FORMER TOP RHINO PARTIES ON

Charlie McKenzie was chuckling over the story about two good Mounties in
Disneyland when I called yesterday. RCMP Constable Greg Toogood of Carrot
River, Sask,. and his father, Sgt. Ron Toogood of Regina, are on a
promotional tour of Los Angeles for the Canadian Tourism Commission.

"It's too good not to be true," he wisecracked. And he's right. You
couldn't make up a story like this, and it had the right level of
delightful surrealism for McKenzie to sink his teeth into.

McKenzie is the onetime concierge-en-chef of the Rhinoceros Party of
Canada, an absurdist politician who excels in deflating the stuffed shirts
that populate our politics. That and other essential public services lead
to a posting as UNESCO's ambassador for Humour. But after helping rekindle
the debate over Canada's marijuana laws in the past few years, his public
face has become less so.

When he resurfaced at Tuesday's Whose Picket Line Is It, Anyway? benefit
for locked-out CBC workers to read an Ode of Solitary Solidarity, I got
worried. Was Charlie McKenzie going soft? Had he traded his political edge
for poetry at the very moment his country needs him most?

Poet Lariat

Well, he admits, he is bidding to become Canada's first "poet lariat." But
no need to fret. Big political projects are in the pipe.

McKenzie is animated at the lack of animation in the Canadian body politic.
"People are being turned off by the whole process," he says. "When I looked
at the deplorable situation vis-a-vis apathy in this country, I realized
somebody must be going around this country spreading apathy like wildfire."

Indeed, Johnny Apathy is spreading his sterile terminator seed across the
land. According to the latest social research, people don't know their left
from their right, much less do they care. People have said this stuff for
years over the bar, McKenzie says, but now it's a verified scientific fact.

"That's a bad thing for democracy," he observes. "You end up with people
like Le Pen. So I got to wondering what would bring people together. Is
there one thing they would vote for?"

And McKenzie is betting that that one thing will be his next political
vehicle, the Prime Minister's Retirement Party, or PMRP. "Some day, he's
going to go. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not even next year. But some
day soon, he's going to go."

And McKenzie wants to organize the celebration. He has registered the
domain name primeministersretirementparty.com and is in the process of
registering the political party with Elections Canada.

He's not worried about funding for the party. He insists it would have such
popular appeal that money would be no obstacle. I, for one, would comb
Elections Canada party-financing reports for large donations from Canada
Steamship Lines. McKenzie suggests marijuana compassion clubs across Canada
would run benefits for the party since Jean Chretien is probably the single
biggest impediment to saner pot laws.

Faint Praise

"But we don't want to insult the prime minister, either," McKenzie insists.
"This man has given a number of years of his life - most of his life - to
the service of Canada. Chretien has actually done some good things, I
suppose. I'm assuming he did. So let's do it with respect and affection for
the services he's rendered."

But isn't this political animal in danger, I ask, of being seen as a
one-issue party, a one-trick pony? He scoffs. "The Liberals are a one-issue
party - they're devoted to staying in power."

But he admits that was perhaps the biggest problem with the Rhinoceros
Party. They were all over the map. "They were unfocused," McKenzie says
euphemistically. "It was too complex. There were too many tentacles in the
Rhino Party. That's why it didn't work."

And McKenzie is nothing if not politically opportunist. He's a uniter, not
a divider. "We're too divisive," he laments. "We're always shouting at each
other. It's time to unite this country. Our sovereignty is being assaulted
and peppered on all sides. So we need to find something to bring us
together. And what better to bring people together than a party?"

And one that would invite some real political change into an increasingly
sclerotic system? It could be Toogood to be true.