Justin Trudeau ebook: the unreported story

Today, the Star has released an eread on Justin Trudeau's leadership campaign, which I spent the past couple of months researching and writing. It runs about 75 pages, 20,000+ words, complete with photos. 

And speaking of pictures, here's a photo I took on a little mini-vacation last summer: 

Yes, they are baby deer, walking right up to the front door of the chalet where I was staying at Mont Tremblant last July.  

Apparently, this is what you needed to do that weekend to get my attention. Because what I failed to notice -- yes, that very same weekend --  was a highly  interesting meeting taking place not far away. 

As you'll see in the  eread* released later on Friday by Star Dispatches, the seminal meeting of his organization took place on the last weekend of July at Mont Tremblant. As I was piecing together the chronology, I learned that by sheer coincidence, I happened to be staying just a few doors away from the chalet where the meeting was held.  What's more, I was told that Trudeau and his team  knew I was there -- the magic of Twitter -- and they even held discussions around the table about what story they would tell me if I ran across any of them.

I guess they didn't need to worry: I was on vacation and blissfully uninterested in chasing down secret Liberal leadership meetings. But the deer are cute, don't you think? 

At any rate, here's an excerpt from the eread, which recounts a bit of  the meeting that this crack political reporter failed to notice, even as it was taking place virtually under her nose. As you'll read, the whole thing was pulled together by Trudeau's old friends, Gerald Butts and Katie Telford, and one of the main goals at this meeting was to persuade Trudeau's wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, that this campaign was plausible. 

Over the summer of 2012, the campaign organization kept coming together, but it was still provisional. Trudeau was leaning strongly toward going for the leadership, but he still hadn’t totally made up his mind. More important, neither had Grégoire.

The final decision came for the couple on the last weekend of July, when the core team, hand-selected by Butts, Telford and Trudeau, descended on the Mont Tremblant resort north of Montreal for a weekend of strategizing in chalets near the golf course. This was no holiday; Butts and Telford had loaded up the weekend with sessions on fundraising and organization, and seminars in the modern art of campaigning in the social-media universe. About a couple of dozen people were there.  Trudeau’s brother Sacha was there too. Tom Pitfield, who had grown up almost as a younger brother to Justin — his father, Michael Pitfield, was a privy council clerk to Pierre Trudeau — had found the spot for the group to meet. Pitfield was taking a leading role in the vast digital operations of the leadership campaign, and he was there with his wife, Anna Gainey, and children, their family probably the closest friends of Trudeau and Grégoire. Former Mississauga MPs Navdeep Bains and Omar Alghabra were among the group, both of them having spent a bit of time in previous months trying to persuade Trudeau to run. There were ad experts on hand and an array of Liberals who had done some work on election strategy or policy in the past.

It was the first time this eclectic group had gathered in one spot; if nothing else, it was a chance to see whether they would gel as a team. To open the meeting, Butts and Telford asked all the participants to say why they were there. Their reasons ranged from the tactical to the deeply emotional; they talked about their desire to keep the Liberal party alive and about reversing the trend of cynicism and negativity toward politics.

Over the weekend, they had a hard talk, too, about the notion of co-operation or merger with the New Democrats or other progressive parties as the best way to defeat the Conservatives. This sparked a spirited conversation around the table and a sentiment that found its way into Trudeau’s repeated public declarations on the subject later. “My goal is not to replace Mr. Harper with a different government,” Trudeau would say. “It’s to replace Mr. Harper with a better government.” This oft-repeated line came directly from the discussion at Tremblant, Telford said later.

At the end of gathering, Butts and Telford addressed the whole group again and asked them to summon up their best advice for Trudeau as he had to make a final decision on whether to run. Around the table they went, each making their own appeal. This time at Mont Tremblant, unlike a few years earlier, Trudeau wasn’t talking about “taking back” power.

Trudeau had known as he arrived at Mont Tremblant that he was leaning heavily in the direction of running for leader, but he also realized that his wife had to be convinced.

“Sophie was still at that point, not so much worried, but a little bit skeptical about how it would all unfold,” he recalled.

Grégoire, like many political spouses, represents the final word for her husband in matters of personal relations and perspective. He invokes her name often when talking about decisions he’s made, whether it’s entering the boxing ring or the Liberal leadership contest.

“I have a tendency to put things back into perspective, ask questions, juggle with the balls to make sure that the game or the decision or the moment makes sense,” Grégoire explains.

