The As It Happens Files

by Mary Lou Finlay

  Oh, and the GG’s office did buy a new trophy. It’s called the Clarkson Cup, and it will be awarded every year to the best women’s team in the Dominion.

  To get back to Don Cherry: He was right, of course, when he said that we probably wouldn’t have called him if his team had been winning. I mean, where would be the fun in that? It’s not true that we wanted to humiliate him, though; we just knew he’d make for some great radio. And while we love to salute the best—we talked to Junior Hockey Coach Brian Kilrea, for instance, when he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame (he’s won more than a thousand games with the Ottawa 67s)—where is it written that we shouldn’t tip our hats occasionally to those who achieve another sort of distinction?

  I remember a conversation we had with an American basketball coach after her team suffered a resounding defeat of 103–0. Jennifer Marks never got a bit testy. Perhaps the fact that they were from Texas and were called the Lady Chaparrals had something to do with her good manners. When I asked her if they’d considered playing baseball instead, she laughed good-naturedly. Ms. Marks did admit that they’d had a hard time just getting enough girls who wanted to play basketball to make up a team, but she hoped that in a few years they would be more competitive.

  The Sheffield and District Junior Sunday League in England, on the other hand, were not at all amused when the Derbyshire Times described a 29—nil result at one of their soccer games as a “comprehensive trouncing.” League chairman Matthew Harman seemed to think the losing team would feel worse about seeing the result depicted in that way than they would about the actual loss, so he had issued a kind of edict against talking to the Press and declared that anyone who defied his rule would be subject to disciplinary action.

  And then there are folk who make a virtue out of losing. Not only Canadian ice skaters (just kidding!) but, well, I’m thinking again of the aptly named Zippy Chippy—aptly named, that is, if you think of “zip” as standing for “zero” and not speed. Notwithstanding that Zippy is the grandson of Canadian racing champion Northern Dancer, at the time we caught up to him (so to speak), he had just lost his 85th race and was tied for the most losses for a thoroughbred in American racing history. Lost handsomely, too—by 37 ½ lengths. Here’s part of my conversation with Zippy Chippy’s owner and trainer, Felix Monserrate.

  ML: Mr. Monserrate, Zippy Chippy has the right pedigree. Why can’t he win a race?

  FM: I don’t know. Sometime I try to ask him, but he don’t give me no answer. He try to run, he try to win but …

  ML: Oh now, is he really trying?

  FM: Yes, he try to catch the front runners, but they run more than him.

  ML: What about this problem of, when the gate opens, he just stands there?

  FM: It’s hard to explain, because you know, I try to find what is the problem. He trained perfectly in the morning—he was pretty fantastic—but last two, three times, he just breaks slow.

  ML: When you say “breaks slow,” what do you mean? What happens, actually, at the gate?

  FM: They break, the horses start running, and when he sees the horses in front of him, that’s when he goes.

  ML: When they’re all in front of him.

  FM: Right.

  ML: Has he ever won you any money?

  FM: To me, yes. He pays his own way.

  ML: He does! How does he do that?

  FM: Well, at the beginning of the year, he got two or three seconds—I’m making money. He finishes fourth or third and there’s a little money to pay his own dinner, his own food.

  ML: So you want to keep racing him.

  FM: I hope I can keep racing him, yes.

  ML: Because if he’s going to be the losing-est horse ever, he might as well go for the record, I guess, huh?

  FM: Well, I cannot say that, because if he run again and he wins, you know … I’m not going to tell him not to win! If he can win, why not?

  ML: Yeah, why not?

  FM: Right. I think one of those days, he will come up and say, Hell, let me run! and do what he’s doing best—running. To me, he’s a winner every time he runs.

  ML: How long has he been racing?

  FM: Hmm … He’s seven years old—the last five years.

  ML: Maybe he thinks it’s time to go to the stud farm.

  FM: Nah, he cannot be that: he’s a gelding. He’ll have to keep earning a living running.

