The Candidate

by Noah Richler

  “Wow,” said Sarah. “That’s something. But you might want to be careful whom you tell. I don’t know how much his thumbsup will please the party radicals.”

  The Schwartz endorsement was intriguing for a couple of reasons—because of Schwartz’s financial wizardry, of course, but also because he and Reisman acutely monitored the parties’ positions on Israel and the Middle East. The Jewish residents of Forest Hill (Reisman and Schwartz lived out of riding) were almost categorically hostile to the NDP’s fiscal capabilities, and wary of extremists they perceived as having a historical home within the party—particularly of ideologues supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, regarded by its detractors as not just anti-Israel, but anti-Semitic. It was always going to be a tough, if not impossible, battle for the Jewish vote in Toronto—St. Paul’s, despite Mulcair’s measures to address the old prejudices. The party had booted out candidates prone to careless or ignorant statements about Israel and Palestine, while letting it be known that Catherine was Jewish and the daughter of Holocaust survivors. I did not find the party’s position of a two-state solution with Canada as an enabler (though not the definer) of negotiations at all hard to argue—it was also my own—and despite or even because of the skepticism and hostility, I actually relished such conversations at the door or in the Forest Hill Village boutiques and salons I would make a point of popping into.

  —

  B., our host, came over.

  “Hey, Noah,” said B., “let’s go see my sign.”

  B. motioned for me to follow him past the celebrity crowd in the lobby and out the front doors to where car valets were meeting guests pulling up in front of the magnificent corner lot. On the floodlit lawn, planted in the bank sloping towards the street, was a bright orange “NDP Noah Richler” campaign sign installed that morning for all the evening’s music, sports and screen stars—k-os, Kardinal Offishall, Director X—as well as Toronto film folk and guests from the riding, to see.

  B. looked at it. Smiled.

  “Does it come in any other colours?” he asked.

  —

  Rosh Hashanah, “Days of Awe.”

  Over morning coffee with Doug and Sarah—“Don’t be seen doing too much” was Janet’s instruction—I opened up The Globe and Mail to see that leading NDP lights had taken up the Jewish New Year’s traditional instruction to “raise a noise” :

  “LEAP MANIFESTO” BACKED BY PROMINENT NDPERS, ACTORS, ACTIVISTS CALLS FOR UPENDING OF CAPITALIST SYSTEM

  BY MICHAEL CHEN, THE GLOBE AND MAIL

  Author Naomi Klein on Tuesday released a political agenda that urges the next federal government to wean Canada off fossil fuels in as little as 35 years and, in the process, upend the capitalist system on which the economy is based.

  More than 100 actors, musicians, labour union leaders, aboriginal leaders, envir​onmen​talists and other activists have signed the document, called the “leap manifesto.”

  Environmentalist David Suzuki, former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis, Mrs. Universe Ashley Callingbull, Canadian Union of Public Employees president Paul Moist and Greenpeace campaigner Melina Laboucan-Massimo were among 15 speakers who read the manifesto aloud at a news conference in Toronto on Tuesday.

  “We cannot have a political class in this country floundering around for another four or five years,” she said. “We just don’t have the time.”

  Other manifesto signatories include actors Ellen Page, Rachel McAdams, Sarah Polley, Pamela Anderson and Donald Sutherland, singers Bruce Cockburn, Neil Young, Gord Downie, Sarah Harmer and Leonard Cohen, novelists Michael Ondaatje and Joseph Boyden, anti-free trade activist Maude Barlow, artist Robert Bateman and film director Patricia Rozema.

  “Send that to Schwartz,” said Doug.

  —

  The next day, Wednesday, September 16, was a biggie. First order of business was a 7 a.m. canvass of a TTC station in the riding (I dreaded working transit stops, but mercifully the Heath Street entrance of the St. Clair West station was at the top of the Cedarvale Ravine, and there was at least a small chance that commuters’ early morning miseries would be abated by a touch of green); then our day of video shooting; afterwards a bit of door-to-door work; and a meet and greet scheduled for the evening.