Candidly, she admits that she had worried about the relative youth of the campaign team, and whether it could do with some seasoned advisers. Over the course of the weekend at Tremblant, she was persuaded that this was the right group. It struck her, in fact, as they were all gathered around an outdoor fireplace after a long day of sorting campaign logistics.

“I think it was that moment,” Grégoire said. “When people were just simply being themselves, and we were all looking at each other and chatting about life and about politics and about everything around the fire outside. And it was just, like, ‘Yep, this is going to work.’ ”

A little nudge from Butts didn’t hurt either. He looked at her, taking it all in, and said: “Soph, so this is going to be fun too, you know that.” 

She laughed. “Thanks for reminding me.” 

 

* I know: I've called it an "ebook" in the headline, but I'm told the correct term is eread. Apologies! 

 

Liberal leadership debate Montreal: The lineup

The last federal Liberal leadership debate is today in Montreal. I've been recalling how the last debate was in Montreal during the 1990 leadership too -- a raucous affair, featuring angry shout-offs between supporters of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien. (Including shouted accusations that Chrétien was a "fondue" -- some anglos' loose translation of "vendu" -- sellout -- being chanted by Martin supporters.) I missed the event, by the way -- most political reporters stayed back in Ottawa to cover the opening of what turned into a marathon first ministers' meeting to save the doomed Meech Lake constitutional accord. 

 At any rate, 23 years later, I expect far less fireworks or drama today. We've lost two more candidates in between the last debate and this one -- Marc Garneau and David Bertschi. That means a little more time for the debate matchups and a little less time for the after-debate scrums. 

As I have been doing through these debates, I'm posting the lineup/order of proceedings here so those who are interested can follow along at home. Here we go: 

 

The themes for this debate are: 

• Seniors
• Justice
• Electoral Reform
• Environnment and Climate Change
• Energy
• International Development
• Youth

 

After the formal opening of the event, all of the candidates get to make opening statements of 1:40 minutes each, in this order: 

Deborah Coyne

Martha Hall Findlay

Justin Trudeau

Martin Cauchon

Joyce Murray

Karen McCrimmon

 

Then, a series of mini-debates, 4:45 minutes each, among groups of three candidates: 

Justin Trudeau, Martin Cauchon, Martha Hall Findlay

Karen McCrimmon, Martha Hall Findlay, Deborah Coyne

Joyce Murray, Karen McCrimmon, Deborah Coyne

Justin Trudeau, Karen McCrimmon, Martha Hall Findlay

Justin Trudeau, Joyce Murray, Martin Cauchon

Joyce Murray, Martin Cauchon, Deborah Coyne

Then, one-on-one debates, based on the debate themes (above):

Martin Cauchon à Joyce Murray

Justin Trudeau à Martha Hall Findlay

Karen McCrimmon à Martin Cauchon

Martha Hall Findlay à Karen McCrimmon

Deborah Coyne à Justin Trudeau

Joyce Murray à Martha Hall Findlay

Deborah Coyne à Martin Cauchon

Karen McCrimmon à Joyce Murray

Then, open debates (on any theme), again, one-on-one: 

Justin Trudeau à Martin Cauchon

Joyce Murray à Deborah Coyne

Martin Cauchon à Martha Hall Findlay

Martha Hall Findlay à Deborah Coyne

Joyce Murray à Karen McCrimmon

Karen McCrimmon à Deborah Coyne

Justin Trudeau à Joyce Murray

Martin Cauchon à Justin Trudeau

Deborah Coyne à Karen McCrimmon

Martha Hall Findlay à Justin Trudeau

And finally, closing statements: 

Karen McCrimmon

Martin Cauchon

Deborah Coyne

Justin Trudeau

Martha Hall Findlay

Joyce Murray 

 

It's all over at 3 p.m. (well for you, I guess; those of us covering will then be in a mad dash to finish scrums, file our stories and get back to Ottawa.) 

 

 

Chrétien on Trudeau and vice-versa

Former prime minister Jean Chrétien said over the weekend that Justin Trudeau is all about winning. Funny, I thought when I heard that  snippet in his interview with Tom Clark -- that's exactly what Trudeau says about Chrétien. 

