The Best Laid Plans (33 page)

The award presentation followed a moving address by the CIDA head, who described the profound impact of Angus’s work in the third world. It was very impressive. We all lapped it up, though Angus looked distinctly uncomfortable with the adulation that verged on idolatry.

Two hours later, I sat alone in the boathouse, watching the glowing and extensive news coverage of the speech as Angus laboured over his hovercraft below me. That night, I finally accepted that I might well be astride a comet.

Over the course of the weekend and into the next week, broader political developments were at play on the Hill and across the country. The economy was tanking, and the decline was happening faster than anyone had predicted. Many seemingly disconnected strands came together to braid what looked to be the early stages of recession. Hurricane Penelope had devastated oil production in the Gulf of Mexico the previous week. Then, OPEC had dithered on whether, how, and when to help out. As a consequence, in the space of three days, oil prices had soared to over $110 a barrel. The Canadian dollar was growing stronger against the greenback, not because of any inherent strength in our economy but because the U.S. numbers were dropping faster than ours. Our dollar hovered just above the American one, so Canadian exports plummeted, our trade deficit skyrocketed, and our tourism sector suffered. To make matters worse, Stats Can had just released the October numbers. From the first of the month to Halloween, inflation had jumped from 1.9 to 2.8 percent while unemployment grew from 6.9 to 7.4 percent.

This news was not welcome for any federal government. The news was particularly bad for a minority Conservative government that had invested everything in the sound fiscal management and stratospheric popularity of its erstwhile Finance Minister – that is, until a poorly maintained air conditioner and flammable curtains turned Eric Cameron into a porn star.

It seemed that the chrome shackles found on the Finance Minister’s wrists had actually handcuffed the Government as well. To stem the tide of public outrage over Cameron’s hobby, the Government had cut him loose in the dying days of the campaign. The problem was, the postelection polls soon confirmed that the
Government was still at least a bull whip too close to the scandal. So after the election, as their numbers continued to sink, the Tories went one step farther despite their minority victory. They turned their back not just on Eric Cameron but also on the entire fiscal strategy he’d unveiled in the last budget. They took it right off the table. They threw the baby out with the bath water. They cut off their noses to spite their faces. All those clichés applied. Ultimately, after tossing Eric Cameron overboard, the Government paid a heavy price for abandoning a perfectly reasonable fiscal approach.

To sum it all up, at a time when the economy appeared to be headed for the dumper, the Government no longer stood for any discernible economic policy. The Tories knew they were in deep. We knew it, too. The NDP would catch up eventually, but economic policy was not a particular strength of the third party.

The momentum gathered on the weekend and steadily grew early in the week. Saturday and Sunday editorials in most major dailies called on the Government to introduce at least a fiscal statement before the end of the year rather than cling to the traditional February budget cycle. The C. D. Howe Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Conference Board of Canada all issued similar pleas on Monday, earning considerable media coverage. After all, it made news when the folks at the C. D. Howe were on the same page with the Fraserites. In a rare display of sound House strategy, every Liberal who rose in Monday’s question period hammered the Government on its AWOL fiscal plan. Finally, the President of the United States delivered the fatal blow on Monday night. In a blatant and largely successful attempt to distract Americans from their own domestic travails, the President, in a speech on Wall Street, called Canada’s ill-defined fiscal policy a potential threat to the economic stability of the G-8 countries. It was audacious. It was provocative. It was utter nonsense. But it also put the
hype
in
hyperbole
and played well on Main Street on both sides of the 49th.

As I watched the tail end of question period on Tuesday afternoon, the message on all fronts was the same. Canadians needed
some reassurance that the Government, in the wake of the Cameron affair and the plummeting economy, was operating on a financial plan that ran deeper than “buy low and sell high.” The Government was under unprecedented pressure to lay out, in clear, unequivocal terms, the economic plan that would carry the country until the budget in February. But pressure doesn’t always have the desired effect. In fact, nothing tends to stiffen a government’s spine and harden its resolve like an aggressive and relentless opposition. After all, human nature has always been a driving force in politics. As a species, we really don’t like being told what to do.

