only have about five minutes left, and I have several other points I want to cover.”
He sat back up and I reluctantly followed. The three of us waited in silence for the commercial break to run its course. Cheryl’s face held a patina of diplomacy, but I knew what she was thinking: that she had bested me, that by hijacking Sal’s role as interviewer she was able to cast me as the extremist and herself as the voice of moderation. With less than five minutes left, I would need all of my intellectual heft to turn things around. In the seconds before we came back, I looked up once more at Raj standing in the booth. His head was now bowed over his phone, his brow furrowed. Oh God — he was probably on Facebook or Twitter right then, watching the obloquy and snark over my blunder flood in. Was Grace there, too, gingerly defending my moment of indiscretion? Or was she still steaming over my fecklessness as a father (Philip, your daughter scalded herself), my bedroom shortcomings (I’m getting pretty used to your inability to satisfy me), or, worst of all, my complete ineptitude at keeping track of our social calendar? Oh Jesus, why couldn’t I remember what we’re doing on Sunday?
A countdown proceeded, and then the electric guitars and synthesized trumpets returned. “And we’re back,” Sal said when they stopped. “We’re talking about Friday’s collapse of ODS Financial Group with Cheryl Sneed and Philip Sharpe. Now Cheryl, you’ve taken some heat over your coverage of ODS. Even in the last few weeks, as the company entered its death spiral, you’ve remained ultimately optimistic. Can you explain why?”
“Well, of course the foreclosure of the firm is by no means good news. I know this has put undo stress on both individuals and the market. But I just don’t buy that this is some kind of apocalypse brought on by corporate malice. The truth is, ODS made some big gambles that didn’t pay off. But the Canadian economy is strong; it’s resilient. And so, too, are the people who worked for the firm. The good ones will find a way; they always do. I mean, just anecdotally, I heard from several of my sources who said that people were on their cellphones Friday afternoon, reaching out to contacts and finding other work. Some had secured new jobs before they left the building.”
“And you’re also convinced,” Sal went on, “that the pension funds that the company managed are still secure? That this hasn’t left a big gaping hole in —”
“So you feel the company has no obligation whatsoever,” I said to Cheryl, cutting Sal off, “that this is a morally neutral situation as far as the business is concerned. You don’t see what ODS did as categorically wrong.”
“You’re not exactly in a position to talk about right and wrong, Philip,” she replied without looking at me, “considering you just argued that ODS’s executive team should be arrested for crimes that don’t yet exist.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It is what you said.”
“It’s not what I meant. Look. I think what you’re doing is obfuscating the bigger issue here. The reality is, last Friday represents the culmination of what Canada has become after nearly ten years of Stephen Harper: this kind of neo-Thatcherism; this normalization of greed and dog-eat-dogism; this complete disregard for the community at large. What we’ve witnessed is our country giving neo-liberal economics a monopoly on all things moral.”
“Oh my God,” Cheryl said, rolling her eyes. “Again with the melodrama.”
“It’s not melodrama.”
“It is. Why don’t you just admit what this is really about for you, Philip? You didn’t like ODS’s C-suite as people. You found them smug; you found them indifferent to your abstract ideas about duty; and you found them ruthless when it came to the tough decisions needed to keep the business afloat. And now you just wish someone would come along and arrest them.”
“That is not true.” I nodded toward the camera in front of us. “Canadians need to understand what is really going on here. Friday represented a failure of the social contract we’re supposed to have with our leaders. And not just with our corporate leaders, whom we’ve given the right — apparently — to make as much money as they want. But our civic leaders, our government, whom we’ve given the right to protect the general will, to have a bird’s-eye view on how the actions of a few can harm the lives of many.”
“Wow,” Cheryl said, her voice sodden with sarcasm. “Straight from the pen of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.”
“Okay, we only have a couple minutes left,” Sal interjected. “Let’s talk about severance packages. We know the senior leadership walked off with huge payouts, but as for the average employee —”
“In the end, Cheryl, what I’m talking about here is magnanimity. About graciousness.” The two of them just stared at me, as if they weren’t sure where I was going with this. Truth be told, I wasn’t so sure myself. “We’ve watched as freedom of the markets has trumped all other freedoms — not the least of which being our moral freedoms. We’ve all but abandoned civic virtue and good governance in favour of a rigid ideology — the ideology of economic liberty, of wealth as an end in itself. And when that ideology crashes and burns so spectacularly, as it did on Friday, the system itself should be magnanimous enough to punish those responsible. To allow us to punish them. That’s what I meant earlier.”
“Okay, guys, let’s get back on track with —”
“I assure you, Philip,” Cheryl sneered, “that I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I’m beginning to think that you don’t either.”
“You don’t see how it’s all connected?” I asked. From the corner of my eye I could see Lori giving Sal a desperate signal to wrap things up. “This monopoly of market thinking?” I pushed on. “This fetishizing of the self? This abandoning of duty to the mentality of acquisition, to this belief that economic value is the only value? This is nothing more than a bastardization of the liberal traditions this country was founded on.”
“I just don’t see it that way,” Cheryl said. “I think you’re taking a bunch of vague notions and just extending them onto a situation that, while dire, is relatively straightforward. I think you’re saying these things to grind a political axe against the business community.”
“That’s because you’re cynical,” I said. “I mean, Sal called you ‘ultimately optimistic’ earlier, but the exact opposite is true. I think you’re deeply pessimistic about how human beings can exist with one another. If you thought about these concepts for half a second, you’d know just how harmful Friday’s events are to the fabric of what Canada is supposed to stand for.”
“Well, Philip,” Cheryl said, “I don’t believe these ideas are as penetrating as you think they are.”
“Well, Cheryl, I would love nothing more than to penetrate you with these ideas,” I retorted, “but I worry you wouldn’t enjoy it enough.”
There was a collective gasp in the studio, which I confess I didn’t hear at the time. Cheryl’s face puckered and Sal sort of gaped at me.
“Okay, we gotta go,” he said, turning back to his audience. “The foreign affairs minister is up next. When we come back.”
“And we’re out!” Lori yelled over the cameras.
Within a second, a duo of stagehands climbed onto the riser and began helping Cheryl out of her microphone. As soon as they finished, she was up and out of her chair, fuming off toward the green room without even saying goodbye to us. Neither of these handmaidens turned to assist me then, but just clomped back
