The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
There is a major problem with Canada. That means with Canadian broadcasting. Which means the broadcasting coming from the Nation's Capital, otherwise known as The Town That Fun Forgot, Yesterday's City Tomorrow. Don Newman, as we know, is the impressario, every day on the very useful Newsworld gig on a round table overlooking the fake Parliamentary Hill background. He is one of the best-grounded, best-informed journalists in a town that has now some 450 members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, most of them not well-groundedÑTV-lengthy boom mikes thrust into the tonsils of cabinet ministers after Question Period being the real test of their intellects. And so, the sadness. The sadness being Newman's turning his regular sessions with some of the best-informed assassins on Parliament Hill into a frat-house ramp. On a regular basis, these paid flacks sit down before Newman's free camera and it turns into an hilarious, we're just boys, hoot and a holler. Mike Robinson, the wealthy Liberal lobbyist who is going to be even more rich once P. Martin achieves his award, leads the Boy-Scout laughter. Tim Powers, the very amiable and brainy Alliance spokesman, giggles away, disguising his seriousness. Chris Watson, in his NDP leather jacket, another serious type, even joins in the goofy laughter. Geoff Norquay, the prim Tory flack, even summons a smirk, enjoying the inhouse campfire atmosphere very much. What is so goofy here is that these guys are supposed to be opponents, discussing serious political issues. Newman, ordinarily a serious, guy-looking-for-answers, turns them into circus clowns. Everything is a laugh. Contrast that with the serious Washington equivalents. The Capital Gang on CNNÑRobert Novack of the Chicago Sun-Times, Margaret Carlson from Time, Al Hunt from the Wall Street Journal. Or NBC's Meet the Press, with such as the Washington Post's David Broder and Bill Safire of the New York Times. And ABC's George Stephenopolous with his collection including former University of Toronto professor George Will. They all go at each otherÑsometimes acknowledging a witticism with a smileÑbut never in the locker-room guffawing as so apparent in the Newman goofiness. See 'Only' P.# Con't from P.# The problem, so embarrassing, is that this is Ottawa with, as we know, the essential incestuous nature of the atmosphere. There are only three types of people in town. The politicians, who have no principles, the swivel servants who have no energy but nice pensions, and the journalists, who have no manners. And since it is the only game in town, they all suck off the same teat, our beloved government. It's the same as some pulp mill town up the B.C. coastÑeveryone works for the same employer. In real citiesÑLondon, Paris, RomeÑthe government exists in the largest city. The MP who leaves the Commons at Westminster must elbow his way on the subway or fight for a taxiÑthus learning how the lowly taxpayer actually lives. In insular Ottawa, well away from Toronto where the toffs on Bay Street really run the country, and with neither the charm of Montreal nor Vancouver, everyone knows everyone else. And laugh and laugh on television. X x x QUOTE OF THE YEAR: The Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien (not Paul Martin): "I don't know what is marijuana. Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand." X x x Yore humble scribbler has a theory about political stupidity. It is catching, rather like measles or SARS or forest fires in British California. I thought that Oil Can Ernie and his Ontario Tories earlier in the year had pulled off the most stupid political decision I had ever seen since Rudolph Hess parachuted into the Scotland hills in an attempt to convince Churchill to enter into a truce with Hitler. The decision was to thumb their noses at their voters and all democracy by announcing their budget in a Frank Stronach auto plant. I now apologize. The idiots in Ottawa have now revealed Statistics Canada's favorite choice to conduct our 2006 census is the Canadian subsidiary of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp. of the Excited States of America. I apologize to Ernie and to Rudolph. They now go into second and third place.