  ML: Oh dear. Does he know that?

  FM: Well, I think he knows, here’s a guy, a good father, right here that’s not going to let him down. Whatever he do, it will be okay for me. If he don’t run, he will be in my barn like a pony. I will keep him no matter what. He’s like part of my family here. He will stay.

  ML: Is he a pretty horse?

  FM: Um … They say he’s ugly.

  ML: They say he’s ugly?

  FM: He’s ugly—and he’s a little mean. But it’s okay for me. He’s just a big show-off. He don’t do nothin’.

  ML: You love him.

  FM: Yeah. He try to bite, but he don’t bite. He try to kick, but he don’t kick.

  ML: He tries to run, but he don’t run!

  FM: Right. He try to run as hard as he can, but he cannot catch the front runner.

  ML: Has he ever won a race?

  FM: No, no. It’s amazing.

  ML: Never!

  FM: Never.

  ML: His record is 85—zip.

  FM: No zip! He got 85 [losses] and he got a couple of seconds and thirds. No wins, but he shows a little bit sometimes he can run.

  ML: Well, you let us know when he runs again, and we’ll be rooting for him, one way or the other.

  Felix Monserrate said that he wanted his horse to win, but I wonder. Zippy Chippy—who, incidentally, made People magazine’s 2000 list of “most interesting personalities”—did go on running, if that’s the word and, er, celebrated his hundredth loss on September 11, 2004, in Northampton, Massachusetts. Felix tells me Zippy Chippy retired that December because they were going to make a movie about him, so of course, he had to be well rested and looking his best. Last I heard, the movie deal was still on, as soon as they could get the financing and all.

  And by the way, Zippy Chippy did eventually win a race, although not against another horse. In August 2001, he came first in a 120-foot race against a minor league baseball player. Then he won another—which still only makes him 2 for 3 against humans, because back in August 2000, he lost a 40-yard race to Rochester Red Wings outfielder Jose Herrera.

  I don’t know how the Lady Chaparrals are faring, but I’ve since learned that there are fewer than 150 students at their school, the Christway Academy in Duncanville, Texas, and that’s counting all grades—kindergarten to Grade 12, boys and girls. So I have a new appreciation for the difficulties they face in trying to form a girls’ basketball team, never mind a winning one. Sadly, their good-natured former coach, Jennifer Marks, died in March 2008 giving birth to her second child. She was 32.

  As for our dear Mississauga IceDogs, they had some success, too: they got to the finals in 2004 and came first in their division in the 2004/05 season. In 2006/07, they had their best year ever in terms of wins (43), but the team got sold and moved to St. Catharines, so they’re now the Niagara IceDogs. I wish them all the luck in the world. You, too, Grapes.

  THIRTEEN

  The Maple Leaf Forever

  Radio that carries all the way to the back benches

  Hockey isn’t Canada’s only national sport; the other one is politics. Some people think it’s lacrosse, but they’re wrong. Politics commands way more attention, although not necessarily from all our listeners. I remember a call from an American listener pleading with us not to talk so much about Canadian politics because it was so boring. Never mind that we weren’t actually making the show for an American audience—although we love to have them on board—the man had a point: when you compare Canada to Poland, say, where identical twins can hold the jobs of Prime Minister and President, respectively, or the Balkans or Rus
sia or even Nepal, our politics might seem not only trivial in the stakes department but also wholly lacking in entertainment value. But it’s not true.

  Granted, you won’t likely find people clinging to the edges of their seats over the outcome of a federal-provincial conference or even a federal election, and our issues are not like the issues they have in the Middle East. But as Stephen Leacock and other humorists have demonstrated, if you can’t find something funny about what’s going on in Ottawa, St. John’s or Moose Jaw, you’re just not paying attention.

  I mean, this is a country where a party that advocates destroying the country (the Bloc Québécois) not only elects members to Parliament and may be called Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, but thanks to an overhaul of the Elections Act by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, is supported with federal tax dollars. Even Canadians who couldn’t vote for the Bloc if they wanted to, because they don’t live in Quebec, are required to help finance the separatists.

