Reading Terry Fallis’ book, The Best Laid Plans in 2008 was a chore. Not writing the requested review was diplomacy. It seems to be an ideal book for people who like their humour about three metres wide and a centimetre deep. We can hardly advise it for people who seriously want to know about Canadian politics, politicians and voters.
But, after watching the first two episodes of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s television series by the same name, we might watch more. CBC script writers Susan Coyne and Jason Sherman appear to have fixed Fallis’ fallacy. These script writers must have enjoyed watching old reruns of the British series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister and realized that the truth should not get in the way of humour.
You have to admit that making out the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition to be a buffoon is stretching things but it can be funny. There is nothing funny at all about a speech writer being sent to win an impossible seat in parliament. Especially when it once happened to you and you seriously considered joining a different political party.
The turn-around possibilities for an impossible win of a seat in parliament is not as unlikely as it once was after some of the New Democrat wins in Quebec in the 2011 federal election. There was one accidental MP from Quebec who was rumoured to have decided not to waste her time campaigning and spent a good part of the campaign period in Las Vegas.
As someone who has trained thousands of political canvassers, you realize you have to forgive writers for their depictions of the fun of political canvassing. The truth is Canadian voters are invariably polite but in a hurry to get rid of you. That is the most common canvassing experience. You have probably knocked on thousands of doors before one is answered by a lady who forgot she was topless.
It was nice to see that CBC script writers have also succumbed to the use of gratuitous sex scenes to enliven their shows. There are more than a few desks in ministerial offices in Ottawa that have been polished in the sexual exploits of eager young aides and we can hardly debunk that.
But the point is that nobody wants to be bored by the truth of what really goes on in political Ottawa. Somehow it reminds us of an old line by a character named Schultz in the American Hogan’s Heroes television series: I know nothing!
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Copyright 2014 © Peter Lowry
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