When mass mailing just gets way out of handTo: Rt. Hon. Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada
From: Amy Langstaff
Re: The Politics of Post
Dear Madam:
I am truly saddened to find that my first official correspondence with Rideau Hall must concern an action on the part of Your Excellency with which I have no choice but to take issue. I read with a heavy heart of the heated correspondence between your staff and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops last week.
Lest Your Excellency should be confused (someone of your station can hardly be expected to handle every scrap of correspondence addressed to her; you may be ignorant of the exchange of which I write), I will offer a thumbnail sketch of the events to date. Last week, Toronto bank manager Kevin Bourassa sent Your Excellency an electronic invitation to his wedding, which took place last Sunday in the Metropolitan Community Church. He was married to Joe Varnell, also of Toronto. An email reply was sent in your name, stating that Your Excellency regretted your inability to attend but that you wished the couple well.
The bishops learned of this response and were considerably rankled, as bishops sometimes are. Your spokesperson, Stewart Wheeler, was quick to distance you from the offending message (well, it wasn’t offending to everyone — it was read aloud at the wedding of Messrs. Bourassa and Varnell), insisting that it was a form letter, sent to thousands upon thousands of disappointed function givers, party throwers, fund raisers, and brides and grooms each year, and that the bishops should not imagine that the email was a statement of approval of the same-sex union in question hand-stamped by Your Excellency. The bishops were not quieted by Mr. Wheeler’s assurances; Monsignor Peter Schonenbach, general secretary of the bishops’ conference, insisted that you were accountable for correspondence written by staff on your behalf and that this letter was an unacceptable message for an office as elevated as your own to be sending.
