The As It Happens Files (19 page)
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Authors: Mary Lou Finlay
Perhaps Stock was distracted by the lawsuit he got tangled up in after one of his constituents accused him of slander. Mr. Day was the Alberta Treasurer when he questioned the integrity of Red Deer lawyer Lorne Goddard, who was defending a convicted pedophile in court. In the end, Day settled the suit at a cost of $792,000—and the bill was covered by Alberta taxpayers.
But I wouldn’t want you to think that Stock was the only guy who ever got a bit confused breathing in the heady air of Parliament Hill. What about poor old Dennis Mills, the Liberal MP who graciously consented to give us an interview in the same month about the new committee he was going to chair on bulk water exports (speaking of heady substances)? The government, we thought, had already announced that it wasn’t going to allow bulk water exports. Why set up a committee?
“The whole issue of water is not crystal clear,” said Mr. Mills. “We want to make sure we have our position on water in a solid state.”
He should be a writer for
As It Happens, I thought.
But I said:
ML: Well, is there
any
possibility in your view that the government will move to allow the export of bulk water?
DM: There is absolutely no chance that the Government of Canada will take any other position than the one we’ve
always articulated. Minister of Foreign Affairs John Manley reasserted that position today in the House of Commons—that it’s final.
But we could say something in the House of Commons, and if it’s in conflict with a trade agreement, the trade agreement is paramount. That’s why we must have these hearings and why we must have this debate as Canadians, so we reaffirm our position as a nation. I think it’s linked to our sovereignty, Mary Lou.
ML: So in terms of this committee, you are not interested in trying to decide whether or not to export bulk water but only how to stop it.
DM: Well, when you’re chairing a committee of the House of Commons and it’s all-party, we have a duty to listen to people on all sides of the debate. And we now have a democratically elected Premier in Newfoundland [Roger Grimes] who has a different view. It’s not unlike the health care situation, Mary Lou. If a particular party in Canada started a private health care system, that essentially opens the floodgates right across the country under the Free Trade Agreement terms.
Call me dense, but I did feel that the situation was less than “crystal clear,” and it was about to get murkier still, because before this interview got to air, our Editorial Desk learned that the Prime Minister’s Office, when questioned, had refused to confirm Mr. Mills’ appointment as Committee Chair. In fact, the PMO refused to confirm that there even was a committee
to
chair.
We called Dennis Mills back.
ML: Mr. Mills, since we spoke earlier, we’ve been talking to the Prime Minister’s Office—
DM: Yes?
ML: And they’re saying there is no water committee.
DM: No, what they’re saying is the committee has not been struck—and I think I said to you we wouldn’t be starting our hearings until August. But the letters of support from all the Opposition parties I have in my possession—so does our House Leader—so we’re now just sort of working out the technical details, and when those details are in place, then we should start our hearings. In August.
ML: So you have no doubt that this committee is going to be set up?
DM: Well, the Prime Minister has named me Chair of the Committee. I have the Opposition letters—not physically in my possession at this moment, but I have them in my possession. And unless somebody from the Opposition goes against their own letter—and I mean, I doubt that—everything’s proceeding.
ML: No, it seems to be somebody in the Prime Minister’s Office that’s saying—
DM: No, no. I talked to Francie Ducros about this just moments ago. The actual striking of the Committee hasn’t happened, but the machinery is done for putting the Committee in motion.
ML: And the Prime Minister has asked you to chair it.
DM: Yes, he has. He announced it in caucus yesterday.
ML: Why do you think the PMO wouldn’t confirm that?
DM: Well, I’ll tell you why. When you have a special committee of the House of Commons, there is a technical thing that has to be done—you have to have the support of all parties—and the Prime Minister was not aware that we had it in writing, the support of all the Opposition parties.
ML: As of now, they’re just denying any knowledge of this.
DM: No, I think if you speak to Francie Ducros
now,
she would acknowledge that they have the letters of support, which she didn’t have earlier and was unaware of.
But the PMO refused to come to Dennis Mills’ rescue. The most they would concede was that while there was no committee at present, they saw “no reason why there should not be a committee at some time in the future.” Sadly for Mr. Mills, the Prime Minister never quite got around to striking this very important special committee. I wonder if it had anything to do with Mr. Mills having been so agreeable as to talk to us that day.
Incidentally, Madame Ducros’ own career in the PMO was cut short, when, speaking to a reporter, she referred to George W. Bush as a moron.
A number of public figures preferred not to talk to
As It Happens
for some reason—or to any media. I never had the pleasure of interviewing Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, for instance, no matter how nicely or how often we asked. Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked to us a number of times before he got the top job, not afterwards. Politicians covet the free air time when there’s an election campaign on, of course—unless they’re so assured of victory they don’t need it. Then, sometimes, they’d rather not risk an unscripted encounter where they might say something to derail their campaign.
Some politicians are so afraid of their own mouths—so wedded to the script—that they probably wouldn’t sound natural talking to their own mothers, in which case we didn’t particularly want to talk to
them.
