Illustration by Jillian Tamaki
In the US, the entertainment industry has always been closely tied to politics — from JFK’s friendship with Frank Sinatra to Ronald Reagan’s previous career as a B-list actor. And the inner workings of Washington have often been fodder for TV shows and movies: Schoolhouse Rock, All the President’s Men, Commander-in-Chief and Wag the Dog.
Canadians are a little more reticent when it comes to lionizing our leaders and mythologizing our history. Still, a little digging uncovers a surprising number of TV shows, films, books and even songs about politics. It turns out our nation’s entertainment industry has long had its own fascination with power brokers. Here’s an election day look at pop culture about Canadian politics.
Rich Little on This Hour Has Seven Days. CBC Still Photo Collection/Barry Wilson. .
Rich Little on This
Hour Has Seven Days (1965)
During the 1965 election campaign,
Little, the Ottawa-born
impressionist,
appeared on
the legendary news program hosted by Laurier LaPierre and
Patrick Watson. Playing the roles of all four party leaders — Liberal
Lester B. Pearson, Progressive Conservative John Diefenbaker,
New Democrat Tommy Douglas and Ralliement Creditiste Real
Caouette — Little made a case for each party’s platform. His audience? A poodle
named Scamp, who had been registered to vote in Toronto’s Trinity-Spadina
riding as a practical joke. “One dog, one vote!” thundered Little’s eerily
accurate Douglas.
Gordon Pinsent as Quentin Durgens. CBC Still Photo Collection/Roy Martin.
Quentin
Durgens, M.P. (1965-69)
Gordon
Pinsent starred in this 1960s Capra-esque CBC-TV drama
about an idealistic young lawyer from Moose Falls, Ontario,
coming to terms with the frustrating realities of life as a
Member of Parliament. Durgens’s party was never named, but
the show’s run coincided with Lester B. Pearson’s Liberal government
and the protagonist’s youthful charm anticipated the rise of
Pierre Trudeau. A precursor to the U.S. series
The West Wing, the show addressed contemporary social issues — like
pornography, violence in minor-league hockey, sexism and
religious intolerance — but focused on the inner workings
of the corridors of power.
Courtesy Trans World Record Co. Inc.
Go
Go Trudeau (1968)
This hilarious stinker of a novelty song by The Sinners reached
number 48 on Toronto’s CHUM Radio chart. Featuring musical
snippets from nursery rhymes and references to Robert Stanfield
and Lester B. Pearson, its chorus was an almost-catchy shout-out
to the “hippy” politician: “Go go Trudeau / Don’t be afraid to take a stand
/ You’ve got the nation right behind you / Go ahead and blow their minds.”
Les Ordres (1974)
Widely considered one of the greatest films ever to be made
in Canada, this 1974 feature won Montreal director
Michel
Brault the
Best Director Award at Cannes. Shot verite-style,
Les
Ordres (The Orders)
looks at the moral and political consequences of the use
of the War Measures Act during the 1970
October
Crisis, when a Quebec minister and a British
diplomat were kidnapped by the Front de libération du Québec.
After then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau suspended civil
liberties in the province, 450 people were rounded up and
held by police without warrant or charge. Les
Ordres is based
on the accounts of several of the ordinary people caught
up in the raid — including a textile worker, a doctor
and a social worker.
Dief Will Be the Chief
Again (1974)
Bob
Bossin of the folk group Stringband wrote this 1974 tribute
to prairie populist and former
Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker as a lark
and sent it to CBC Radio’s As It Happens — where it was favourably
reviewed by
Dief himself. But even after that ringing endorsement, the
band couldn’t get a record company to produce it, so they pressed
the single themselves and sent it to radio stations across
the country. It briefly became a number one hit in Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan.
Shelley Peterson and Henry Ditson in Not My Department. CBC Still Photo Collection/Fred Phipps.
Not My Department (1986)
This painful 1986 CBC sitcom lasted just one season. Inspired
by the British series Yes, Minister — the popular 1980s
BBC satire, rumoured to have been Margaret Thatcher’s favourite
TV show — it starred Henry Ditson and Shelley Peterson as Ottawa
civil servants. In real life, Peterson was the wife of then-Ontario Premier
David Peterson, who made a cameo appearance in one episode playing a
janitor. Another attempt to turn the House of Commons into a sitcom setting — 1989’s In
Opposition, starring
Kathleen Laskey as a rookie MP — also lasted a single season.