Here's the bit of the interview from The West Block (transcript courtesy of the show): 

Tom Clark: I want to talk about that in a second but I do want to get your views on one other contemporary issue that deals with the Liberal party.  The presumptive winner of the leadership of course is going to be Justin Trudeau, but when you take a look at Justin, the criticism that you hear about him is this: that he has no real policies, he’s got no particular vision, that he doesn’t exude a sense of what the country is.

Jean Chrétien: He has a very big policy.  He wants to replace the Tories.  That is fundamental for Canada.

Tom Clark: Is that enough?

Jean Chrétien: Yes.

As some of you may know, I've been working on Star Dispatches ebook about the Trudeau leadership campaign, which is due out early in April. As part of that project, during an interview, I asked Trudeau to compare himself to some other Liberal leaders (beyond his father.)  Here's what he had to say about Chrétien: 

Trudeau: "We have a similar love for people and for simplicity. .... I love being underestimated as a politician. ... He was extremely, and continues to be an extremely, smart, edgy, thinking-around-corners kind of guy.

"But where I tend to differ from him a little bit is in  the game focus of politics. For him it's about, winning, for me it's about serving. It's about building, it's about doing right. It's not about the score. It's not to prove anything. ...We all know his background. He had a tremendous amount to prove and he's justifiably, extremely proud of what he's managed to build through his life, but the focus was on proving that to others, and for me that's not what this is about." 

So there you go. Given that the two of them have some experience with boxing/wrestling, we can let them sort it out. 

 

Liberal leadership debate #4: The match-ups

Today's Liberal leadership debate, the fourth in the series,  is in Halifax. Clearly everyone was happy with the head-to-head format of the last one (which provoked some sparks), so we're getting another series of one-on-one encounters this afternoon. As was in the case in the GTA debate, these consist of one candidate asking a question of the other.  And to add to the tension, this debate is taking place on the very last day for the candidates to sign up voting members and supporters.  So there's lots at stake here in Halifax. 

For those who want to follow along at home, here's the program: 

After the opening remarks and the anthem, there will be eight one-on-one encounters, of three minutes each, based on the following themes: Regional Development; Women’s Issues;  Agriculture and Rural Affairs; Health Care; Job Creation; Defence; Foreign Policy. Those encounters will go in this order: 

Marc Garneau asks Martha Hall Findlay

Justin Trudeau asks Deborah Coyne

Joyce Murray asks Karen McCrimmon

Martin Cauchon asks David Bertschi

Deborah Coyne asks Joyce Murray

David Bertschi asks Marc Garneau

Martha Hall Findlay asks Martin Cauchon

Karen McCrimmon asks Justin Trudeau

The next set of encounters are open (i.e., on any issue the candidate chooses.) They work this way: 

David Bertschi asks Martin Cauchon

Marc Garneau asks Joyce Murray

Deborah Coyne asks Martha Hall Findlay

Martin Cauchon asks Karen McCrimmon

Joyce Murray asks Justin Trudeau

Karen McCrimmon asks David Bertschi

Martha Hall Findlay asks Deborah Coyne

Justin Trudeau asks Marc Garneau

Next is a series of three-person, mini-debates: 

Martha Hall Findlay, Justin Trudeau, Martin Cauchon

Deborah Coyne, David Bertschi, Karen McCrimmon

David Bertschi, Martha Hall Findlay, Joyce Murray

Karen McCrimmon, Martha Hall Findlay, Marc Garneau

Marc Garneau, Joyce Murray, Deborah Coyne,

Justin Trudeau, Joyce Murray, Martin Cauchon

Karen McCrimmon, Justin Trudeau, Deborah Coyne

Marc Garneau, Martin Cauchon, David Bertschi

And then, it's closing statements. (There were no such statements in the GTA debate.) They'll go in this order: 

David Bertschi

Karen McCrimmon

Justin Trudeau

Deborah Coyne

Martha Hall Findlay

Marc Garneau

Martin Cauchon

Joyce Murray

 

And finally, the scrums afterward, lasting just three minutes each: 

Deborah Coyne

Marc Garneau

Joyce Murray

Martin Cauchon

Karen McCrimmon

David Bertschi

Justin Trudeau

Martha Hall Findlay

 

And that's it! See you on the other side, as they say. I'll be watching from what I'm told is a very crowded room at Pier 21 in Halifax. 

Happy strangle-a-protester day

Seventeen years ago today, my colleague Rob Benzie reminds me, Canada had its first Flag Day -- which prime minister Jean Chretien marked by putting  a chokehold on a protester at Jacques Cartier park. 