  This is a country with two official languages, English and French, but English signs may be outlawed—and a person can become Prime Minister without speaking either of them. Just ask Jean Chrétien.

  This is a country whose premiers have sported names like “Wacky” Bennett and “Wacky Junior” and where a big-city mayor (Toronto’s Mel Lastman) shakes hands with the Hell’s Angels and welcomes them to town.

  The New Democratic Party, believing itself to be the conscience of the country, is humorous only in its sincere belief that it speaks for all Canadians while regularly attracting about 15 percent of the vote, but the Progressive Conservative Party—which spawned the Bloc Québécois and the Reform Party, which then became the Canadian Alliance, which then re-merged with the Progressive Conservatives to become the Conservative Party (non-progressive)—has provided more than enough material for levity, especially during Stockwell Day’s term as Leader. Apart from holding his first press conference as a federal MP wearing a wetsuit and sitting astride a Jet Ski on the shores of Lake Okanagan, Stock made quite a splash when it was revealed that the world as he knew it was no more than six thousand years old. He also believed that the Niagara River ran from north to south (which would, presumably, mean that Niagara Falls falls up).

  Needless to say, Stock quickly became a media darling, and when his Canadian Alliance Party decided to find a new name, we had a field day. The National Post thought the new party should be called the Canadian Reform Alliance Party, or CRAP. Comedian Rick Mercer started a campaign to get Stockwell Day to change his name to Doris.

  Our listeners lobbied Talkback with their own suggestions for what to call the new Canadian Alliance:

  The Reform Party

  Stock on the Rocks

  The New Alliance Party (NAP)

  The Day Old

  The Liberalized Progressive Reform Alliance Party

  The Twilight Zone (“It comes at the end of the day, and there’s an eerie sense of otherworldly danger.”)

  Misalliance

  Stock Option

  Day Care (“They’re all a bunch of babies.”)

  The Party Formerly Known as Alliance Formerly

  Known as Reform Formerly Known as Tory

  PITA, or Pain in the Alliance Party

  When he wasn’t casting about for a new name, Stockwell Day was doing things like apparently spying on the Prime Minister. To be fair, I don’t actually know if he was spying on the PM, because the story got a bit mixed up, as things tended to do when Stock was around. But here’s the story as Globe and Mail reporter Andrew Mitrovica related it to us in April 2001.

  A meeting had taken place in the Centre Block on Parliament Hill with Day and his Chief of Staff and two Alliance MPs—and a private investigator whom the party was thinking of hiring to try to dig up some dirt on the Prime Minister in connection with a golf club in Shawinigan, Quebec. Day at first confirmed that the meeting had taken place, but a bit later, he said that after checking his daytimer, he realized he had never met the man in question; he only thought he had, because he’d read it in the Globe and Mail. And they weren’t looking to spy on the PM; they wanted more information on organized crime.

  Perhaps Stock was distracted by the lawsuit he got tangled up in after one of his constituents accused him of slander. Mr. Day was the Alberta Treasurer when he questioned the integrity of Red Deer lawyer Lorne Goddard, who was defending a convicted pedophile in court. In the end, Day settled the suit at a cost of $792,000—and the bill was covered by Alberta taxpayers.

  But I wouldn’t want you to think that Stock was the only guy who ever got a bit confused breathing in the heady air of Parliament Hill. What about poor old Dennis Mills, the Liberal MP who graciously consented to give us an interview in the same month about the new committee he was going to chair on bulk water exports (speaking of heady substances)? The government, we thought, had already announced that it wasn’t going to allow bulk water exports. Why set up a committee?

  “The whole issue of water is not crystal clear,” said Mr. Mills. “We want to make sure we have our position on water in a solid state.”

  He should be a writer for As It Happens, I thought.

