Oliver's Twist (42 page)
Authors: Craig Oliver
With effort, one can grasp at some advantages. For example, my friends no longer age. Their faces do not bear the insults of advancing decades, nor do telltale lines of worry or hardship betray the women I have known and loved over the years. To me these women remain as young and beautiful as I ever knew them. My world is a wrinkle-free shirt, and minor clutter doesn't register. I still go horseback riding almost every summer with Lloyd Robertson in the foothills near Bragg Creek, Alberta. My regular sure-footed horse knows my limitations as well as any close friend. Together we allow the other riders to get well ahead of us on the trail, and then wait for them to signal an all-clear.
Once released, we break into a full cantor, heading gleefully in the direction of the other riders' voices.
If we are fortunate, the past comes more clearly into focus as we age, and in my case, facing the loss of my vision along with my youth has helped me view the world from a different perspective. Perhaps this is what Canadian poet Margaret Avison called the “optic heart”: We perceive and appreciate others more deeply, beyond their surface appearance.
Waning eyesight sometimes isolates its sufferers, causing them to turn inward. That impulse is all the stronger for those in my profession. We are outsiders by nature, preferring a position on the fringes where we take no risks but are happy to shoot barbs at those who do. I discovered that the better solution for me was to reach out and embrace my handicap. Doing so demanded that I trust others, even with my physical safety and when all my childhood instincts warned me otherwise. I felt I had become a grown-up at last.
Occasionally I am asked to give a fundraising speech for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and I am happy to do so, assisting an organization that is shaking off its former grey image and plunging into new technologies for the benefit of the blind across Canada. I felt indebted to Ottawa's Eye Institute as well for its exciting research initiatives and the extraordinary care it extends to its patients. As I approached my seventieth birthday in 2008, I suggested the idea of a fundraising event for the institute in support of education in the field of ophthalmology. No one knew if a single ticket would be sold, but we set to work on our respective Rolodexes.
Early on I personally asked Prime Minister Harper if he would attend. He declined, saying he was not at ease at big public
gatheringsâa peculiar admission for a politician, as he himself conceded. I respected it, however, and was prepared to welcome the stand-in he promised. Happily, all of the other party leaders confirmed their attendance.
On an evening in early December 2008, the ballroom of the Fairmont Chateau Laurier was packed with hundreds of well-wishers, among them at least two generations of political warriors from four political parties and a large contingent from the press gallery. Most younger Members of Parliament had never experienced such an eventâa gathering of politicos that was, for once, free of poisonous partisan bickering.
To the delight of the organizers, just hours before the event word came that the prime minister would attend after all. He gave a witty, well-timed speech that perfectly suited the roast-the-host theme as he recalled my reportage of man's discovery of fire and Champlain's landing at Quebec. The audience was charmed and amazed by this uncharacteristically hilarious performance and wondered why we did not see this side of Harper more often. Jean Chrétien and Lloyd Robertson also spoke to good effect, while everyone tried on the googlie-eyed joke glasses found in their gift bags. We raised a hundred and fifty thousand dollars that night for the W. Bruce Jackson Endowment for Fellowships in Ophthalmology at the University of Ottawa.
When people ask what the world looks like through my eyes, I refer them to French Impressionism and to one of the greatest painters of the nineteenth century, Claude Monet, who suffered from cataracts. In his youth, Monet led a busy life of travel across
all of Europe, immortalizing what he saw in oils on canvas. As he grew old and infirm and his vision faded, Monet turned to his own garden for the inspiration of some of his greatest work. He found fulfillment in what was closest. The scenes he painted resemble the world I see every day, a pastiche of shapes and shadows and swirls of colour with no crisp outlines or sharp details. The other senses are no less sharp, however; the parade of life is no less exhilarating. I have to say it's not a bad view.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For more than half a century politics has been the theatre of my life, and it has presented an engrossing stage show.