  Before heading out, I sent a quick note on Slack to the office confirming my unavailability for the better part of the day—I knew my absences were beginning to grate—and another to the team assembling at the studio.

  With profound apologies for the prep I know that especially Anne and Nick will have done, I am killing the Bennett video. I am doing this because our campaign is going well and I don’t want to jeopardize that or to be seen as picking on a woman who is generally liked. Its tenor and focus is different from the two others and could (and may well be) an exercise in bad taste. And so I think that we should not do it.

  Once again, sorry to have put you through unnecessary paces but, on the other hand, merely imagining it and pursuing the idea was a good exercise. Best not to censor yourself in the creative moment but to pull in the reins afterwards. That is what we did.

  Nick was waiting with Davy Foss, his sound man for the day. Davy (who goes by the working name of Davy Force) was, said Nick, a “skilled video maniac from Los Angeles.” He was in Toronto because he’d been the co-creator of The Chickening and was “intrigued and happy to help out.” The pair had set up the green screen and cameras and laid on a light breakfast spread, and put in an order for pizza come lunchtime—unreceipted campaign bounty that might land me in deep water with Elections Canada after my victory over Bennett but, hell, I’d deal with that afterwards. Laura brought make-up and our single prop—the red button she’d picked up at Staples to resemble the emergency stop on an escalator—and, a lawyer by trade, offered usefully cautious comment. Anthony assistant-directed, Emma and Doug did some on-site editing and then reformatted the scripts in 48-point font on a laptop positioned behind the camera for me to read, scrolling through by hand in place of a teleprompter for the benefit of a candidate who’d never done TV. We shot my parts in the Trudeau and Harper videos and, in the scant time that remained, recorded the texts of seven substantive videos, if only to have these in the can as audio for community radio (a tip provided me at Gerry’s Fast Food, an excellent local jerk eatery and frequent canvassing stop).

  It had been one of the best days of the campaign, despite everything we were unable to manage. I departed Nick’s studio impressed and enlivened, but above all moved by what had been achieved by several people working to very specific ends on a campaign that, soon enough, would have a distinctive stamp. But I had no intention of our being a maverick element of the greater enterprise that was the party’s national campaign, and was not about to proceed without the NDP HQ’s approval; winning the support of my own management team would be the first step. Janet, Phil and Wendy had deliberately not been asking after a video project I’d not kept secret, leaving me to my own devices, and I wanted them to know their laissez-faire attitude was not misguided. Besides which, it would be Janet and Phil liaising with party brass.

  —

  I’d barely left Nick’s studio when the NDP revealed its budget, long awaited by candidates shilling for an un-costed party platform. (“We’re putting out a detailed plan soon! All will be explained!”) The face of the NDP’s fiscal document belonged to Andrew Thomson, the former Saskatchewan NDP minister of finance landed by the party with all the hoopla it could muster, what with his proven financial bona fides. Reminding the public (and particularly the Conservative public) that a couple of the party’s top players had previously been ministers—Mulcair having tended the environment portfolio in Quebec, and Thomson finance in Saskatchewan—was the implicit tactic the NDP leader was using to thwart Trudeau, teacher and backbencher. And so, a few weeks prior, the leader had attended the opening of the party’s campaign office in Eglinton—Lawrence, where Thomson was up against Joe Oliver and Marco Mendicino. I might have been annoyed at Mulcair
’s popping into neighbouring ridings and not mine, my original entreaties ignored, but I was also aware that outlying areas of the GTA—Scarborough especially (where there had been a single rally in July but none during the campaign proper)—were being similarly neglected. The strategy of the NDP leader in Toronto, to the extent that any existed, was constantly baffling: incumbents Dan Harris and Rathika Sitsabaiesan had tough battles on their hands in Scarborough, where new Canadians constituted a natural constituency and a vital swing vote, but, to all intents and purposes, it was solely downtown Toronto that was practically in the party’s sights. And yet, but for statements about infrastructure and Mulcair’s slightly awkward declarations that Toronto was the “most important” city in Canada (the latter statement problematic), the country’s media capital was being used for announcements about national policies rather than ones honed to it. Really, I did not envy Thomson—a bright, proven and appealing man—one bit. His Eglinton—Lawrence parachuting seemed, even in the best of circumstances, destined for defeat, his prospects there making even mine look fabulously rosy.