I have become convinced that everything we need to know about modern politics, or at least the kind we're living with today, was foretold in the events and the reaction that day. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, took careful note of how things unfolded and is applying some of the lessons today. 

First, let me back up: 

As Benzie noted in his tweet to me, the  reporters dispatched to that Feb. 15, 1996 assignment were grumpy. It was cold outside, the event was a heavily choreographed affair -- part of a series of post-referendum efforts by the Chretien government to talk up Canadian patriotism and the flag. This particular strategy felt a bit hokey; more marketing than substance. Most of the reporters on the risers that day were far more interested in what the Chretien government was drafting by way of legal response to the near-loss by the federalists in the referendum a few months earlier. We were hoping Chretien might give us some hints. 

In the crowd was a group of protesters, angry about cuts to employment insurance (sound familiar?).  They were determined to disrupt the event and Chretien, eyes masked behind sunglasses, kept turning his head in their direction while the speeches carried on. Once the event was over, he leaped into the crowd, as he liked to do, to shake some hands. It didn't take a mind reader to see that he was irked by the disruption of the event. One of the protesters, Bill Clennett, got in his way, and ... well, the rest is documented. 

Most of the reporters on hand that day, yours truly included, were not close enough to see what happened. We found it hard to believe that the Prime Minister really had manhandled a member of the public. Many of us were convinced that if it was true, the consequences for him would be serious. His wife, Aline Chretien, was also of the same mind, we later learned. 

So we all went back to the National Press Building, where most of us were based, and waited to see the film from Global News. Sure enough, the proof was there. Some of us wondered aloud whether Chretien would have to resign. 

How wrong we were. The PMO artfully put out the story that Mr. Clennett was a separatist; that Chretien was still rattled after the incident with the intruder at 24 Sussex a few months earlier. The CBC interviewed me about what I saw; I said something reasonably mild about how Chretien seemed to be out to prove something when he jumped in that crowd, and the Globe and Mail (where I worked at the time) was inundated with calls of support for what Chretien did. Way to take on those separatists and those lefty protesters! 

Okay, so step now into the present day. While our current PM hasn't physically put anyone in a chokehold (thank goodness), he does recognize that the public will rally around strong-arm politics. The average voter today doesn't have much patience with the tut-tutting media and stands up and cheers efforts to put them/separatists/protesters/unions/the left in its place. Meanwhile, the media still keeps being surprised by the power of demonstrations to disrupt events (Occupy, Idle No More, etc.)  Most of the political events that take place today on Parliament Hill are a mix of everything on display on the first Flag Day -- a combination of hokey, marketing-intended, staged events, with a heavy dose of patriotism. And the only thing that makes them interesting is  the rare, visceral reaction or outburst in the midst of the scripting. 

It's not just Conservatives who benefit from this bare-knuckle brand of politics either. A 40-year-old Liberal backbencher earned credibility last year by literally knocking out a senator from Quebec. 

So let's raise a toast to Flag Day 2013 and its power, 17 years ago, to predict the future. And if your path is crossed by a man in a wooly hat, feel free to take matters into your own hands. 

 

Third Liberal leadership debate: will sparks fly?

The first two Liberal leadership debates were tame affairs, but on paper at least, this Saturday's encounter in Mississauga has the potential for more sparks. 

The format this time is organized around direct questions from one candidate to another. Here's how that will proceed: 

• Marc Garneau asks Justin Trudeau
• Karen McCrimmon asks Martha Hall Findlay
• David Bertschi asks George Takach
• Joyce Murray asks Martin Cauchon
• Deborah Coyne asks Marc Garneau
• Justin Trudeau asks Karen McCrimmon
• Martha Hall Findlay asks David Bertschi
• George Takach asks Joyce Murray
• Martin Cauchon asks Deborah Coyne
• Marc Garneau asks Karen McCrimmon
• David Bertschi asks Joyce Murray
• Deborah Coyne asks Justin Trudeau
• Martha Hall Findlay asks George Takach
• Martin Cauchon asks Marc Garneau
• Justin Trudeau asks David Bertschi
• Karen McCrimmon asks Deborah Coyne
• Joyce Murray asks Martha Hall Findlay
• George Takach asks Martin Cauchon

Then the candidates will debate among smaller groups of three. Here's that breakdown:

• Martin Cauchon, Justin Trudeau, Joyce Murray
• Martha Hall Findlay, George Takach, Karen McCrimmon
• Karen McCrimmon, Joyce Murray, Deborah Coyne
• David Bertschi, Marc Garneau, Deborah Coyne
• Justin Trudeau, Marc Garneau, George Takach
• David Bertschi, Justin Trudeau, Karen McCrimmon
• Martha Hall Findlay, Marc Garneau, Joyce Murray
• David Bertschi, Martha Hall Findlay, Martin Cauchon
• Martin Cauchon, George Takach, Joyce Murray
• David Bertschi, George Takach, Joyce Murray
• Martha Hall Findlay, Justin Trudeau, Deborah Coyne
• Martin Cauchon, Marc Garneau, Karen McCrimmon

The themes for the GTA debate, meanwhile, are these: 

• The role of the federal government within the federation
• The future of the middle class & income equality
• Transit and infrastructure
• Job Creation, research & development, funding & innovation
• Immigration
• International trade
• Reconnecting with Canadian voters

I should say that I'm getting this from a program that warns the schedule is "subject to change." So consider this a draft.

It all gets under way at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 16 at the International Centre in Mississauga. I'll be watching this one on the TV. 

 

 

 

Trudeau versus policy in Liberal leadership race

Marc Garneau has fired a direct shot at Justin Trudeau in the Liberal leadership race, accusing him of lacking policy substance. An excerpt from the statement: 

“As Liberals, we cannot wait until after the leadership race is over to find out what we signed up for,” Garneau said in a prepared statement. “That is like asking Canadians to buy a new car without first test-driving it.”

Trudeau, however, has been saying for a while now that he won't be putting out a policy platform. He said this in an interview we ran over the holidays: link to that is here. 

And  last week, when Trudeau was talking to students at Western University in London, he pointed out this policy lack as a mark of his distinction in the race. I've filed a story with some of these quotes in it, but here's the full context, for those who are interested. It starts when a student asks him how he differs from the other eight candidates: 

That’s an excellent question and that’s a question that’s at the base of what the Liberal party is trying to figure out right now. And you’re very right, the nine of us candidates, all of us very strong candidates in very different ways, have very similar approaches -- in that we’re evidence-based, we’re not too far left, we’re not too far right, we tend to want to build dramatically on the values and the needs we have going forward. 

So the big difference, to my mind, is in what we actually see as a need for the Liberal party to do. Many of my colleagues are very much emphasizing their strengths around policy and their specific ideas and I’m actually frustrating both media pundits and a lot of others -- not because I haven’t had a lot of very clear things to say, whether it be against the Northern Gateway pipeline, in favour of the legalization of marijuana, against strengthening the language laws in Quebec, various things that are ... difficult issues for politicians to deal with. 

But because I’m not going to be putting forward a comprehensive platform over the course of this leadership. And that’s because the Liberal party has gotten far too much in the habit of generating a platform by the leader and some very smart people around them, that they then turn to Liberals across the country and say ‘now go and sell this door to door.’  

This leadership is the beginning of a platform-development process, not the end of it. And what we do around connecting and drawing in ideas from around the country, not just from Liberal circles, but from Canadians who are looking for a better option, right across the country, will be the big work we have to do over the coming months and even years leading up to 2015. 

By the time the 2015 election comes around, we will have had enough development of policies. We will have an extraordinarily detailed, extremely bold platform to present to Canadians. But now is not the time to short-cut this. My emphasis right now, rather than being on policy-development, like most of my colleagues, is on organization. It is on building the capacity to be relevant in every single riding across the country, folding people back not just into the Liberal party, but actually into the political process. Because before we can sell someone on our platform as being the best one, the smartest one, the one with the vision, the one with the long-term view for this country, we actually have to remind Canadians that it’s important for political parties to have a platform, a vision, a long-term view of this country. And that only happens when you rebuild a connection with people in their lives, on their ground, feeling like they matter in how we shape the platform for the election. 

 

 

About that imaginary book

CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge makes a hilarious speech every year at the annual Jaimie Anderson fundraiser in Wakefield, Que. (a three-year-old event that has already become my favourite politico-journo gathering.) 

All of the speech is off the record and most people are happy with this arrangement, since the targets of Mansbridge's comic barbs are in the audience. He has a knack for choosing the topic on which you may be a wee bit sensitive, and exploiting it to the delight of the crowd.  