I have been the eager critic, dashing out of my comfortable seat when the curtain falls to report, assess, and judge the work. The actors tell the story, not me; everything hangs on the script and the performance. When the house lights come up, I have not had to care how the play ends and so I have remained uninvolved, or as some critics of the critics would observe, I have avoided the responsibility yet savoured the power. While courageous men and women have contended with one national crisis after another, I have judged from a safe distance. Whatever fleeting notoriety I have achieved owes everything to those players.
Almost without exception, I have genuinely liked and admired the politicians I have covered. I make no apologies for knowing many of them well backstage. Media managers expect their senior staff to be well acquainted with the powerful in all parties: Senior staff need access for reasons of accuracy, fairness, and competitiveness. And politicians need to get their message
out. The Parliament Hill precinct is a village of fewer than a thousand men and women. Journalists, bureaucrats, and pols bump elbows at the same bars, attend the same charity and cultural events, and play golf and squash together. Inevitably, friendships develop.
That closeness is as common today as it was decades ago, although some rules of engagement have changed. No politician can expect to be protected from exposure of serious wrongdoing. When their opponents fling mud at them, politicians can hope at least for a fair hearing from the media, but at some point the responsibilities of the journalist's job may trump the friendship. As for gossip about the private lives of the public people we cover day and night, my own belief is that these details become news only when they seriously affect the performance of the politician's elected duty. Otherwise, there is nothing to be gained by ruining the lives of public officials who display the same frailties and foibles as the rest of us.
I hope the members of our band of canoeing adventurers will feel that I have reflected our collective triumphs and mishaps fairly. To my bowman, Tim Kotcheff, and my trail-riding companion, Lloyd Robertson, thank you both for a lifetime of loyal friendship.
I must offer my deep appreciation to the staff of the CTV Ottawa bureau for creating such a supportive environment.
My thanks to Diane Turbide of Penguin Canada who was the first to read a few lines of this work many years ago and encouraged me in the fanciful thought that I might have a book in me. I'm grateful too to my agent, John Pearce, who placed the manuscript in the capable hands of my publisher, and to my copy editor, Sharon Kirsch, who gave it a final polish. I cannot
write
thirty
to this project without acknowledging my own editor, Jan Walter, for her unerring good judgment and skill.
A reporter's life can take a tremendous toll on those closest to him. I am thankful that my wife, Anne-Marie Bergeron, worked in the same business and could roll with the unpredictability of a newshound's calling. Too many nights my daughter, Annie Claire, kissed goodnight to my image on the television screen. The experience cannot have been completely off-putting, since she will shortly begin studies at the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. My greatest hope is that she will find a career as rewarding, challenging, and satisfying as her old dad did.
INDEX
A
Across Canada,
53
Allen, Tony,
203
Ambrose, Rona,
282
Anderson, Rick,
205
Anne, Princess,
56
Apps, Alf,
284
Arafat, Yasser,
242
Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting (APEC),
247
Association of Canadian Mountain Guides,
118
Avison, Margaret,
326
B
Bell, Martin,
157
Benson, Thom,
36
Bergeron, Anne-Marie,
147
â
48
,
149
â
50
,
209
,
212
Bickle, Bill,
12
Blakeney, Allan,
43
Bloc Québécois,
198
â
99
,
204
,
298
Bourassa, Robert,
96
Bradlee, Ben,
137
Brinkley, David,
131
Brison, Scott,
208
Broadbent, Ed,
294
Brock, Dan,
284
Brownlee, Bonnie,
196
Buchanan, Judd,
116
,
118
,
119
,
217
,
238
â
39
Bush, George H.W.,
130
,
132
,
134
,
145
C
Caine, Michael,
69
Cameron, Don,
63
career,
64
â
65
,
66
,
67
â
68
,
72
,
103
and Champ,
78
and CO assignments,
148
,
173
,
183
demotion,
81
drinking habits,
80
hires Wallin,
178
meets CO,
65
personality,
66
Camp, Dalton,
188
Campagnolo, Iona,
84
â
85
,
181
â
82
,
256
â
57