  On the day, Thomson spoke of the NDP’s “prudent and responsible approach to balancing the budget.” Not only would the “progressive” plan balance the books, but an NDP government would run surpluses. The NDP budget would not, as Harper was doing, hit the “snooze button on the economy”; it would not, as the Liberals were doing, “hit the panic button.”

  “Man,” said Phil, “we are really fucked. And we’ve done this to ourselves.”

  —

  The bells, the bells!

  Am buzzed into the meet and greet, on Farnham Avenue where some twenty people have gathered on the rooftop of a handsome 1930s apartment building at the corner of Avenue Road. I am addressing a group I know is inherently skeptical of the NDP’s ability to manage finances, about the affability of the party leader, his responsible fiscal policy, the experience Mulcair has as a minister and his plans for infrastructure and investment in Toronto. Instead, the topic of the refugees arises, expressed with more alarm and precision than had been the case at Rathnelly. I speak of Canada’s humanitarian traditions, again invoking the Komagata Maru, the MS St. Louis and the MV Sun Sea. I deride Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’s characterization of Tamils as “criminals,” “terrorists” and migrants “jumping the queue”; reiterate Harper’s condescending view of the country’s humanitarian tradition; and condemn Defence Minister Jason Kenney’s having described the refugee crisis as “a challenge for European and African countries” with Canada having no obligation to help.

  The phrases roll easily off my tongue, but it is not the high and the abstract that my listeners want to hear. They want numbers. Trudeau has been saying that Canada should take 50,000 by the end of 2016 and 25,000 immediately. Mulcair has proposed that Canada should accept 10,000 government-sponsored refugees before the year is out and another 9,000 per annum through 2019, for a total of 46,000 over four years.

  “Why not more?” I was asked.

  I talk about logistics—about speedy process and officers in Syria on site—explaining the NDP’s number is in concordance with the UN’s request. I share my vision of Canada, saying that with its gift of space, of course the country can absorb massive numbers of people in distress—this is the story of the very foundation of the country, from the United Empire Loyalists (refugees of the American War of Independence) forward. A few questions about the effect of a large intake of refugees upon national security do come up, but the atmosphere is generally one of skepticism—either the NDP’s views are too lax (ISIL is a problem), or conversely they are not open enough. My answers are not convincing, and neither is the going on too long that is typically my response, in difficult straits, helping. Becky Fong, previously the producer of political and cultural commentator Allan Gregg’s program at TVO, had come on as the campaign’s scheduler and candidate handler after the Rathnelly and Lifeline Syria demonstration disappointments, and I can see her in the distance giving me a caring, rather than wholeheartedly approving, glance: not good. On the campaign trail, the challenge of the refugee crisis and how Canada should act to alleviate it is another early harbinger of the NDP’s electoral destiny. Beyond the straightforward foreign policy imperative, the issue is allowing politicians of all parties—though, more to the point, ordinary Canadians—to articulate their vision of home in the most emotive and rousing of terms. The refugee crisis is letting Canadians remember themselves, and in the circus’s high striker of feeling that was the party leaders’ contest, Trudeau’s 50,000 scored better than Mulcair’s 46,000 and the first hit of the bell was the winner. Even I could hear “50,000” ring out. It was the better number: it divided well, it doubled well, it remembered well. The NDP’s “46,000” was not a number at all. It said, “Why not 45 or 42 or 39 or, indeed, 50?” It spoke to the details of government and not to the art of the possible; it spoke to the technocrat and not the impassioned man.

