When Terry Fallis worked as a political staffer on Parliament Hill and at Queen’s Park in the 1980s, he had no idea that 20 years later he would write a satirical novel about Canadian politics, The Best Laid Plans. After meeting deafening silence when he peddled the manuscript to literary agents and publishers in 2006, he decided to podcast the book, chapter-by-chapter, getting rave reviews from listeners in Canada and around the world. Encouraged, he self-published the novel in September 2007 and, in 2008, won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the first self-published novel ever so honoured.

The sequel, The High Road, will be published by McClelland & Stewart in September 2010. For anyone who has ever worked in government or packs a passion for politics, both books are designed to make you laugh, think, and have hope for the future of democracy. Canadian Government Executive provides this exclusive excerpt of The High Road.

 

Background to excerpt

A new Liberal government has just assumed office in Ottawa and is wrestling with competing demands on the eve of its first Budget. On election night, the Alexandra Bridge, a major link between Ottawa and Hull, collapsed into the Ottawa River. The PM appointed maverick MP, honest Angus McLintock, a Scottish-Canadian engineering professor, to investigate the cause of the bridge failure, aided by his able executive assistant, and the book’s narrator, Daniel Addison.

Angus and Daniel quickly determine that a costly bridge maintenance program was sacrificed on the altar of deficit reduction. In this scene, Angus appears before the Cabinet to argue that more money must be set aside in the next day’s Budget for infrastructure investment. The Finance minister, Emile Coulombe, is having none of it, and wants tax cuts instead. Bradley Stanton is the new Prime Minister’s ultra-political, Machiavellian Chief of Staff, and no friend to Angus and Daniel.

 

In my office, I made a final call to confirm the arrangements before knocking on Angus’s door.

“It’s time.”

“Must you make it sound as if you’re leadin’ me to the electric chair, laddie?”

I’d noticed that in moments of stress or in private conversation, Angus tended to drop his g’s more often and become more Caledonian in his speech.

We walked through Centre Block to the Cabinet room. It was very quiet, even peaceful. Time for a little Vince Lombardi.

“Okay. Coulombe will not support this. He cannot support this. He’s so committed to his tax cuts that he’s left himself no room for retreat. He can’t back away an inch. So don’t even acknowledge him. Ignore him. Focus completely on the Prime Minister. We’ll never have Coulombe, so write him off and bear down on the PM. You know what to say and how to say it.”

“Aye.”

My seniority in the party had earned me access to the Cabinet room for the show. We waited in the anteroom. Eventually, several senior Department of Finance officials emerged with bulging briefcases and the biggest binder I’d ever seen. It was large enough to deserve its own special trolley but a particularly strapping bureaucrat carried it instead, stopping to rest every twenty metres or so. That was undoubtedly the federal Budget, due to be presented the next day.

“Why wouldn’t Cabinet hear our case before sending the Budget boys back?” Angus asked, a little ticked. “Makes our briefing seem moot.”

“There’s plenty of time to amend the Budget. Besides, maybe our stuff is already in it.”

Bradley Stanton appeared at the heavy doors and waved us in. Just as we were headed into the inner sanctum, I sent Lindsay a pre-arranged text message from my cell. Timing was critical. Bradley looked like a coiled cobra sizing up his prey. I’ve always hated snakes.

“You’ve got twenty minutes, no more.”

Angus needed only fifteen. He was so focused, the glory of the room seemed barely to register on him. The large table, upholstered chairs, wood panelling, and Canadian art made it a dignified and serene place to make momentous decisions about the nation’s future. The full Cabinet had turned up. Angus stood at the head of the table and spoke to the PM as if they were alone in the room together. He’d refined his pitch since the caucus meeting. He spoke with power, conviction, the occasional flash of humour, but most often with a gravitas that demanded attention. I was very proud as I watched him get into his performance. He wore it like a comfortable jacket. Years at the front of the lecture hall had served him well. I watched the PM as much as I did Angus, and he could not conceal the impact the presentation was having. He caught himself nodding in agreement early on and stifled it. By the end of Angus’s performance, the PM’s face was impassive, but his eyes seemed brighter than usual. I also watched Emile Coulombe. For every slight nod from the PM, there were several emphatic head shakes from Coulombe. At one point, I heard Coulombe mutter in exasperation, “Oh come on, that’s ridiculous.” The PM heard it too, shot a glare Coulombe’s way, and raised his hand to calm the waters.

Angus closed with this: “Do you see this iron ring I’m wearing? You may not know the story. Each and every Canadian engineer wears an iron ring on the pinky of his or her working hand. The ring symbolizes the iron from a beam in a bridge near Quebec City that collapsed in 1907, killing seventy-five workers. It fell because the engineers who designed and built the bridge were incompetent. Each engineer in Canada wears this ring as a constant reminder of our commitment, of our duty, to serve and protect the public. We’ve just witnessed the collapse of another bridge. This time due to the incompetence of politicians, not engineers. This ring means a great deal to me. So you picked the wrong man to investigate the collapse of a bridge if you planned on doing nothing with my report.”

Rather than sitting down at the same level as the Cabinet members, Angus stayed on his feet, above the fray. When he was finished, Coulombe was on his feet. Perfectly bilingual, with only the slightest trace of a French accent, he smiled and walked slowly behind his colleagues on one side of the table to calm himself.

“That is a lovely little story, Mr. McLintock, but we’re not here to discuss history.”

“Aye, you’re right there sir,” Angus interrupted. “I’m not here to discuss history. I’m trying to make sure we don’t repeat it.”

That prompted some righteous nodding from a few ministers around the table.

“We cannot make the infrastructure investment that you seek, Mr. McLintock, for two reasons. Number one, we promised we’d cut taxes. And number two, we need the tax cuts to stimulate the crashing economy, and that’s what will be in tomorrow’s Budget. Period, full stop, end of story.”

Angus had been calm up to that point but the flickering flame behind his eyes seemed suddenly to burst into an inferno. He was on him in an instant, yet kept his gaze fixed on the PM.

“Speakin’ of number two, minister, with great respect, your argument is full of” – Angus paused – “it.”

Snickering from many ministers had Coulombe glaring. But now Angus was too angry to care.

“Is there no beginnin’ to your common sense, sir? Have you not been readin’ the advice that’s been comin’ in from economists across the country? Have you not spoken to your own officials? Economists don’t agree on much, but there seems to me to be a clear consensus that investment in infrastructure renewal is a better way to stimulate the economy than your much ballyhooed tax cuts. It will put more people back to work, it will put more money in Canadians’ pockets, it will do