Here, with his permission, is one joke Mansbridge made about me last year: 

Susan has nearly finished her new book, which is nice - she's been working on it since the ancient Mayan calendar was known simply as "the calendar." 

Good one. I laughed. I could afford to laugh, actually, because it was done. As we were all joking around at the Black Sheep, my book was on its way to the copy editor, trundling along on its production schedule, which would see it going to the design folks on Nov. 1.  

In my pocket, I was carrying around a BlackBerry photo of the cover design, which I was displaying like a proud parent to anyone I could corner. You can still see that cover design too at the Chapters and Amazon websites, as a matter of fact, where it also says that the book will be out on Feb. 15. 

Well, that's not true. It won't be out in a couple of weeks. That's why I decided I should do this blog post-update.  

A mere few weeks after the Jaimie Anderson event, my publisher, Douglas and McIntyre, went into bankruptcy protection. Not bankruptcy, it should be pointed out -- officially it's known as creditor protection, and the hope is that a buyer can be found to keep this publishing enterprise afloat.  In the meantime, what it means is that my manuscript is frozen among the assets, caught in a strange limbo. I can't get it out of there to sell to another publisher or publish it myself. (The two most oft-suggested bits of advice I've received.) Worse, I have no idea how long this will go on. D&M has now been granted two extensions of creditor protection, the latest stretching well into this month. 

I haven't said much about this publicly, except the occasional bleat to Facebook friends, and there's no point in whining. It's beyond obvious to say that this is a sign of the beleaguered times for all publishing outfits. 

But I thought it was time to do a blog post to explain, for those who haven't heard, that the book is not likely to come out this spring. Frustrating? You bet. It's a strange experience. Other authors I'm sure will sympathize.  Canadians don't write books for the money, for the most part. They write them because they love the subject and want to share it with a wider audience. Book-writing doesn't  make you rich, but  it can make your life richer. And despite the fact that they have fleeting lives on the best-seller lists or the bookstore shelves, books demand a huge investment of your time. This is my fourth book, clearly the most demanding one I've done, and its failure to launch leaves a bafflingly large hole in my 2013 spring.  

I can give you a bit of an idea what the book's about, though, in case you're interested. Regular readers of my stuff in the Star know that I've developed an interest in how politics has turned into marketing and how voters have become consumers.  I've written about it for this weekend too (I'll put a link here once it's online). I've also been working away at the subject for an M.A. in Canadian Studies at Carleton University. Mansbridge was right. I have been working on it since the days of the Mayan calendar. At some points last year, I was pretty sure I'd never finish it. 

 But I did and "shopping for votes" is  what the book is about. The title, incidentally, is borrowed from a blog the Star did during the 2011 campaign, featuring some smart people who think about politics and marketing.

I've chosen to tell the tale chronologically, starting roughly in the years after the Second World War in Canada and leading right up to today. There are three parts, organized like a sales transaction: 

1. The Pitch -- From the 1950s to the 1970s, when politics was getting all caught up, somewhat innocently, in adopting the tools of the consumer marketplace: slicker advertising, market research, etc. At the same time, the Canadian public was becoming ever more of a consuming market, shopping their way into their expansive new middle-class future. 

2. The Bargaining -- The 1980s and 1990s, a period of some ambivalence about whether our political institutions should be merging with the marketplace.  The new tools were powerful, but what price were we willing to pay? 

3. Sealing The Deal -- The arrival of the 21st century, and wide acceptance of politicians as marketers and voters as consumers. In these chapters, I look at the marketing methods of the dominant political players in Canada today, especially the Conservatives, and how consumer tools like micro-targeting and datamining are proving to be the brave new world of Canadian campaigning. 

So there it is. I've had some trusted friends reading the book, offering useful suggestions, and most of the people who helped me with the research have had a chance to see what's in the book about them. It's ready to be released now, more or less, but it looks like that's not going to happen anytime soon. 

I have, however, decided to make some constructive use of this limbo. (Another reason for this blog post.)  Clearly I'm going to get a chance to update this book before it's published and if you're interested in the subject or just want to throw some thoughts in my direction, I'm grateful for all input. Who knows? This unanticipated pause in its publication may yield a better book.  That's the optimistic way of looking at it, anyway. 

In the meantime, the publication date on the  Amazon and Chapters websites -- unlike objects in the car mirror -- is NOT as close as it seems. 

 

New spirit of Liberal co-operation

One Liberal leadership candidate helping out another one? I'm sure there's a story here somewhere, but for now, here's the email: (David Bertschi filed his official entry papers late last week.) 