  —

  The campaign is gathering momentum. Video production is in high gear and the “funky town hall” pub nights are turning out to be more than plans on paper. At Dave’s on St. Clair, Juno Award–winning Mexican musician Quique Escamilla, a Toronto resident and a friend, is our featured artist. Young Ethan, a bright and witty theatrical arts student of Cree descent named Dale, and Diedra, an enabler of up-and-coming Canadian musicians at the independent music label Arts & Crafts, are minding the door. Inside, Quique, with whom I’d worked at Luminato Festival, is being, as ever, delightful. The Conservatives’ Bill C-24, the law facilitating the stripping of Canadian citizenship from dual passport holders, had been the spur for having fun. During Luminato, I’d asked Quique if and when he was planning to take out Canadian citizenship. “Why would I do that?” he answered. “It costs a lot of money and the government can just take it away.” It had not occurred to me until then how greatly the value of Canadian citizenship had been reduced in the eyes of potential future citizens able to contribute much. Quique could contemplate living in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany or his native Mexico, and in the supermarket of citizenship that is the new world, Bill C-24 had made of the Canadian passport a diminished product. Quique plays, and in the interval between sets, local author Nazneen Sheikh reads a pertinent election scene from a novel of hers set in Pakistan, and then Quique and I discuss Bill C-24 and the concert he is planning for Leamington, Ontario, for Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) in the agricultural sector paid, with the consent of the law, a lesser wage than Canadian citizens would be for equivalent work. A good crowd has turned out, but we’ve guaranteed Liz Guerrier, the owner of the popular bar, a one-thousand-dollar food and beverages till for reserving the premises. I watch anxiously as NDP activists nurse single beers or glasses of water, just a few sticking around after ten. Kindly, Liz forgoes the $350 we might have owed, and we clear more than a thousand dollars in donations and at the door. But the pub nights are intended to spread word of our campaign as much as to fundraise, and if they are to do so effectively, then we need to reach out into the riding for people not already party members. We decide that the Wychwood Pub should be the venue for the next pub night, and to have another somewhere in Little Jamaica. Still, we feel like winners. I mean, what do the polls really say?—they’re still using landlines, don’t you know! Who bothers with those anymore? Not the young, certainly!

  —

  At Bathurst Street, the team is saying (as loudly as silence permits) nothing at all about the videos, the contents of which I have been asking them to take on faith. But the chill in the air is palpable, so I decide it is time to assemble the crew and give a pep talk. I explain that the reach of the videos will be greater than anything I am able to deliver canvassing, and while I’d needed to absent myself for the small amount of time the videos were taking to produce, the requisite hours did not mean I was avoiding knocking on doors or taking that primary component of the campaign any less seriously. To my mind, I say, the NDP’s social networking tactics are a failure. W
hat political parties generally do, I explain, is choose party-friendly stories reinforcing party-friendly messages and push these at party-friendly people so their incremental reach is practically nil. At best, the statements, articles and videos posted to social media reinforce the convictions of the existing base and, at worst, they alienate it—as I believe the central NDP’s constant barrage of five-dollar solicitations is doing. Of all the parties’ web strategies, I go on, the NDP’s most unfortunately illustrated the patterns of cognitive dissonance and consonance that are endemic features of Internet exchanges. Users display, in their choices, an innate disposition not to engage with “dissonant” stories challenging previously held points of view, and instead open and pass on ones “consonant” with their beliefs, the new information neither threatening nor effective because it buttresses these directly or takes down opponents and their contrary arguments. So the NDP picks up party-friendly stories and passes these on in groups that intersect neither with Liberal nor Conservative circles, fooled by numbers of likes and shares that reflect only these messages’ circularity into believing they are having effect. By contrast, the videos we are making are designed to vault over the barrier of dissonance by using humour—the property I’d always believed to be a barometer of the confident. The jokes of the Trudeau and Harper videos will, if they are successful, allow content to penetrate the minds of voters that ordinarily we would not reach and find the undecided among them. We were also, I add, making substantive videos that do not share the humorous ones’ viral possibility, their more pedestrian purpose to remind whomever we reached that we could not be dismissed as simple jesters.