Picture the nasty and arrogant neighbour you never liked who demands that you stop hanging out your laundry on your backyard clothesline. Your billowing underwear is an eyesore he shouldn’t have to look at etcetera, etcetera. Admit it. Even if you’d just purchased a fancy, new Kenmore drier, your first instinct would probably be to hang out every single pair of gotchies you could find, clean or not, and let them swing on the line permanently. In the same vein, Governments hate doing things that the Opposition parties – or anyone else, for that matter – have told them to do. The more sophisticated lobby groups are very judicious in how they use Opposition parties. If the lobby groups are smart, they realize that if they get the Liberals to demand it, the Government likely won’t deliver it.

Sometimes, this phenomenon has far-reaching implications. In 1965, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson gave a speech in Philadelphia in which he called on President Lyndon Johnson to halt the American bombing of North Vietnam. Legend has it that the President had been, in fact, just about to announce such a ceasefire when our unwitting Prime Minister pulled the pin and tossed in his grenade. As a result, Johnson felt compelled to sustain the bombing for several more weeks to avoid being seen to have acquiesced to the demands of his weak northern neighbour. Privately, the President was outraged, and apparently told Pearson not to “come into my home and piss on my carpet.”

All of this to say I was quite shocked when the Government caved that very day – folded like an origami master. Following question period, Roger Chartrand, the rookie Finance Minister appointed three weeks earlier to fill Eric Cameron’s shoes, rose in the House.

“Mr. Speaker, in light of the volatile global economic situation that is undermining the stability of the Canadian economy, I rise today to inform the House that I will table an economic statement on Monday, December 2 at 4:00
PM
, following the close of the financial markets. Thank you.”

The Opposition benches erupted. The Government’s hand had been forced, and a mini-budget, as it came to be known, was on the way. Or we were being played. I couldn’t really tell which, but I knew what my gut was telling me.

Later that afternoon, Angus sauntered past my office and into his. He looked downright happy, even though he’d just returned from the first meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Often, coffee and a cattle prod were required to keep committee members engaged. But then again, Angus was not your typical MP.

“How was the meeting?” I opened as I lowered myself onto his couch.

“Fascinatin’, utterly fascinatin’,” he replied without the slightest trace of sarcasm.

“You were just at Procedure and House Affairs, were you not?” Just checking.

“Yes, of course.” He shook his head dismissively. “I’m learnin’ that the real power in this place is conferred on those who understand the rules of the House and how to use them. As far as I can tell from this first meetin’, my wee study of the standin’ orders has left me better informed on the rules than my more experienced committee colleagues,” he declared with evident satisfaction. “In a minority situation, it strikes me that the future of this Government may well turn on House procedure.”

“It may well,” I agreed. “I must say I was a little surprised that the Government succumbed so quickly on the need for an economic statement. It was just too easy.”

“Aye, I thought the Government rolled over and bared its throat without much of a tussle,” Angus concurred. “Methinks somethin’s afoot.”

That night, I stood bundled up on the dock, bathed in the powerful floodlights that hung under the eaves of the boathouse. I’d never noticed the lights before, but they illuminated about 1,000 square metres of the Ottawa River. The day’s steady wind had swept the snow clear, leaving the ice solid, smooth, and shining.

I turned to see the hovercraft, still unpainted on top, roll down the shallow incline of the ramp towards the ice. Two small mover’s dollies, one under the bow and the other under the stern, made the craft mobile, while a winch and a steel cable kept the descent under control. As I’d been instructed, I steadied the stern and ensured that the rubber skirt did not catch on the ramp. Angus and I managed to extricate the dollies without incident, beyond my self-diagnosed hernia. Angus just scoffed and called me some obscure Scottish name I decided not to research.

Angus looked tense. He looked more nervous standing on the ice next to the hovercraft than he did standing in the House, challenging the Prime Minister. He gingerly installed himself in the cockpit and nodded my way. He hadn’t yet installed the electric starter. So my job was to reach into the very scary engine compartment, pull the starter cord, and bring the engine to life while avoiding a triple-twisting face plant into the whirring multi-bladed fan.

