Oliver's Twist (39 page)

These interviews, which blanketed the province, were a bold and direct appeal to wavering Liberals. For those in Southern
Ontario who could occasionally wear Conservative colours, including many who were at the throttle of the country's economic engine, an NDP government was anathema. In the hours before the polls closed, these “blue” Liberals threw their support behind the Conservatives in a bid to stop the NDP. Many, such as my former boss Ivan Fecan, will likely stay with the Conservatives if Harper tacks to the centre of the political spectrum in the years ahead.

For the Liberals and for Michael Ignatieff, the campaign was a debacle. In its aftermath, former party president Stephen LeDrew reflected that the losses were not due to the poor generalship of Michael Ignatieff. He did not let the party down, LeDrew observed, but rather “the party failed him.” Whatever the verdict, the Liberals face the future without their one-time dream candidate and with Bob Rae as interim leader.

The sweep of Quebec by the New Democrats notwithstanding, the capture of Ontario by the Conservatives may be the most enduringly significant event of the 2011 election. Ontario, with its banking, investment, and entrepreneurial power tied to the commodity and energy resources of the West, had been the source of Liberal hegemony for generations.

The flip side, however, is that Harper has formed the first majority government without significant representation from Quebec. This will be a serious challenge for him when, as most believe, the separatist Parti Québécois wins the provincial election. To prepare “winning conditions” for a referendum on independence, a separatist provincial government will attempt to provoke Ottawa with demands no national government could accept. Since Harper will need the backing of the fifty-nine NDP MPs from Quebec to keep the federalist forces
united, he will have to handle his relationship with the NDP carefully.

Fifty years after it was founded, the NDP had been placed in a position where it could realistically expect to form a national government. But the man who put the party there, Jack Layton, would never have the chance to live that dream. His untimely death on August 22, 2011, robbed the party of its best asset and threw our national politics into disarray, leaving Stephen Harper the only full-time national leader in Parliament. The NDP will struggle to find a leader with the prestige and authority to hold together its disparate parts as a historically English-speaking party now dominated by Quebecers. Moreover, that new party chief will have to emerge from the long shadow cast by the individual who, more than anyone since Tommy Douglas, personified what the party stands for. Perhaps the moderate progressive NDP ground Layton staked out can be protected from claim jumpers, but it will not be easy.

Stephen Harper devoutly sought a majority and won it in the end. He will control the Senate and the House of Commons, and by the time his term ends, he will have appointed almost all of the judges serving on the Supreme Court. It is an oftenrepeated truth that Canadian prime ministers, once handed a majority, are dictators between elections. Now that he is untroubled by the daily walk past the gallows, which is the fate of minority prime ministers, how will Harper govern and use his power? If he can expand his toehold in Quebec and steer for the centre with new moderate MPs in Ontario, he will be well on the way to achieving his objective of replacing the Liberals as Canada's natural governing party.

11

LAST
RIVERS

In company with my canoe club colleagues or with other trusted friends, I paddled over thirty Canadian rivers during thirty years of canoe tripping. In the latter years, there were a few missed seasons when an election campaign or some other commitment kept me city-bound. These were sorely missed opportunities that I came to regret as time slipped past and the adventures I did have became all the more precious. Especially memorable were two final expeditions with Pierre Trudeau.

In 1994, the club regulars made plans to tackle the Stikine, a magnificent river that originates in northwestern British Columbia and flows through the Coast Mountain Range before emptying into the Pacific near Wrangell, Alaska. Mom had been terribly ill that summer, suffering fainting spells and disorientation as a result of lung cancer, but at her urging I joined the crew for what proved to be two thrilling weeks.

Trudeau and Ted Johnson naturally formed one of the canoe duos, though their customary roles were reversed in the boat. Johnson, Trudeau's one-time executive assistant and close aide, was the sternsman, responsible for making the critical decisions
that Trudeau, his bowman and former boss, was obliged to follow.

We were attempting to run the Beggerly Canyon, a high-risk operation. The river's considerable force and volume is suddenly squeezed into the narrows of the gorge, creating a short, violent passage that leaves no room for error. The rushing water hammers into what appears to be a dead-end wall of volcanic rock, actually a hairpin turn to the left. There the river piles upon itself, forming stacks of surging waves with deep souse holes in the troughs, dangerous in open canoes such as ours.

The Beggerly Canyon is no run for amateurs, but Johnson and Trudeau were an experienced and skillful team who had never dumped. As we usually did, Tim Kotcheff and I went first to try to find the safest route. There wasn't one. We were caught in a powerful upstream eddy and thrown into the wall, cracking the bow gunwales and almost capsizing in the melee. The second boat was swept up by cross-currents, tossed up on top of a wave, and turned around, causing it to finish the route perilously ass-backwards.

Taking in the scene from above, Johnson decided on the prudent approach and told Trudeau simply, “We're not going.”

“Of course we are,” Trudeau retorted. “The others went for it.”

Years as a loyal subordinate took over and Johnson acquiesced. But no sooner had they cast off into the canyon mouth than Johnson realized he had chosen a very bad line. In seconds, he would be irrevocably committed to certain trouble.

“I am heading in to shore,” he shouted above the roar.

