Last night at the CIJA dinner, I met former Liberal Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and former leadership candidate Joe Volpe.

The conversation went like this:

ST: “Hi Mr. Volpe, my name’s Stephen Taylor”

JV: “[shakes my hand] Hello. [turns to return to original conversation after momentary distraction]”

moments pass

JV: “[pensively] Stephen Taylor… Steeephennn Tayyylor…”

JV: “STEPHEN TAYLOR! SON OF A BI…!”

ST: “Sorry Joe, what was that? Son of a what?”

JV: “Son of a bee… yeah… son of a bee”

ST: “Yeah, nice to meet you too”

And that’s my general recollection of the words exchanged when I first met Joe Volpe. Not bad, eh?

We then chatted blogging, he complained how personally nasty some bloggers are to him (he acknowledged that I’ve always kept my criticism in the realm of fair comment), and we horsed around for a couple of pictures.

Volpe tries to put me in a headlock. I react defensively, but Volpe’s from the mean streets of Eglinton–Lawrence and he clearly is about to school me the art of gritty Liberal streetfighting…

A word of advice, never criticize Volpe’s donors…

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(click to enlarge)

“Punk blogger… this is for little Jimmy… this one’s for little Susie…”*