The As It Happens Files (16 page)
Read The As It Happens Files Online
Authors: Mary Lou Finlay
Russ Germain (who was subbing for Barbara)
extro’d
the interview:
Barbara Budd is the regular co-host of
As It Happens.
We reached her at the Broken Bone Tavern in Reeding, er, Redding, England.
Russ, by the way, with his sexy baritone and his own dry wit, happens to be an announcer from the old days, when radio announcers were hired for their language and elocution skills and the way they sounded; consequently, he also did a brilliant job co-hosting
As It Happens.
I confess we didn’t miss Barbara quite so much when he was filling in for her.
Anyway, Barbara and I had our conversation about her Canada Council grant on April 1, 2004. Here’s what Talkback had to say the next day. Names have been removed to protect the gullible.
Hello, my name is BR. I’m about
50
kilometres west of Saskatoon. I’ve been a great fan of CBC for many decades and a fan of
As It Happens
for equally many decades, but tonight I am just totally disillusioned and disappointed with Budd’s gloating over how she scored a Canada Council
grant to visit many places around the world that she has mispronounced the name of. I think you’ve got to be more responsible with the taxpayers’ money, Miss Budd. Please clean up your act. Bye-bye.
GR calling from High River, Alberta. Wow, I mispronounce names all the time; I think I should get a Canada Council grant also. If there was ever a reason why we should just ban the Canada Council totally and severely restrict the funding the CBC gets …
Hello,
As It Happens.
This is MK in Syracuse, New York, and I have to say, “Barbara, way to go with the Canada Council grant!” Proof that you can get money to do the most amazing things. Thanks for a wonderful show, and Barbara, have a safe trip.
Hi, this is K. calling from Vancouver. I’m really happy that Canada does things like this, that they hand out grants for what many people in these days of fiscal conservatism would consider are very frivolous activities because—well, you know what, why not?
Among the various catcalls and hurrahs, there were a couple of people who twigged to the fact that we might have been up to something fishy the day before.
Hello, Mary Lou and Russ and Barbara. It’s Paul Coyle calling. I just thoroughly enjoyed your interview with Barbara, explaining where she’s been. You really had me going. And suddenly, it dawned on me that today is the first of the month of April. That was classic, absolutely classic.
Hello, Barbara, this is Wendy Zilka calling from Edmonton, and I was just listening to your charming little segment, supposedly in Reading, and if this is an April Fool’s joke, then I hope that you will come clean.
And then, as so often happens with Talkback, we got a suggestion for some music and picked up a nugget of new information, too.
It’s Bill Shaw phoning from Bedford, Nova Scotia. If, in fact, Barbara Budd did fall and injure herself at Queenston, how could you resist playing Stan Rogers’ “MacDonnell on the Heights”?
The song is about MacDonnell, who essentially took up the banner and continued the charge after Major General Sir Isaac William Brock was shot dead and, for better or for worse, kept Canada from becoming part of the wealthiest and most influential place in the universe.
Just to get us started on the right note, Mr. Shaw himself intoned the first verse to us over the phone:
Too thin the line that charged the Heights
And scrabbled in the clay,
Too thin the Eastern Township Scot
Who showed them all the way.
And perhaps had you not fallen
You might be what Brock became,
But not one in ten thousand knows your name.
Major MacDonnell (or Macdonell or Macdonald … first name unknown) fought and died with Brock, and his body also lies buried under the Brock Monument.
This is so typical of the way our listeners enrich the show through their emails and phone messages and their composing and singing—and their
dogs’
singing. (Does anyone remember Pickles, the poodle who sings along to the
As It Happens
theme?) I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s impossible to overstate the extent to which we depended on the wit and humour of our audience. Look what happened, for instance, when someone brought up the subject of wacky warning labels. We did the interview, we heard a few examples and then the listeners posted these:
A sign seen on a wheelbarrow:
Not for use on highway.
A sign on a paper towel dispenser on a B.C. ferry:
Do not hang from towel. Misuse could be fateful.
On a septic tank cover:
Do not enter.
On a hair dryer:
Do not use while sleeping.
On a hair dryer in a Japanese hotel:
This appliance is to be used for drying hair only. Not for the other purpose.
On a woodstove:
Caution—hot when in use.
On an electrical appliance:
For indoor or outdoor use ONLY.
On an electric recliner:
Do not use in shower or swimming pool.
On a children’s cold medicine:
Avoid alcohol beverages, driving a vehicle and operating machinery when taking this medication.
