-brother James, whose authority is much-referenced in the New Testament. Or Roman historian Tacitus’ mention of “Christos.” Or Josephus, the first-century Jewish scholar, born in A.D. 37, who references Jesus directly in Antiquities 18:63 and 20:200. A later-discovered Agapian text, in particular, shows no sign of later interpolation: “About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was the achiever of extraordinary deeds and a teacher of those who accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When he was indicted by the principal men among us and Pilate condemned him to be crucified, those who had come to love him originally did not cease to do so; for he appeared to them on the third day restored to life, as the prophets of the Deity had foretold these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.” In his speech, Martel also weighed in on the MAGA movement. Relating a recent visit to Hong Kong, he said, “For all the terrible sins of the Chinese government, it has managed to enrich literally hundreds of millions of Chinese. They went from a dirt-poor country in the mid-20th century to one with excessive wealth.”.EDITORIAL: One rule for thee, another for indigenous Shakespeare.This is in contrast to the US, apparently, which is “going in the opposite way.” Millions of Americans, who are sinking into poverty, despise MAGA. “They think it’s full of lies, distortions, white supremacy.” The “facts,” according to Martel, are that millions of Americans once had good jobs, good roads, good schools, “and do no longer.”Martel wrapped up — after a last hit-and-run on the Gospels for being inferior “literature” — saying, “Hopefully, we’ll be able to get back on track to the narrative we’ve shared with the Americans for so long that has yielded a much more positive relationship.”After that speech? Good luck.Bronwyn Eyre is Saskatchewan’s former Minister of Energy, Minister of Justice, and Attorney General.
