The Candidate Read online

  “And ask for money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Should I call them all?”

  “If you can start we’ll get help,” said Marno.

  “Happy to do so.”

  Marno followed Heller into the boardroom, where the executive was discussing my nomination, but Milling remained.

  “I’m not allowed in there,” Milling explained. “I work for Greenpeace, and if I go in then the organization is breaking rules about its activism. So I’ll just stay in here.”

  Milling watched as I perused the list for names I might recognize.

  “It’s not very up to date,” he said.

  “I can see.”

  “But it will put you in touch with NDP people who were active twenty years ago and still breathing.”

  I flipped the page.

  “There aren’t many,” he said.

  —

  Just ten people were in the boardroom when, that afternoon, my bid for the nomination was approved. The ten applauded as I entered, and immediately, the certainty came over me that had this been a Conservative gathering the room would have been filled with portly men all seeming in their fifties, whether they were that old or thirty years younger. They would have been wearing heavily starched white shirts with broad ties under the vests of their double-breasted suits, a couple of equally fierce-looking women dressed for power in the wings. And had it been a Liberal enclave, then dashing men a decade or two the Conservatives’ junior would have had their narrower ties loose, if they were wearing ties at all, their slim jackets off, and the women would have been just as stylish and dismayingly beautiful, not a blemish or a ripple of fat on anyone. Our NDP room, though, was like a scene from some Bill Murray comedy in which the softball team full of misfits and perennial losers needs to win the championship to save the clubhouse. The pitcher can’t pitch, the base-stealer’s overweight and the outfield—well, they don’t have an outfield, but there’s a blind guy who’ll play on the right and a fella in a wheelchair who can roam centrefield at speed—and I felt immediately at home. You could see right away we had only a slim chance in hell of winning anything, but this was the team of my choosing and I loved them already.

  —

  Kristian, the guy sitting to my left, was small and lean and athletic and his eyes darted as keenly as a lizard’s. The women numbered more than the men, and two at one end of the table had bicycle helmets plonked down in front of them where the Conservatives would have had ledgers and the Liberals multiple electronic devices. Joyce Rankin, whose brother was the NDP MP for Victoria, asked me about “social justice.”

  “All politics begins from principle,” I said, “and the first of mine is that government exists to lend a hand to those that need help.”

  “Don’t say help,” said Joyce. “Say support. Help suggests dependency.”

  “Of course.”

  She stared slightly disapprovingly. The answer had not been quite enough, but it demonstrated goodwill. “I work in social housing,” she said. “Perhaps we should talk.”

  I made a mental note of it. See Joyce about social housing. Make her your friend.

  Kristian asked me about Bill C-51.

  “It’s a terrible law,” I said. “One of the things that makes my running so easy is that I am so wholly in agreement with the party’s platform.”

  He nodded.

  Opposite me, slouched in his chair and scrutinizing the new candidate, was the riding treasurer Bernard Ross Ashley, a thin, wiry man with a grey beard who looked like a ZZ Top band member on month three of a detox. He asked me for my views on the Gaza blockade, a test I had been expecting.

  “I’m not about to reduce such an exasperating and complicated issue to a one-word answer, yes or no,” I said. “But I can tell you I believe in the right of the State of Israel to exist, though concomitantly, we must recognize conditions in Gaza make it indiscernible at times from an internment camp. I believe, as the party does, in a two-state solution, but feel sadness even as I say it because, of course, one state would be ideal. But we’re not there, and likely won’t be for a long time. It’s the job of the NDP—of the Canada I believe in—to build bridges, not walls, and to do whatever we can to promote conditions in which co-existence is possible.”

  Ross smiled, shook his head, stroked his beard. The answer would do for now. At the end of the table to my right was Sean Caragata, a lawyer in his early forties with a thoughtful air. He asked me for my views on the fifteen-dollar minimum wage.

  “I’m not sure why it’s limited to government workers,” I said.

  “That and federally regulated industries are all we can legislate,” he said.

  “I’m all for the example,” I said, “but as you see, I have some homework to do.”

  Marno took up the conch, alerting the executive that I would be out of town for a part of August and declared there would be a follow-up meeting to lay plans for the night of the nomination on the twenty-ninth.

  Heller asked how much money was in the riding account.

  “Three hundred and fifty dollars,” said Ross. “Or thereabouts.”

  Not to worry, said Marno, wanting to cushion the blow, the riding would come through. I endeavoured to be upbeat and outlined plans I had for “funky town halls.” These would be gatekeeping but also fundraising events held at bars and cafés around the riding, each to be paired with a musician and a theme—sports, arts, Bill C-51—that would be debated over the course of the evening. It would be a way of introducing the party and our concerns to constituents—and encouraging youth, in particular, to be interested in the election and vote.

  “What about having Rocco Galati speak to Bill C-51?” asked Kristian. “We’ve been talking a lot.”

  “And he is?”