“No!” his boss yelled back.

The team's indecision was clear to the others waiting on
the bluff. The canoe began to slide sideways. Johnson dug in, an inshore eddy caught the canoe, and the team shot up on the gravel shoreline. Trudeau grabbed his pack and trudged off sullenly down the portage trail. “Intellectually, I know I can lose,” he had once said to me, “but I never do.” Nor did he like to.

Johnson sat still in the stern of the canoe, collecting his breath. To himself as much as anyone else, he muttered, “Goddamned if I will go down in history as the man who drowned Pierre Elliott Trudeau.”

The jungle drums along the Stikine had sent out the word that the former prime minister was on the water. We were more than a mile past an outfitter's camp when a powerboat from the camp came chasing after us. When the boat had reached the last canoe in line, the driver asked whether this was the Trudeau group. If so, would the great man come back for a coffee?

I looked ahead to Pierre who shook his head with a firm
no
. If he accepted, the whole group would have to paddle back against the current on his account. We carried on for another few minutes before the cruiser returned, this time with an attractive young lady, red hair blowing in the breeze, at the wheel. She was the fit and outdoorsy type that so many men find irresist-ible; certainly Trudeau did. She pulled up alongside Trudeau's canoe to ask if he would change his mind and meet her father, who was a long-time admirer. The bows of our canoes swung back toward the camp, and the young woman had the good sense to tow us in a line astern all the way.

Inside the living room of the outfitter's beautiful post-andbeam log home, Trudeau took a seat on a large sofa and in a voice that was more command than request suggested the young lady come and sit beside him. He was clearly entranced by this
vivacious woman. They had such an animated conversation that the rest of us might just as well not have been in the room.

The woman's father expressed his delight and gratitude that the former prime minister had stopped in. He himself was an interesting man, yet his face and demeanour carried a hint of some deep sadness. We learned later that the first thing he saw leaving his home every morning was a scarred clearing on the forested mountainside across the river—the spot where his wife and son had perished in the crash of their floatplane two years before. Trudeau was visibly moved at this news and thankful we had gone back.

The trip over, we made our way to Vancouver by air, stopping overnight at Terrace, British Columbia. Although Trudeau had been gone from the political stage for fifteen years, his presence created a scene at the airport. Eventually a crowd of a hundred or more gathered to request an autograph or simply watch as he made his way from the baggage claim to the taxi stand. That night all of us gathered for a parting dinner at a local restaurant. A big man in his fifties, possibly a logger, approached our table without hesitation and placed himself in front of Trudeau. The table fell into an uncertain silence, but Trudeau sat unflinching and gave the man that famous ice-blue gaze. The giant asked, “Are you Pierre Trudeau?” The reply was affirmative. The fellow held out a hand the size of a baseball glove and said simply, “Thank you for what you did for my country.” We were all taken aback, but Trudeau seemed especially surprised and uncharacteristically speechless. I was almost alarmed to see his eyes well up after he and the stranger had shaken hands.

After farewells at the Vancouver airport, I made my way to Mom's apartment. She had been on my mind throughout the trip, and in peaceful moments I could not help but reflect on her own journey. How brief must have been the times when her heart and mind were at peace. Those years long ago when she and Cliff and I had lived together were among the few that had given her a secure sense of home and family. For the rest, she had looked for happiness in work or booze or the approval of others and found only loneliness.

My own experience had taught me that contentment is not to be found in bricks and mortar, however grand or comfortable, but within ourselves. Home is a place in the heart and goes where we go. The other is just shelter.

I found Mom far gone. Her lung cancer had spread to her brain, and her doctor told me that she had willed herself to remain alive for my return. I agreed to the surgery the doctor recommended, which in the end was nothing less than torture for Mom. The decision was made out of love in the hope that the surgery would lengthen Mom's life; too late, I realized I had done the wrong thing for the right reasons. The procedure gave her a few weeks of half-life during which she never stopped smoking. In one of our last conversations, she confessed to me that she and my father had never married. I told her that it did not matter then and did not matter now.

There was a lovely memorial service in a small United Church on the grounds of the University of British Columbia. One of Mom's friends hired a singer to perform her favourite hymn, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” After the cremation, I took Mom's ashes to scatter in the sea at Jericho Beach. The day was windy and as I crouched down to pour out the ashes
carefully, a large wave hit the shore, soaking me from head to toe. Mom had the last laugh.

In the days and weeks afterwards, I received countless messages from friends who had known of Mom's and my sometimes-tortuous relationship. They expressed solace, and I was especially grateful to those who acknowledged Mom's feisty spirit. Jean Chrétien, then prime minister, called me in Vancouver. “I understand how you must feel, he said, “but imagine my grief. You've lost a mother, but I've lost a supporter.”

On the day of Mom's funeral, I learned that when our Stikine canoe party had arrived in Terrace, Trudeau had been informed by telephone from Montreal that his brother had died while we were on the river. He had said nothing at the time, though perhaps the loss partially explained his wet eyes at the unexpected encounter over dinner. I wanted to offer condolences to Pierre and perhaps find consolation for our mutual losses, but I demurred. Sharing such intimacies was never his style.