“Contact!” I cracked as I leaned in to grab the handle.

“You’re a right laugh now, aren’t you? Just get the engine goin’ and stand clear,” Angus instructed.

I pulled, and the engine roared to life. It was loud. It sounded like a cross between a snowmobile and a municipal wood chipper.
I hastened across the ice and climbed up on the dock. I wasn’t really clear on what Angus had in mind. He was fiddling with something in his lap. Then, I watched as he donned a 40-year-old and very goofy-looking skin diving mask. When he looked over at the dock where I stood, I had to turn away. I was in a fit of hysterics, complete with watering eyes and vibrating shoulders. I gathered myself and turned to face him, feigning the denouement of a coughing fit. I waved, and he nodded again very seriously. I assumed the mask was in lieu of ski goggles, which made some sense in this arctic breeze. As well, if the ice beneath him ever gave way, at least he’d have a crystal-clear view of his plunge to the bottom of the river.

He reached for what I assumed was the throttle, and the engine roared louder. The black rubber skirt around the craft’s perimeter inflated, and I watched as an invisible hand lifted Angus and Baddeck
I
up off the ice about two feet. It was hovering! The craft looked so much more impressive on the river’s ice than on the floor of the boathouse.

Angus tinkered with the throttle, I assumed, to achieve the desired altitude. Then, I saw him shift both his feet and rev the engine a little higher. Very slowly, the hovercraft rotated on the ice, nearly in place. I noticed the vanes in the vents on either side of the craft moving slightly. Then, his feet moved again, and the craft stopped and rotated in the other direction. While obscured by his oversized diving mask, his broad smile was clear. Eventually, Angus pointed the bow towards the middle of the river, shifted his feet yet again, throttled up, and flew across the ice. He carved a long arc over the river, playing with the controls, getting to know his creation. He spent the next 20 minutes flying back and forth in the limited patch of light defined by the floodlights.

I watched from the dock, filled with an emotion I couldn’t quite identify. I finally decided I was over-thinking it. I was simply excited, pleased, and happy for Angus. I was proud ofhim. He’d worked long and hard designing and then building his baby. And now, he was flying it, or whatever one does with a hovercraft.

Angus shot towards the shore at a speed that I found disquieting. About 50 metres from shore, his feet shifted, and the nose of the craft dipped slightly. Baddeck
I
slowed down, though the engine roared at the same level. I now understood. He’d redirected all of the thrust out the front vents in the same way as a jet reverses its engines to brake upon landing. Unfortunately, stopping a speeding hovercraft on a frozen river taxes a commodity Angus had in very short supply that night – distance.

On the bright side, we didn’t have to winch the hovercraft back up into the boathouse. I followed Angus and Baddeck
I
as they hurtled up the ramp and smashed into the south wall of the boathouse, narrowly missing the gas furnace. I scrambled up the steps, my heart in my mouth, expecting to find both the hovercraft and Angus in pieces. My heart soon returned to its traditional thoracic position. Angus exhausted his entire lifetime allotment of good fortune that night. I found him still sitting in the cockpit. His diving mask had shifted so that it was perfectly positioned over his right ear, the blue rubber strap deforming his nose. He was bent over in laughter, and then, so was I.

The crashing stop had been cushioned by the inflated skirt surrounding the vessel itself and by a fortuitously placed pile of rubber remnants left over from sewing it. Neither Angus nor his hovercraft seemed to be any the worse for the ride.

Angus removed the mask, stepped from the cockpit, and circled the craft in search of less-obvious damage. We found none. He sat back down on the starboard deck of Baddeck
I
as I closed the bay doors on the frigid night and doused the floodlights. He was clearly ecstatic with his first foray onto the ice, though he kept his emotions in check. Neither of us had yet spoken.

“Well, she works,” he whispered. “Aye, she does.”

“Angus, you made a thrilling sight out there,” I said slowly and quietly. “But I must say, you do need some practice parking. I’m just glad the big doors were still open when you shifted into kamikaze mode.”