It's more about the delivery than the message.

That wisdom was brought to mind the other day when I read about a woman who was arrested and charged with assault after she shoved a pie in the face of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea.

"Shame on you Gail Shea... It is a shame on Canada. It is a shame that she has not denounced this bloody seal hunt," the woman stated while being escorted away.

At the time, shouting your manifesto while being forcibly removed and/or arrested may seem like a pretty solid move - the kind of thing that should be immortalized in some Ollie Stone flick with dramatic music in the background. The reality is that you look like a lunatic and everyone ignores you.

You could scream out tomorrow's winning lottery numbers, the cure for cancer and the secret to hour-long orgasms in one breath, but if the cops are stuffing you in a cruiser while you're doing it, you can be assured that Joe Canadian has tuned your shit right out.

That said, a pie in the face is a message in and of itself. The look of an elected official or other dignitary staring out of a mask of whipped cream with wide eyes is just an incredible thing and, if you watch the video of Minister Shea's pieing, you'll have to note the effectiveness of the assault. Shea is clearly stunned and pathetically paws at the muck a bit before being awkwardly led off-stage by her handlers.

The only thing I can think of that might have more effect would be pantsing someone in public, but the podiums that traditionally dominate any speaking engagement make that a potentially low-impact action and unworthy of real consideration.

A pie, on the other hand, is just utterly humiliating, and it offers no recovery to the victim. You really can't continue what you were doing because you're covered in pie, and even people who feel horrible about your bad luck still have to laugh at the hilarity of the scene. You've got pie on your face, and that's funny and sad and outrageous and probably illegal. It's also distracting, and whatever you say post-pieing will be ignored, because of the pie.

I'm certainly not commenting on the morality of pieing someone, and I'm not recommending it as a form of protest. Emily McCoy has been arrested and charged with assault after the incident, and one Liberal MP is suggesting the assault was actually an act of terrorism. Clearly, someone will pay for the pieing.

My real point is that the woman's comments after she delivered her payload - apparently unencumbered by security measures of any kind - were completely unnecessary. What can you add to a pie in the face? You've silenced and humiliated a public speaker, and it's clear that you don't agree with whatever that speaker was saying.

At that point, I would suggest that your actions have done all the talking in the world, and it might be time to just moonwalk offstage into the waiting arms of the police or security detail.

Mike Warkentin wonders who is in charge of security for Canadian MPs.