  But I said:

  ML: Well, is there any possibility in your view that the government will move to allow the export of bulk water?

  DM: There is absolutely no chance that the Government of Canada will take any other position than the one we’ve always articulated. Minister of Foreign Affairs John Manley reasserted that position today in the House of Commons—that it’s final.

  But we could say something in the House of Commons, and if it’s in conflict with a trade agreement, the trade agreement is paramount. That’s why we must have these hearings and why we must have this debate as Canadians, so we reaffirm our position as a nation. I think it’s linked to our sovereignty, Mary Lou.

  ML: So in terms of this committee, you are not interested in trying to decide whether or not to export bulk water but only how to stop it.

  DM: Well, when you’re chairing a committee of the House of Commons and it’s all-party, we have a duty to listen to people on all sides of the debate. And we now have a democratically elected Premier in Newfoundland [Roger Grimes] who has a different view. It’s not unlike the health care situation, Mary Lou. If a particular party in Canada started a private health care system, that essentially opens the floodgates right across the country under the Free Trade Agreement terms.

  Call me dense, but I did feel that the situation was less than “crystal clear,” and it was about to get murkier still, because before this interview got to air, our Editorial Desk learned that the Prime Minister’s Office, when questioned, had refused to confirm Mr. Mills’ appointment as Committee Chair. In fact, the PMO refused to confirm that there even was a committee to chair.

  We called Dennis Mills back.

  ML: Mr. Mills, since we spoke earlier, we’ve been talking to the Prime Minister’s Office—

  DM: Yes?

  ML: And they’re saying there is no water committee.

  DM: No, what they’re saying is the committee has not been struck—and I think I said to you we wouldn’t be starting our hearings until August. But the letters of support from all the Opposition parties I have in my possession—so does our House Leader—so we’re now just sort of working out the technical details, and when those details are in place, then we should start our hearings. In August.

  ML: So you have no doubt that this committee is going to be set up?

  DM: Well, the Prime Minister has named me Chair of the Committee. I have the Opposition letters—not physically in my possession at this moment, but I have them in my possession. And unless somebody from the Opposition goes against their own letter—and I mean, I doubt that—everything’s proceeding.

  ML: No, it seems to be somebody in the Prime Minister’s Office that’s saying—

  DM: No, no. I talked to Francie Ducros about this just moments ago. The actual striking of the Committee hasn’t happened, but the machinery is done for p
utting the Committee in motion.

  ML: And the Prime Minister has asked you to chair it.

  DM: Yes, he has. He announced it in caucus yesterday.

  ML: Why do you think the PMO wouldn’t confirm that?

  DM: Well, I’ll tell you why. When you have a special committee of the House of Commons, there is a technical thing that has to be done—you have to have the support of all parties—and the Prime Minister was not aware that we had it in writing, the support of all the Opposition parties.

  ML: As of now, they’re just denying any knowledge of this.

  DM: No, I think if you speak to Francie Ducros now, she would acknowledge that they have the letters of support, which she didn’t have earlier and was unaware of.

  But the PMO refused to come to Dennis Mills’ rescue. The most they would concede was that while there was no committee at present, they saw “no reason why there should not be a committee at some time in the future.” Sadly for Mr. Mills, the Prime Minister never quite got around to striking this very important special committee. I wonder if it had anything to do with Mr. Mills having been so agreeable as to talk to us that day.

  Incidentally, Madame Ducros’ own career in the PMO was cut short, when, speaking to a reporter, she referred to George W. Bush as a moron.

  A number of public figures preferred not to talk to As It Happens for some reason—or to any media. I never had the pleasure of interviewing Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, for instance, no matter how nicely or how often we asked. Prime Minister Stephen Harper talked to us a number of times before he got the top job, not afterwards. Politicians covet the free air time when there’s an election campaign on, of course—unless they’re so assured of victory they don’t need it. Then, sometimes, they’d rather not risk an unscripted encounter where they might say something to derail their campaign.