Alcock apologizes to MP for "gene 
pool" comment 
by Romeo St. Martin

[PoliticsWatch Updated 2:00 p.m. May 5, 2005]

OTTAWA  — Treasury Board President Reg Alcock said Thursday he has sent a letter of apology to Conservative MP Inky Mark, for comments the Chinese-Canadian MP has described as racist.  

Earlier this week, Mark told reporters a Liberal cabinet minister, who he will not name, called him and dangled an ambassadorship. 

The alleged offer was considered an attempt to reduce the number of seats the Conservatives have in the House and increase the Liberal odds of surviving non-confidence votes.

Alcock again denied Mark's allegation of a job offer in an interview with The Canadian Press on Wednesday by saying, "Frankly, if I was going to recruit somebody I'd go a little higher up the gene pool." 

The cabinet minister's comment prompted Mark and 15 other Conservative MPs to hold a press conference on Parliament Hill on Thursday morning where each of them condemned Alcock for his comments and called for his resignation. 

"Reg Alcock's comments certainly have attacked my biological make up," said Mark. "And I can assure you that the Chinese community will not take this lightly." 

The Manitoba MP even said the "mindset" behind Alcock's comments was similar to those that promoted genetic superiority that led to the Holocaust. 

Alcock later said he apologized for what he described as "a joke."

"I did make the comment and he has chosen to interpret it as a racial or ethnic slur," Alcock said after a cabinet meeting.

"If Mr. Mark chose to interpret it that way, I immediately wrote him a letter and apologized for it. Because I meant none of it."

When asked to explain just what exactly Alcock meant when he made the joke, Alcock said, "I just thought he was not the kind of person that I would recruit -- period."

When first told about Alcock's comments on Wednesday, Canadian Press reported Mark "played down the insult, saying Alcock's ego was wounded because he was out of the loop on Mark's job offer."

However, on Thursday Mark and his colleagues appeared to have a change of heart and opted instead to call for Alcock's resignation. 

Mark attributed his initial shrug of Alcock's comment to having been "desensitized to this kind of nonsense."

He said he was actually surprised when he saw the comments in print. 

Mark denied the suggestion in reporters' questions that the Conservatives were merely trying to turn the tables on Liberal MPs who jump at nearly every opportunity to accuse Conservative politicians of racism or homophobia.

"I'd be the last person to play this business of the race card," Mark said. 

Earlier this week, Immigration Minister Joe Volpe compared the Conservative party to the Ku Klux Klan because of a newspaper photo of two Conservative MPs holding a spoof movie poster comparing key Liberal Adscam figures to characters on the television program The Sopranos. 

Volpe suggested the Klan-like behaviour because he believed the poster perpetuated a negative stereotype of Italians as members of organized crime syndicates, even though only one of the eight Liberals depicted in the poster was Italian. 

The Conservatives also want Volpe to resign for his comments. 

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