of the goings-on at Queen’s Park. From the depths of memory a name surfaced, someone who might give him some insight into the murky waters of politics.
Four
Queen’s Park
Queen Victoria is just one of more than a dozen famous people residing in effigy at Queen’s Park in the heart of Toronto. She shares the space with monarchs alive and dead, Canada’s first prime minister, the Fathers of Confederation, the leader of the Upper Canada Rebellion, a token poet, and even Jesus Christ himself. But it’s her park, nonetheless.
It’s here that the Ontario legislature has resided and where the province’s laws have been debated, refuted, enacted, and challenged since the country’s inception. The legislature’s ceremonial mace, an ornamented staff of wood and metal representing the ruling monarch’s authority, was stolen by the Americans in the War of 1812, a series of cross-border skirmishes that gained them no ground but inflamed nationalist identity on either side of the Great Lakes. For their part, the British got a second go at the Colony That Got Away three decades earlier. As for the Americans, they acquired a national anthem and the above-mentioned mace, until Franklin Roosevelt ordered its return in 1934. Their only real victory, the much-lauded Battle of New Orleans, came some two weeks after the signing of the peace treaty between the two nations, news of which apparently had not reached them soon enough.
There are always winners and losers in times of conflict, as Dan was well aware, and while both the British and Americans claimed — incorrectly, as it turned out — to have won the war, the only clear losers were the aboriginal peoples, betrayed by their allies on both sides while sustaining heavy casualties and further loss of land before being shunted off to reservations. In the ensuing years, native land claims were just one of many contentious issues presided over at Queen’s Park. It seemed to Dan that not much had changed in the intervening centuries.
While Canada’s history was less bloody than most, of late Dan felt his fellow Canadians had developed a smug attitude toward politics. So it had come as a shock to them when the folks at Toronto’s city hall were forced to deal with a crack-smoking mayor who befriended gang members and became the subject of police investigations, raging and rampaging at foes and allies alike, his infantile behaviour making headlines around the globe. Torontonians suddenly woke to the reality that even they could look like buffoons if their leaders were not cut from a finer cloth.
While politics at Queen’s Park tended to be of a subtler nature, it was not without scandal. Making his way up the steps of the legislature, Dan thought of Simon Bradley’s allegations about the opposition critic who may or may not have committed suicide, about Peter Hansen’s missing husband who gambled away large amounts of money, and the rumours of a master manipulator who could make and unmake the reputations of political aspirants. Verifiable or not, it was juicy stuff.
Dan checked his watch. He was early.
Inside the doors was a modest collection of paintings by Robert Bateman, one of Canada’s acclaimed nature artists. Fur and feathers. Nothing radical to shock the visitors. Farther along, behind glass, were collections of aboriginal art: tusk, bone, and soapstone looking pristine and sterile out of their natural environment, a testament to the acquisitive nature of power.
At the front desk, Dan leaned in to inquire when the next tour of chambers began. The receptionist beamed a glossy smile at him, apparently thrilled to be working in the hallowed halls of government.
“You’re in luck! It starts in five minutes,” she announced.
Beside her, a woman many years her senior who looked as though she’d had her fill of governmental regulations, frowned. “Council’s already in session today, so you won’t be going into the gallery,” she snapped, more than happy to spoil his visit.
Dan joined a group of schoolgirls and tourists and they were soon on their way. The guide, an earnest young woman of budding theatrical leanings, indicated a series of stern portraits on the surrounding walls just beyond the lobby.
“Here we have the House Speakers. The Speaker is chosen by anonymous ballot,” she announced with gravity, as though describing a Masonic initiation rite. “Generally, he comes from the ruling party, but there have been rare exceptions. Whoever becomes Speaker must agree to drop his party allegiances and act impartially at all times.”
Dan smiled to himself, thinking it would be like putting an alcoholic in a bar and telling him not to drink while everyone else was knocking back their fill.
“Historically, the Speaker represented the throne,” their guide continued. “This proved disadvantageous when at least seven Speakers were put to death for bringing news displeasing to the king. The Speaker no longer represents the ruling monarch, but instead represents the interests of the House.”
A wise career choice, Dan thought as they trooped upward, gathering briefly before a large panel window on the second floor. Behind the glass, images flickered on playback monitors, spotlighting members of the legislature in another room. A garrulous blonde had the floor. She spoke animatedly, her face contorted with the urgency of her message, though her words remained unheard on this side of the wall.
“What you are seeing is the current debate in the assembly,” their guide informed them. “We’re not allowed to enter while council is in session, however …” Here she stepped smartly up to a switch on the wall. What had been silent images, mimes in motion, suddenly came through first in English, then in French, as she flicked the switch up and down. “We’re bilingual!” she exclaimed, as proudly as if she’d invented the switch herself.
The group broke into hesitant applause. Their guide led them on till they stood gazing up at another series of dour-faced portraits. Time-ravaged, colour-muted, the founding fathers of the legislature looked to a man as proper as an English parson, as though not one of them had so much as contemplated a dirty deed in his life. In the late nineteenth century, Dan knew, symbolist painters had begun eradicating human figures from their landscapes as they sought to depict a mystical vision of life. Humankind struck from paradise. Portraitists should do the same with politicians, he mused.
Among the subjects, a single woman stood out from the group, as though to belie the myth that Canada’s founders had been only men and moose. This, the guide informed them, was Laura Secord. While Paul Revere had been warning of the impending approach of the British south of the border, a lowly Canadian cowherd had risked her life to warn of marauding Americans to the north as they spread their war of aggression.
“But I don’t understand,” spluttered a white-haired senior who had earlier declared himself a visitor from New York. “Why is the war considered an act of American aggression?”
The guide answered calmly. “Because the U.S. declared war on Canada.”
“But that was because the British burned Washington!” the man huffed.
“It’s true the British burned Washington, sir,” the guide said. “But that was in retaliation after the Americans burned our parliament buildings.” She smiled, gleeful at her small rebellion. In her mind, it was tit for tat. Aggression made easy.
“That’s not what I was taught in school!” the man protested, stupefied by this seditious refutation of sacred truths.
And that, Dan thought, is the nature of politics.
Mindful of the pitfalls of history, the guide shepherded her flock down the hall. Dan lingered to admire the portrait of the daring Secord, waiting till the guide’s voice passed out of hearing. Alone,