  “A lawyer and activist. He challenged Harper’s choice of Marc Nadon for the Supreme Court, and won. Now he’s taking on Bill C-51—and how the Bank of Canada operates.”

  “Great idea,” I said.

  A couple more suggestions followed before Marno asked who was able to work on the campaign. As she made the circuit of the room, most of the dozen apologized and said they were already committed to work in other ridings: in Toronto—Danforth for Craig Scott; in Davenport, with Andrew Cash. Elizabeth Glor-Bell, one of the cyclists at the table, said that she would love to join the campaign but was committed to her role as organizer of the Scarborough chapter of NoJetsTO (a citizens’ group advocating against jet traffic at the city’s island airport).

  Which was about the time that Rebecca Elming, on staff with Ontario’s provincial NDP, looked up from her smartphone and announced that the Toronto Star had posted Alex Boutilier’s story online.

  “Nice,” she said.

  It was perfect timing, the story having come after the executive’s endorsement, and others read the article approvingly. At just before seven, Marno dissolved the meeting and Heller left the boardroom to email the letter we had prepared for NDP members that announced July 29 as the date for the nomination meeting and explained why I, who lived outside the riding, was putting myself forward. The conversation around the table was light-hearted and animated. I shook a few hands (better get used to this) and then Kristian, who had unsuccessfully run as a candidate in the 2014 Toronto District School Board election, leaned his head in towards mine and spoke quietly and confidentially.

  “A word of warning,” he said. “The woman I ran against was a trustee for nearly seventeen years, and when I started I thought if I win, that’s fantastic. If I don’t, well, that’s a great experience, too.”

  “Sure. That’s how I feel.”

  “But a friend of mine told me that’s totally the wrong way to look at it. He said that when he’d been an athlete, the only way he could get through a playoff series was by hating the other team. He told me what you’re going to do is you’re going to go home and grab a picture of that woman and write her name on it, stick it on your bathroom mirror, and every morning take a look at it and remind yourse
lf how much you have to hate her.

  “So I did. I wrote KILL ME across the picture and every morning I’d look at it and it saved me on days I didn’t want to canvass.”

  I thanked Kristian for the tip.

  Outside, the rush hour traffic that had greeted me on the way in was ebbing and the street was bathed in a soft ochre light. In a matter of just the few hours between my arriving at the Adelaide Street tower and leaving it, my world had been fundamentally altered. I was The Candidate. I had the sense that my life would be affected in ways I did not yet know how to gauge.

  —

  “My whole life, I’ve avoided Ottawa,” said Sarah when I arrived home. “As a teenager, I went to dance camp there. In high school I won a scholarship to Ottawa U., and then I went to Carleton. I was happy to leave. Now you’re going to take me back? My life is over.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I was reading tweets in the wake of Boutilier’s Toronto Star reveal—

  @LadyBlerd: this is great news. congrats

  @RabNew: hoping it doesn’t lead to CPC coming up the middle and snatching the riding

  @Joyce504941: what counts is his ability to represent the issues not his postal code

  @ColdandMean: “Noah Way” could be as successful as “Notley Crew”

  —when Chrystia Freeland called.

  “I wish you well,” she said. “Not so well that you beat Carolyn, of course, but best of luck. It’s a good thing that you’re doing.”

  “Thanks, Chrystia,” I said, thinking how much good graces are in short supply. “You’re the first MP of any of the parties to call.” Then a pal from the Ottawa press circuit called.

  “Don’t use my cell and absolutely don’t use my work email,” she said. She sounded frantic. But always did. “We can’t speak on this line anymore, do you get it?”

  “Sure. Any tips?”

  “Oh God. I’ll call you later.”

  And then another:

  “If you have to call me, call me at home, okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “This won’t be easy. The Conservatives are brutal and disciplined and you just can’t count the Liberals out. And, are you sure about the NDP? I’ve always sensed you had that affliction, but Mulcair won’t take kindly to some author in the corner wonking on about arts policy. Don’t get me wrong. Of course Canada needs authors in the corner wonking on but elections are not about that. Elections are about getting behind the leader and sticking to media lines delivered by HQ—and dear God, please: don’t freelance a single thought!”

  “Okay.”

  “And you want to win?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Then be seen in the riding. Eat in the riding. Drink in the riding. Walk your dogs in the riding. You’re going to have to shake every hand in the riding. Three times. And listen, while I have you, do you really know what an MP does? Shit, it’s a terrible job. You’re away from the family, you’ll have to do committee work with people you don’t like, there’s too much booze, too much arrogance, not enough sleep and so many assholes every which way you’ll want to spit. I wish it were better, brighter, I wish it were more—well, worth it. But, it’s not. Really.”

  “Noted.”

  “Noah. I love that you’re doing this and I’m proud as heck to be your friend but I’m terrified for you. You’ll want to win this and, well, you might not.”

  “It’s okay. The party knows that. I’d say they were pretty surprised when I said I’d run in Toronto—St. Paul’s.”