On a package of Japanese steak knives:
Do not leave in children.
On a room deodorizer:
Avoid being eaten by children.
On the Hoover Tower, San Francisco:
In case of an earthquake, duck.
In a parking lot in Banff, Alberta:
No skiing on pavement.
And my personal favourite:
On a car windshield sunshade:
Do not drive while this is in place.
The scary thing, as many have pointed out, is that you know these signs are probably there for a reason.
Over the years, our listeners have also found more things to do with duct tape than you could have imagined—and with Spam. They send recipes for roast turkey and shortbread cookies and other goodies when they’re in season. (No haggis recipes needed, thank you.) But as we’ve seen, their real strength lies in playing with words and naming things: things like runaway pigs and Canadian political factions and, on one occasion, smallish pieces of land surrounded by water—or what we used to call “islands” before the European Union (EU) got hold of them.
The EU is a very effective trade bloc, of course, but it also supports a vast and overbearing bureaucracy who have to keep busy somehow. Passing regulations governing the proper size of leeks, the official shape of a banana, what you’re allowed to put in cheese and so on is one way they keep busy. And also—as it happens—provide much fodder for ridicule.
One day in January 2003, Ian Gillis of the Scottish Islands Network was called on to explain to us the new requirements for islands. An EU island wasn’t an island any longer, he said,
if it had a fixed link (a bridge) to the mainland or if it was longer than four kilometres or if there were too few people or if it had a capital.
What would we call the Isle of Skye then?
I wondered.
Or the British Isles, for that matter?
And why was the EU doing this?
Mr. Gillis couldn’t enlighten us there, but he said that on the Isle of Muck, they were considering having themselves reclassified as a shipping hazard.
On what to call a non-island, though, our listeners were not at all stranded. Van Boyd in Haliburton, Ontario, had a whole archipelago of suggestions:
No man’s land.
You-land.
We-land.
The we’ll of Skye.
According to this scheme, said Mr. Boyd, Prince Edward Island would become Prince Edward We-land. And just think of the employment opportunities: the maps that would need changing, the road signs and so on.
John Wallenberg of Montreal said that, logically, an island which is no longer an island should be a
was-land.
John Myers of Toronto said an isle that wasn’t an isle must be an
ex-isle.
Peter, in Mississauga, suggested calling them
den-isles,
and Clare Neufeld offered
in-continents.
Vivian Hemsley of Bolton, Ontario, said if the island had a causeway, it could be called a
bi-land,
because it might be an island—or it might not be. Or you could spell that
by-land,
since you get there by land. If it had a population under 50, you could call it a
buy-land,
because more people would have to buy land there to have it qualify as an island.
Nicholas Wade of Lethbridge, Alberta, said that if Prince Edward Island no longer qualified as an island, it should be renamed
Prince Edward Object.
Finally, Amy Langstaff from Montreal called to say, “I hope I haven’t missed the boat on the topic. The request was for a name for an island that is no longer an island. It seems clear to me that that would be an
erstwhile-land.”
Oh, you think you’re so clever, don’t you?
To return to the subject of April Fool’s jokes … I know people are always accusing the Press of making things up. We don’t usually. For the most part, we try very hard to get the facts straight and to dig up all the relevant facts, and the CBC, I think, does a pretty good job of it.
But when the occasion calls for it, we can and do tell some pretty big whoppers. A good April Fool’s joke should be outlandish but not so outlandish that it might not be true. Years ago, when I lived in Ottawa, someone ran a story on April 1st about how they were going to replace the old clock on Parliament Hill with a digital clock. More recently on
As It Happens,
the producers pretended that the Canadian Mint was going to pull five-dollar bills out of circulation and release a new three-dollar coin to go along with the loonie (one-dollar coin) and the toonie, perhaps to be called a threenie.
When I worked on the show
Sunday Morning,
we presented an entire documentary about a fictitious “stan” (as in Turkistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan). It was shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union, so we figured no one would be too surprised to learn that there was a “stan” they’d never heard of before.
But my favourite AIH April Fool’s joke before the one about Barbara and her “Canada Council grant” was the one
we cooked up concerning a new financial deal that CBC Radio had struck with the Disney Corporation. We wondered if we could persuade the then President of the CBC to play along, and to our delight, he agreed. So here is CBC President Perrin Beatty explaining to me why there would be nothing wrong with Disney and the CBC getting into bed together. He did it without a script, and except for the premise, without any input whatsoever from us.
