The Best Laid Plans

The Best Laid Plans
Terry Fallis

This book is the 2011 Canada Reads winner, the book that is recommended to be read by all Canadians in 2011. If all Canadians were to read it, there would be some changes made to the way Canadian politics operate.
The book is comedic, the tone is light, there are lots of funny lines and the plot is full of fortuitous coincidences and happy endings. It’s an easy read, and lots of fun, but it has left me thinking.
It is a satire about politics with people and situations which are all too familiar to all of us. There are brilliant engineering students who have never read a novel, be-ringed and tattooed punks, a greedy but savvy entrepreneur, a swaggering American investor, a power-loving university administrator, enraged donut-throwing voters, and a lot of people who need their grammar corrected by an engineering professor.
The setting is also familiar to me: Ottawa University, the Ottawa River, the Houses of Parliament and a retirement home. The plot is simple: In a solidly Conservative riding east of Ottawa, a bereaved and lonely university professor agrees to let his name stand on the Liberal ticket in return for a favour. The Conservative candidate is unexpectedly disgraced and the professor finds himself elected. A newcomer in parliament with no interest in running again, he follows his conscience and makes enemies in caucus but becomes a hero to the Canadian public.
Terry Fallis is an engineer by training but has sustained an involvement in politics all his life. He served on the staff of the Chretien and Turner governments for two years, was a legislative assistant for three years with the provincial Liberals in Ontario, and a government affairs consultant for seven. He has been a partner in a communications company for more than 20 years, working for corporate and governmental clients. He has seen a lot of Canadian public life, enough to make his satire relevant and informed.
The picture that he paints of the machinations behind closed doors in Ottawa is disheartening. He divides staff into two categories: idealist policy wonks and cynical political operators. There are far too many of the latter.
Angus McLintock, the idiosyncratic Scot who becomes a reluctant Liberal MNA expresses Fallis’ attitude towards political life in Canada: “Every candidate in this country should be thinkin’ first about the national interest, second about their constituents’ interests, and third about their own interests. Everyone is more concerned about their own fortunes than with the nation’s. That’s the problem with the democratic institutions in this country.” (p.56)
Fallis’ description of the muffling and discipline imposed on party caucuses is the unsettling message of this otherwise light hearted book. Once elected and in the Liberal caucus, Angus refuses to toe the party line as dictated by the ‘Leader,’ especially when told to vote against a throne speech which was inspired by Liberal values. He becomes a hero to Canadian voters who feel betrayed by the disempowerment of their local representatives.
Coincident with reading this book, I have been reading an article in MacLean’s magazine, February 28, 2011, The House of Commons is a Sham. I found that Fallis’ descriptions of the functioning of Canadian politics today is distressingly accurate. Aaron Wherry, the author of the article, writes: “… almost all votes of any importance (are) destined to break along party lines. Power has coalesced around the offices of party leaders.”
Wherry quotes Liberal MP Keith Martin who has announced that he will not seek re-election: “I’ve never seen morale so low or Parliament so dysfunctional in more than 17 years of being there…There’s an overwhelming sense of futility, disappointment and sadness among most of the MPs who are there.” Martin laments,” the fairly young, ambitious, rapidly partisan individuals who often treat MPs with utter disdain….Rabid partisanship is rewarded…Overweening and excessive party discipline has disempowered members of Parliament and forced them to pay utter homage to the leaderships of their party, instead of their true bosses, which are the people that sent them there.”
Conservative MP Michael Chong is also quoted:” I think the vast majority of MPs are interested in playing a bigger role… in having greater authority and autonomy to execute their roles.”
This is exactly the situation that Fallis is satirizing, and I’m not laughing anymore. Thank you, Canada Reads Panel, for choosing this book. Maybe it will lead to some reform in the House of Commons.