Speaking of programmed responses always makes me think of one of the earliest interviews of my career, when I was co-hosting a daily TV show in Ottawa called
Four for the Road.
Our brief was to roam around Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley, from Pembroke to Hawkesbury and Kapuskasing to Smiths Falls, looking for people and stories. The show was broadcast live from the studio two or three days a week, and we taped the other shows from the field, using a remote studio—basically, a control room in a truck.
One day I was scheduled to talk to a chef—call him Etienne Lebrun—who had made a name for himself in a little country restaurant north of the city. Our bilingual researcher, always happy to have an opportunity to practise her French, did the whole pre-interview with M. Lebrun in his native language. One of the questions she forgot to ask him was whether he could, in fact, speak English. As it turned out, he could not, and the interview went something like this:
ML: So M. Lebrun, you’ve made quite a reputation for yourself up here. What makes your cooking so appealing?
EL: Vell, ve haf verry good, very fresh food. Our
terrine de faisan
is excellent.
ML: And what brought you to this part of the world?
EL: [pause] Our
terrine de faisan
is excellent.
ML: It is indeed. We’ve just sampled it. Very, very good. But you did not study here, did you? Where did you learn to cook?
EL: [another pause] Also, our
confit de canard Sarladais
veet
aubergine farcie…
And so it went until, mercifully, my allotted eight minutes were up. Since that time, whenever I’ve overheard a researcher practising his French or Spanish or Russian on a prospective interview subject, I’ve made sure to lean over and whisper, “Please be sure they understand that the interview will be in
English
before you book them.”
A corollary of that might be, “Make sure the guest’s English is good enough to be understood by someone listening to the interview on a car radio in traffic or in the kitchen with three kids yelling.” Listening to someone talking on the radio on a cellphone from the other side of the world can be taxing enough without throwing an impenetrable accent into the mix.
But getting back to politics … In my experience, the people who were hardest to pry loose from their prepared media responses were often, I’m sorry to say, female Members of Parliament. I think it must have stemmed from a lack of confidence. Talking to some of them in public was like trying to have a conversation with a slot machine. No matter what you asked them, you’d get one of the pre-scripted responses or “talking points” that their media advisors had prepared for them.
That said, there’s no shortage of male public figures who are careful to a fault, and there are plenty of women who are far from shrinking violets: Conservative Senators Pat Carney and Elsie Wayne come to mind, as well as former Liberal MP Sheila Copps and the straight-shooting Deborah Grey. Grey, an Alberta woman who suited up in leather and rode around
the capital on a Honda Goldwing, made a name for herself as the country’s first Reform Party MP, and went on to become Deputy Leader and Acting Leader of the Reform Party and its various successors and incarnations before retiring in 2005. She once brought a pig into the House of Commons to protest against a Liberal motion to increase MPs’ salaries. In his recent memoir,
My Years as Prime Minister,
Jean Chrétien says he regarded Grey as a “feisty and effective opponent,” and he had a lot of admiration for her.
Three of the four women I’ve just mentioned hail from the west or the far east of the country (Newfoundland), so maybe it’s where you grow up that determines whether you’ll be frank and outspoken or careful and timid. Pat Carney certainly falls into the former category. Once I made the mistake on air of appearing to treat the Canada-U.S. salmon wars too lightly—I think I referred to them as “the fish thing”—and Senator Carney went ballistic. Or pretended to. As a veteran pol, she knew how to exploit a situation to her advantage, and she got the attention she wanted for what was, admittedly, a very serious issue in her constituency. Steaming or not, Carney was always good value on the air, and I enjoyed talking to her.
Of course, it’s not hard to figure out why people in the public eye are afraid to speak frankly. In an age of instant, universal communication, to say nothing of political correctness, you have to walk on eggshells sometimes in order not to end up with egg on your face. The smallest slip might spell the end of your public career; adversaries will take your words out of context and beat you up with them, and the media will be howling with glee.
We can’t help it; scandal and controversy are as mother’s milk to us. Which brings us back to the Conservative Party’s
forerunner (and successor), the Alliance. Not surprisingly, Stockwell Day’s style eventually spawned a revolt from within his own party led by, among others, Chuck Strahl and our old friend Deb Grey. For a while, the eight renegades called themselves the Independent Alliance Caucus (IAC). Then they became the Democratic Representative Caucus (DRC), which formed a coalition with the old Progressive Conservative Party (PC) to become the PC-DRC.
And again Talkback wanted to help out with the naming of the new (breakaway) party:
More CRAP
The Block Stock—or BS—Party
The Dissident Original Reformers in Segregation—or DORIS—Party
Eight Days in the Stock-ade
The Regressive Conservatives
The Day-nouement Party
The Annual Party (You just assign a number to it, so
it might be the Fourth Annual Party one year and
the Fifth Annual Party the next year.)