ML: Mr. Beatty, I can’t believe this. You’re not serious about joining CBC Radio to Disney!
PB: Mary Lou, times are tough. We’ve just had two very expensive labour settlements. We’ve been through
400
million dollars’ worth of productions. You have to find some way to make ends meet.
ML: But this—I mean, not only is it a noncommercial network, but it’s a
Canadian
one. I mean, I can’t—
PB: Well, Mary Lou, what’s the choice? Do you want commercials back on CBC Radio? We’re not asking for anything outrageous. Disney simply wants a tag at the end of the programme, indicating their involvement in the programme and an association with CBC. It enables them to make a real contribution to Canadian taxpayers.
ML: At the end of every programme.
PB: Yes. For the sort of money that they’re looking at, I think it’s reasonable that there be some recognition. But you know, it’s not our intention to run ads, to be running Kleenex ads or car ads—that’s what we used to have on CBC Radio. All we’re asking for here is the opportunity to get an infusion of a little bit of money and some
recognition for people who are being very good corporate citizens.
ML: It’s an American company!
PB: Well, Mary Lou, we heard the same argument when the RCMP did their deal with Disney.
ML: Exactly.
PB: You heard the same thing: the world was going to come to an end. This was a Canadian institution that shouldn’t be allowed to have an American company helping to publicize it.
Well, it’s worked very well. It’s generated revenue for the RCMP. What is more quintessentially Canadian than the RCMP? I don’t think anybody believes they’ve become an American institution. Nobody will believe that we are either, because they know that we’re committed to Canada.
ML: But even if it worked well in terms of revenue … I mean, you remember the outrage of people when the RCMP deal was announced. You don’t think they’ll be outraged about
this?
PB: Well, there’ll be people who will be hesitant about it and have some questions, I suppose, but there were in the case of the RCMP, too. But when was the last time you saw a letter to the editor of the paper complaining about the deal with Disney and the RCMP? Change requires that people open their minds and look at things that are fresh.
ML: How much is Disney proposing to give us?
PB: Well, it’s major. That’s what makes it so attractive as a recognition of their ability to have some connection
with French and English radio. We’re looking at
$250
million. This is real money.
ML: They’d essentially buy the whole thing. They’d own it.
PB: No, not own it. It’s a partnership. And if you look at our strategic plan, we’re talking about doing more partnerships with the private sector, and when you get a good corporate citizen like this … We’ve done business with Disney over the years. Every Sunday night since I was a boy, we’ve had Disney on, and Canadians have tuned into it and have felt it was an important part of our schedules.
ML: Now, does this have anything to do with the fact that just the other day, we heard Minister [Sheila] Copps throwing cold water on all your ideas—your strategic plan—the plans for the new channels that you were hoping to get licences for this year?
PB: Mary Lou, you’ve got to balance the books at the end of the day. Either government writes a cheque or else you have to get it from advertising or else you have to look for some imaginative new way to get an infusion of new money. If the government isn’t prepared to hand over more money and if those of us like you and me don’t believe we should be commercializing CBC Radio and putting in car ads, then you have to look for something else that will allow us to get the money that we need to do the job.
ML: Are you saying we’d go off the air if we didn’t have a deal like this?
PB: Somebody’s got to pay the Hydro bills.
ML: Money can’t be found anywhere else in the corporation for CBC Radio?
PB: Well, Mary Lou, unless you’re prepared to give up some of your salary … But we just signed two very expensive collective agreements, and we’ve got to find ways of paying for that and of providing new programming and of serving Canadians with the standard of programming that they have a right to expect. And here you have a partner of high quality—indisputably.
ML: You think this will get through the House? Past the government?
PB: Well, what makes you think we need government approval on something like this? It’s a partnership, as opposed to a change in legislation.
ML: Have you had any conversations with the Minister about this or with Mr. Chrétien [the Prime Minister]?
PB: Well, as you know, there’s an arm’s-length relationship between government and the CBC, and it’s important for us to have our own plans and not to go to government and to ask them for permission in advance for everything that we’re doing. If it makes sense for the corporation and it’s good for our audiences, then it makes sense for us to move ahead.
ML: So if this goes through, we’ll be saying, “As
It Happens
was brought to you by Walt Disney” at the end of every programme.
PB: It’s just a little to ask for something which will help us to have an infusion of new money that we need to do an even better job.
ML: Thank you very much, Mr. Beatty.
PB: Thanks, Mary Lou, for having me.