The Colony of Unrequited
Dreams by Wayne Johnston (1999)
Johnston’s bestselling, critically praised novel is an entertaining
and inventive account of the life of
Joey
Smallwood, the larger-than-life
(and small in stature) figure who brought Newfoundland into
Confederation and
became the province’s first premier. Though Johnston grew
up in a staunchly anti-Confederation family — where
it was forbidden to mention Smallwood’s name — the
author became fascinated with the legendary politician after
reading his biography as a teenager.
Doris Day. Photo Hulton Archive/Getty Images. .
Doris Day petition (2000)
In the 2000 federal election campaign, Alliance party leader
Stockwell Day proposed legislation that could force a referendum
on any subject provided a petition was signed by three per cent of Canadian
voters. In response, comedian
Rick
Mercer launched an on-line petition
to hold a referendum to compel Day to change his first name
to Doris. (Giving Day the name of the famous
actress long
associated with gay actor Rock Hudson was also a less-than-covert
dig at the politician’s social conservatism.) In less than
two weeks, the number of signatures reached one million.
But Jean Chretien’s Liberals won a majority government and
Day got to keep his name.
Colm Feore in Trudeau. Courtesy Big Motion Pictures.
Trudeau (2002)
This 2002 mini series, starring Colm Feore as the charismatic
prime
minister, was a huge hit for the CBC, earning an armful
of Geminis. Director Jerry Ciccoritti borrowed heavily from
Norman
Jewison (the split
screens of The Thomas Crown Affair) and
Richard
Lester (the exuberant
opening of A Hard Day’s Night) for his examination of the three
central conflicts of Trudeau’s life: the 1970 FLQ Crisis,
the 1981
constitutional
wranglings and his failed marriage. The series spawned
a 2005 prequel — Trudeau II: A Maverick
in the Making — a look at the leader’s life pre-Trudeaumania.
Courtesy Drawn & Quarterly/Chester Brown.
Louis Riel: A Comic Book
Biography by Chester Brown (2003)
With a stylistic nod to the work of
Harold
Gray (Little
Orphan Annie) and
Hergé (Tintin),
Brown traces
Riel’s
journey through the founding of Manitoba, his two rebellions
against the Canadian government, his exile in the U.S., his
descent into mental illness and his eventual execution for
treason. Though
Brown does
take some liberties with the facts, his elegant, minimalist
graphic account of the life of the mystical
Métis leader
is a masterpiece of Canadian historiography.
Paul Gross in H2O. Courtesy Morningstar Entertainment/CBC. .
H2O (2004)
This 2004 CBC
mini-series is a well-crafted Shakespearean-style
thriller about a corrupt plot to sell Canada’s water. Paul Gross, who
co-wrote the script with John Krizanc, stars as the son of a deceased
prime minister who is propelled into office after his father’s mysterious
death. Genuinely suspenseful, in light of growing concerns about climate
change and the impending
water
crisis, H2O seems chillingly prescient.
Ottawa has never seemed so creepy, or so cool.
Snakes & Ladders (2004)
This six-part CBC mini-series took the formula of a workplace
comedy — wacky colleagues, aggravating office politics and
troubles with boss — but put the office on Parliament Hill. Set mainly
among the overworked twenty-somethings who toil as support staff to MPs
and senior bureaucrats, it starred Amy Price-Francis as a bright-eyed
assistant to the paranoid Minister of Human Resources and Government
Service. Shot documentary style, with the actors occasionally mingling
with real politicians at public events, and with a soundtrack featuring
punk and hip hop, Snakes & Ladders offered a youthful,
Wonkette-style
look at Canadian politics.
Ed Broadbent raps. Courtesy Halifax Film Company/CBC.
Ed’s Back (2004)
This beyond-dorky rap video about Ed Broadbent’s return
to politics was originally made to be aired on This
Hour Has 22 Minutes in the lead-up to the 2004
election, but it didn’t run due to fears it was too partisan.
Instead, it drew thousands of hits to the NDP website. B-boy
Broadbent took the seat for Ottawa-Centre.
Rachel Giese writes about the arts for CBC.ca.
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