A Giggle (“since all of the Alliance are a laughing Stock”)
Rebels without a Clause
Eight-Point Stock Plunge
Chuck and the Day-Breakers
Octa-gone
A Rabble of Rebels
Day’s End
By this time, people inside Stockwell Day’s party were suing
each other. As It Happens,
May 17, 2001:
Barbara Budd: It was a typical day in the life of the Canadian Alliance: members of the Leader’s office threatened to sue an Alliance MP; the new Communications Director resigned; and the divisions within the party grew even deeper. A lawyer representing Day’s Communications Office demanded an apology from Chuck Strahl, who they say defamed them when he talked about “dishonest communications” coming from the Day office. We reached the former Communications Director, Ezra Levant, in Ottawa.
ML: Hello, Mr. Levant.
EL: Hi, Mary Lou.
ML: Did you resign or were you fired?
EL: I resigned. I offered my resignation voluntarily.
ML: Under what circumstances?
EL: Well, I think it was becoming apparent to me that my forceful style of politics—an aggressive, loyal style—was becoming at odds with the new stance of reconciliation and diplomacy that is required to have harmonious relations between the Leader and the caucus. In other words, I was starting to get between Stock Day and the MPs, and that’s totally not what I wanted to do. So out of loyalty to Stock and the party, I said, “If I’m getting between you and the MPs, if I’m rubbing them the wrong way because I’m such a loyalist, let me pull myself out of the equation.” And so I did.
ML: Was there any discussion of this letter that you sent to Chuck Strahl?
EL: Ah, that was, uh—
ML: A catalyst?
EL:—a very minor matter in the whole scheme of things. Essentially, as you know well, the past few weeks and even months have been very challenging for our party. There’s been a lot of internecine bickering—it’s been unfortunate—and my approach through this time has been a forceful and aggressive one, and this letter to Chuck Strahl was just one example of that.
So I guess my answer is, “Sort of. Yeah.”
ML: So you wrote this letter—
EL: No.
ML: What?
EL: My lawyer did.
ML: Okay—and you and three other people signed it, threatening legal action against Chuck Strahl if he didn’t apologize for talking about dishonest communications. Have I got that right?
EL: Pretty much right. Again, we didn’t sign the letter; it was signed by our lawyer. It’s a typical demand letter, basically saying to Chuck, “You said something that was false and defamatory, so please apologize and retract.” I actually spoke to Mr. Strahl personally earlier in the day, and I sent him a personal note, asking him the same thing. As you saw, he refused to.
And you know what, it’s just unacceptable for a man of Mr. Strahl’s stature to go on national TV and make a slur like that, and I believe it was in my interest and in the interest of my shop here—the communications shop—to let Mr. Strahl know that you simply can’t go around and defame people.
ML: Same problem Mr. Day had with the Quebec judge, I think.
EL: Well, I’d say it’s more analogous to the Goddard matter; here’s a case where Mr. Strahl was asked to apologize politely, privately, in advance. Instead, out of pride, Mr. Strahl dug in his heels. He doesn’t want to admit that he was wrong. So if he’s digging in, I’m afraid he’s going to have to face the consequences, and it’s a shame that just as Mr. Strahl’s little party’s getting started, it’s embroiled in his own Goddard-style defamation fiasco.
ML: So you’re going ahead with this.
EL: Of course.
ML: Did you show the letter to Mr. Day?
EL: No.
ML: You didn’t think he should know?
EL: I had gone through other procedures here, you know, in the office. Mr. Day’s a busy man. We do hundreds of things a day through our office and not all of them are cleared by the Leader.
ML: Mr. Day, apparently, has seen it now. Did you have a conversation about it subsequently, when it came to light publicly? You leaked it to the paper, right?
EL: Yeah, only in the most glancing way. You’re emphasizing this letter as the reason for my resignation. It’s only part of a larger picture—my aggressive approach to defending Stockwell Day—
ML: I’m also interested in what Mr. Day’s reaction was to the letter, though.
EL: Well, this morning when I met with Mr. Day, the subject of the letter—I mentioned it only in passing when I offered him my resignation. I basically started the discussion with Mr. Day: “Stock, I’m here to help you
and the party. I think, given my style and the current situation, since I’m a bit of a pit-bull and you need someone who’s a bit more of a diplomat, I’m going to offer you my resignation and my best wishes.”
ML: Did he try to talk you out of it?
EL: He reluctantly accepted.
ML: Given that people who have been complaining these past few weeks about the Leader’s office, given that much of what they say relates to how the Leader consults or doesn’t consult with them, do you think that you’ve been the problem?
EL: You know, until a couple of weeks ago, the Alliance was actually doing pretty well in the polls; we were still in the
20
percent range. Only when we saw Chuck Strahl’s Hamlet
shtick
—“Oh, what do I do?”—day after day after day…
The damage being done to the party has been done by this “loyal band.”
ML: And not at all by you or Stockwell Day.
EL: Well, because it has turned into a civil war, there’s been shooting back and forth. But my point is, a modern, professional, disciplined, mature political party keeps that sort of stuff behind closed doors of caucus.