Subject: David Bertschi is asking your help to allow Martin Cauchon into the race

I am writing to you today to ask you to join me in helping a fellow Liberal Leadership Candidate, Martin Cauchon. He is just a few nomination signatures short of being allowed to join the leadership race and requires only a few more from the great Province of Manitoba.

 

While I look forward to competing with all of the distinguished candidates already accepted by the party I think no candidate, especially one of Martin Cauchon’s experience and qualifications should be excluded for this reason.

 

Please join me in helping him by printing the attached nomination paper, signing it and either scanning and e-mailing it to us at sophie@davidbertschi.ca or faxing it to us at 613-749-4703.

 

David Bertschi

Liberal Leadership Candidate

 

 

Newsmaker of 2012: bad choice

And the results are in: a low-life, accused killer has been named Canadian newsmaker of the year. Like many people, I'm sure, I find this a regrettable development. 

Luka Rocco Magnotta, dubbed  "Canadian Psycho" for his alleged murder and dismemberment of university student Jun Lin, was voted to be the most newsmaking figure in not one, but two surveys of editors and news directors around the country. 

Canadian Press and the QMI agency announced the results of their surveys in recent days. With no offence intended to the editors who made that judgment (hey, this is journalism, not politics, we're allowed to question judgment up the chain), I wish they had  arrived at a different result. 

No question -- Magnotta did generate a lot of news last June, and the crime story also briefly leaped into the political-news category when gruesome packages were sent to two Canadian political parties. But I can't shake the sense that this is somehow a reward for the worst kind of public infamy; precisely the type of attention that deranged individuals seek. It's the kind of story that deserves to be filed away and forgotten, just like the person who perpetrates the crime. 

The one-big-story, media-pile-on phenomenon is a staple of modern journalism. I'm referring here to the media's tendency to pour huge resources into one big story (roving, rolling targets of our collective interest) to the exclusion of others.  A journalism-prof friend of mine traces it to the death of Princess Diana in the late 1990s. You know the drill by now -- something large happens, we give it an Important Title, and the multiple stories flow, including, of course, Your Reaction to such-and-such. A week or so later, it's forgotten, in favour of the Next Big Story. 

I don't want to be too dismissive of this saturation-style coverage. Sometimes it is true that we need to read a lot of stories about one thing, for many days at a time. September 11, 2001 leaps to mind. 

And more recently, I've been starting to notice the stirrings of something positive in the midst of mercurial, mass-media attention. People are starting to remark on the need to channel that temporary, collective interest into a permanent, concrete result. It's not enough, in other words, to proclaim that  "a nation grieves" or "a nation looks in horror" and then, only days later, drop the subject altogether. 

You see this happening, for instance, in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings in Connecticut. Like the Magnotta case, it was a horrible tragedy generated by one, clearly deranged person -- a crime without a motive, a senseless disaster. But the mass attention to this school massacre has been accompanied by a lot of talk of what we do to make sure our attention to this issue isn't fleeting or temporary. Much commentary has focused on whether Newtown marks a turning point -- whether this is the gun tragedy that will finally make the United States get serious about firearms control. 

That in itself is not new: the shooting at L'Ecole Polytechnique in 1989 galvanized gun-control efforts in Canada for a decade or so. What's new in the Connecticut aftermath, it seems to me, is the pointed mention of mass attention-deficit disorder that accompanies the mass coverage. 

Relatedly, I think that's why you saw people (including me) express so much frustration when President Obama held the post-Newtown press conference, only to be flooded with political-process, fiscal-cliff questions from the assembled White House reporters. "Hey," people seemed to be saying, "we're not done with this yet." 

In short, I'm hoping  we're starting to pay attention to the attention --  how big stories suddenly get small, and how we can sort which developments deserve our lingering interest. 

That brings me back to Magnotta. It's left us with lasting images, but few lingering insights.  We peered (those of us with strong stomachs) into his sad, grisly world, but  it wasn't a story that made us look into our own.  On that score, the Ikea monkey did a better job: it at least  generated some discussion about the relationship between humans and pets and laws around exotic animals. 

My objections to Magnotta as newsmaker aren't personal -- I recognize that egregious people make news and being a "newsmaker" isn't necessarily a reward for good behaviour. But it seems to me that the biggest news of the year should somehow revolve around societal  insights, not mere infamy.