  “People lose elections. Smart people do. Good people do—fuck, the wrong people do! You’re okay with that?”

  —

  Then it was Elizabeth May’s turn.

  “Noah, I don’t want to upset you. I know how much the Digby Neck means to you.”

  Such a smart woman: ever the lawyer, now sowing insidious seeds of reasonable doubt. May’s voice was piercing, agitated—and familiar; she was not a person to make a call without purpose. She knew that, years back, I’d written about an environmental dispute in the part of Nova Scotia in which I spend a good part of the year. Bilcon, a New Jersey company, had seen a mega-quarry project it was planning on the Neck overturned on environmental grounds by a federal–provincial joint review panel of the sort that had ceased to exist under the Harper government. Bilcon sued the Government of Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement’s Chapter 11 “investor-state” clause (by which a company is able to sue for lost profits if it is deemed that domestic laws have altered the conditions of its investment). Bilcon won, the company awarded three hundred million dollars because the “community core values” that had provided grounds for the project’s rejection by the panel were ruled inadmissible. Feigning incredulity, May told me Murray Rankin, the member for Victoria and the NDP Opposition’s critic for health, had appeared as an “expert witness” on behalf of the U.S. corporation.

  “MPs swear an oath ‘bearing true allegiance’ to Her Majesty—it’s understood to mean allegiance to Canada—and it may be unprecedented for an MP to serve as an expert witness against Canada in an arbitration in which a foreign corporation is seeking three hundred million dollars in damages,” said May. “What am I meant to think of the NDP’s green policies? Does Tom even understand the implications of what Murray has done?”

  I admired the Green Party leader, had profiled her glowingly some time back, and was impressed that she’d not even waited for me to be confirmed as a candidate before using the situation to advance the environmental agenda she held paramount. I knew she was manipulating me, but it felt like a privilege, being the object of her resolve. This, I told myself, was what Ottawa would be like.

  —

  “No one from the NDP called,” I said to Sarah.

  “You’re always expecting gratitude,” said Sarah. “Not going to happen. Besides, Levy told you that it’s all about Twitter these days. You had plenty of congratulations there.”

  “It’s not gratitude I want.” I could hear my own petulance. “I just wasn’t expecting this to be a story I could tell.”

  “Then don’t tell it,” said Sarah. “It’s not like you don’t have enough to think about. Have you called Rocco Galati yet? That was a good idea.”

  “No.”

  “Have you been through your Facebook?”

  “No.”

  “Twitter?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have an office?’

  “No.”

  “Have you arranged for a PA system for your nomination?”

  “No.”

  “Refreshments?”

  “No.”

  “A candidate’s event page? Have you looked at Jennifer Hollett’s? Hers is good.”

  “No. I haven’t. The answer to every question you have is ‘No, I haven’t done that yet.’ ”

  —

  We asked the candidate to list the eight crazy things he knew about politics so far and you won’t believe what he told us.

  1. MONTREAL, 1974, AGED FOURTEEN:

  ELECTIONS ARE MADE OF TEDIOUS WORK.

  It is the eve of Canada’s thirtieth federal election and my father, having noticed my marijuana habit, has volunteered me for the Montreal NDP candidate Nick Auf der Maur’s campaign. I am to distribute leaflets on “postal walks” for his Crescent Street drinking buddy. Most of the twice-folded photocopied yellow pages get only as far as the litter bins along de Maisonneuve because I am stoned a lot of the time, see no favour or point in it and resent being the prop for conversations full of hearty chortles at bars I am too young to drink at. Or so the begrudging teenager sees it. Come July, Pierre Trudeau turns the Liberals’ 1972 minority into a comfortable majority. The NDP, down from a historical high of thirty-one, drops to sixteen members and the party leader, David Lewis, loses his seat.

  “Third parties do well against a minority government,” says my father, unperturbed. “The next time around, voters squeeze them out.”

  2. MONTREAL, 1976–77, AGED
SIXTEEN:

  REAL POWER LIES BEHIND THE SCENES.

  I am the vice-president of Westmount High School’s student council. My neighbour across the boulevard is the student council president. The future Harvard Law School student rats on my friend Donald after he has a car accident between his house and mine. This upsets me, as does the incon​trove​rtible fact that my girlfriend, Jennifer, is more impressed by the president than me. But I have abandoned petty jealousies in favour of wielding the clandestine power that comes from the judicious application of quid pro quo. Steve, Frank, Rick and his buddies, who have given up attending classes because they have no chance of passing them, scalp Habs tickets for extra income. They provide these to me gratis as—an early proponent of lending a hand to those who need it—I am the fella who understands root causes better than the Harvard guy and passes math answers up the aisle during exams, and who makes the trip across to Outremont for better drugs on Friday afternoons. After a couple of months, I am no longer bothering with student council meetings at all as the meaningful deals are made outside of them.

  3. CANMORE, 1983, AGED TWENTY-TWO: