'The Border' Extras - The Wesley Wark Interview

My final interview for the article on The Border was with renowned expert Wesley Wark.  In some ways, Wark was a great interview because he took the opposite interview that Littlewood did in many cases, and in fact, he wasn't much a fan of the show.  On the other hand, I thought that many of his criticisms were unfair because he had only seen the two screeners provided--episodes 201 and 203--and hadn't seen how many aspects of character development (which was one of his complaints) went over the broader scope of the season.  As well, I think that had he seen 108 as Littlewood had--or even gone to the website to look at the episode synopses--some of his criticisms may have been a bit more tempered.  However, as he was able to participate at almost the last minute was greatly appreciated.

Here is more of what he had to say:

Q: First impressions?

A: I found to be honest, The Border to be a little bit of a disappointment, and I say that for a couple of reasons. Partly because it strikes me to a certain extent it’s unnecessarily imitative. Where’s the imitation coming from, what’s the model? Well, obviously if you watch the program any of its segments I think, you’ll feel some similarity between The Border and its more famous American cousin 24. Similarity in terms of the pace of the action, the subject matter, the sense that it wants to situate the program in the kind of contemporary security environment and draw some energy from that. Similarity down to some of the circumstances, life circumstances of the character. In 24, we have Jack Bauer saddled with a troubled daughter, a problem child. In The Border, we have a similar circumstance, the lead protagonist, the agent who is in charge of this fictional unit ICS, again sort of has a sort of problem child daughter who pops in and out of the segment. Imitative and to some degree perhaps its trying to feed off a successful formula in the United States, which is an understandable calculation, but I think that it could have had a little more spark of the new. It is certainly a fast-paced program, but in a way it’s not just imitative but disappointingly formulaic from my reading of it—maybe I come at this with too high expectations. But if you think about the history of this genre if you like, and what we’re talking about are television programs or movies that try to take up the themes of spying and counter-intelligence and security work in general, there are really two paths to follow that have been set down in the history of this whole enterprise. One path really goes back to the unbelievable success of the Bond franchise. What is the Bond franchise, from its earliest moments in the 1960s on to the present? Well it’s something that emphasises the kinds of fast-paced, adventure, high-tech gadgets of the world of spying, unbelievably successful in doing all that, and it’s evolved over time but the essence of it is unchanged from the very beginning in the sixties. The other alternative pathway to success and interest in terms of producing a cultural product, trying to imitate the reality of spying security matters is the LeCarré franchise, going back to the first and most important of the LeCarré films, which is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold which is much more cerebral, much more thoughtful, and much more concerned with the complexities of the world of security and intelligence and with moral dilemmas and in fact with character and plot development, and I would say—I mean I’m not in the business so it’s easy for me to stand on the outside as an academic observer of this—that the twenty-first century gambit to make a successful program like The Border is to know the history of the genre and say to yourself if you’re the scriptwriter, producer, director, any of the main characters, is that what we want is some interesting Canadian blend of what makes both of these different kinds of models tick. So let’s have lots of fast-paced action, and let’s have a good amount of technology, and a good amount of thrill and some degree of glamour and some degree of romance, and let’s get that from the Bond franchise, but let’s also take some part of the LeCarré franchise onboard as well. Let’s make it a little cerebral, let’s make it a little morally conflicted, let’s make it a little complex, let’s show some of the Machiavellian world of politics in this particular realm of high politics, and I would measure The Border in terms of how well it does that, how well does it blend those two things, and I would say that I can see some degree of effort on the part of the creators of this program to do that, but if it has a future I would say that’s a work in progress. It could use a little more of the cerebral side, the LeCarré side of things. It could use certainly a larger discussion of the kinds of moral dilemmas of the work. It could use more character development, and it could certainly use better dialogue. I mean, the dialogue that you get from The Border is not really even a compromise between development of the characters and the need to push the plot forward quickly and to emphasis the beat of the program and action of it. You just don’t get a lot of dialogue, and I think to be honest that’s a bit of a failing of the program, and to a certain extent suggest that if what it’s doing is trying to find some contemporary blend of Flemming, LeCarré and sort of feeding off of 24, it’s just not managed really to take that heritage and really turn it into something impressive and to a degree new.

Q: The issues that two episodes raised were stop-loss as a border security issue, and drug trafficking from Africa. In terms of the way that show raised the issues and explored them, how well do you think it fared in comparison to how shows in the genre do in other countries, like Spooks of 24?

A: It’s an interesting question, and obviously what The Border is trying to do is feed off the contemporary security issues. It’s chosen good subject matter I think to do that. The issue of the difficulties that are created when American soldiers trying to essentially desert from the US armed forces and come into Canada, I mean there’s a real contemporary resonance there and some really high-profile cases that continue to be contested in the courts about how our immigration and refugee process is going to handle such American deserters and whether we’ve forgotten the legacy of what we did in fact during the Vietnam War, so that’s good by all means, that’s a great subject to explore. Equally in terms of drug trafficking, not only is this a real-world concern for ICS’ contemporaries, who are essentially the Canada Border Services Agency, but the kind of thing that suggests the very dangerous criminal underworld run by gang king-pin members, ruthless and violent, equipped with all the toys of the trade—armoured cars, body guards and the usual kinds of high-powered weaponry and so on—all of that is fine. What it seems to me is missing in The Border even compared to commercially successful variants of this in the US and the UK, both longer-running series, is again that sense of just deepening the issue a bit, giving us more of the complexities of it, making it a little less caricatured, giving it more of a sense of what is going on in the minds of those on the Canadian side of this problem who are trying to tackle this issue. It really has I think sacrificed a lot of what I think we can legitimately expect to see, which is character development and dialogue as part of anything that’s going to be successful by way of a longer-running TV series. So to sum all that up, I would say that the choice of subject matter is perfectly good and the ways in which in general they portray these threats from drug traffickers and this kind of thing is also close enough to the reality, but it is really in the way that it situates the response of this Canadian unit, its principle protagonists, unfolding the action without really giving us the thought behind the action or the morality behind the action, or any of the constraints behind the action. I think it’s notable in terms of the drug trafficking episode that we have a supposedly Canadian outfit which is not all that concerned with what we would say are the laws of Canada at the moment, so maybe again feeding off of 24 a little bit in the sense that it can bend the laws to its own interests, but we don’t have the right in Canada to hold people at the will of any particular law enforcement agency for as long as it takes them to decide whether there’s a case against such a person. And I thought it was a little bit funny that The Border is in a way trying to play off Spooks arguably by presenting us with this rather Machiavellian but certainly attractive British secret agent who sort of swims into the plot and kind of confounds her Canadian competitors. It’s an interesting little take, but I think that the work that The Border has ahead of it again is to give us more of the cerebral side of the work, and give us more of the realism of the landscape. The trouble with these programs it that it suggest, and it’s often said either with regard to 24 or Spooks, it’s competitors—these are interesting scenarios that it’s presenting us with, but it’s also wanting us to believe that these are real-life scenarios, given the kinds of choices of topics that they’re dealing with. Well, give us more real life. Give us more a sense of where political decision making comes in, where the laws come in, where the calculations come in. Give us more of a sense that these things don’t operate in a tiny self-enclosed and perfect world in which information flows very rapidly and everybody is on top of the game, and everybody can move out on a moment’s notice. One of the things in which I think 24 has a lot to explain itself for is the notion that these kinds of operations run on a clock like this, and that the speed and pace of these operations is of this nature—that’s not the reality. And because they’re so wedded to that notion that everything has to be so fast-paced, they’ve left themselves no time for dialogue, character development, moral complexity, or any kind of intellectual complexity in the program. And maybe they feel that there is always this commercial calculation that you dumb-down these things in order to make a good piece of entertainment, but at the end of the day, that argument always boomerangs in terms of the long-term survivability of a program like this. People just won’t come back to see it if they know that all they’re going to expect is another fast-paced episode that at the end of the hour, is not going to leave them with anything but a sense that something has zipped across the screen and in front of their eyes and has left nothing behind. I think that The Border is a kind of fascinating idea in that it’s trying to bring a discussion of the world of security and intelligence and the complexities of Canada’s position in the world, living opposite the United States on a border that the Americans are determined themselves to reinforces and stiffen. It’s a great idea and a great vehicle for discussing issues and indeed for producing a kind of action drama, but the ideas I think are what’s missing so far in sufficient degree.

Q: About that discussion that it generates—how well do you think it contributes to it?

A: My take on this is from an academic perspective. I’d have to say that I don’t think it contributes anything to the discussion, partly because I don’t think that it’s interested the discussion, it’s interested in exploiting a concern and a fascination with security and intelligence matters and the border, and I think that the most obvious dimension of this in that you have good guys and bad guys as you must in programs of this kind, but that the good guys and bad guys aren’t very interesting in terms of how they’re profiled. The bad guys in the program are not just the villains but their also this rather Machiavellian CSIS agent who’s constantly trying to undermine the work of the chief of ICS, and to be honest, this is pure caricature. Now it may be what the producers, directors and scriptwriters believe is the reality, but someone has to say ‘man, this is just pure caricature, give us something more interesting than this.’

Q: I was speaking to one of the writers and producers and she was saying that they do have someone high-placed in CSIS who is now consulting with them to try and gently correct some of their misapprehensions, although some people from other agencies have said that there is someone that rather resembles Agent Mannering in CSIS that they rather hit on quite accidentally.

A: The thing that makes these programs difficult, and the thing that is a challenge for producers, scriptwriters, directors and the rest is that modern intelligence services consist by and large of people sitting behind computer screens trying to assess an immense flow of information. There’s not much room to be honest for rogue agents out on the streets taking the law into their own hands and coming up with their own Machiavellian schemes, and CSIS describes itself as one of the most heavily reviewed agencies among all its worldwide counterparts. The problem is this is how we like to imagine CSIS, we like to imagine these very powerful, very nefarious kinds of characters who are out disturbing and roiling our sense of how Canadian democracy works and so on. Reality is very different. Reality, though, can be interesting, and I think that anyone who works in this field either from a professional or academic perspective will tell you that truth is in this world, always more interesting than the fictional variant, so get a little closer to the truth would be my suggestion for the makers and creators of The Border and give us a better sense of what is the real dilemma for an agency like CSIS, which is how do you separate truth from fiction, how do you really know what’s going on. It’s not like they have a Machiavellian notion, not that they’re out their plotting and conspiring—they’re struggling with trying to understand what the hell is going on, and a program that could even begin to approach that issue would be a more fascinating program. But I suspect that we’re stuck with the caricature, because it’s so deeply embedded in our popular culture sense of what espionage is all about.

Q: How did you think that the fictional agency stood up?

A: The fictional agency is pure fiction, but what would you expect? One of the difficulties I think that people confront is that you can’t have too high expectations about matching fiction against reality, and in some ways I would say that the entire genre is about anything to do with the popular culture of security and espionage, counter-terrorism and the rest. It’s not really about imitating reality, it’s coming up with an interesting kind of parallel universe that’s imagined that has enough connections with reality that it can be interesting but it is a parallel universe. As a parallel universe, as an imagined world of border security, it just doesn’t partake enough of reality by giving us the complexities. It makes it all, if you like, a little too easy. It’s all a little to self-enclosed, hermetically-sealed and too fast-paced and too high-tech, and what it doesn’t get is that all kinds of problems will emerge, all kinds of complexities will emerge, all kinds of screw-ups will happen, and that the really interesting thing that could be exploited is the nature of those problems, challenges, complexities, screw-ups. So somehow to get, and this is where I think that The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is quintessential classic Cold War spy film, has a lot to teach a twenty-first century series of this kind. Give us a complex plot, give us conflicted characters, unfold that plot in such a way that it’s not so obvious where it’s going. Don’t be quite so worried about the pace of action—viewers are smarter, more tolerant than you might think. Mix in a little more complexity, and at the same time, you’ll mix in a little more reality.

[Reviews the episode synopses in the press kit]

A: I think what the line-up suggests is that they are trying to cover some of these issues that a real-life border security agency has to deal with, so they’re trafficking in the reality. There’s the strong pull of the cop show and the crime themes, and maybe you could suggest that there’s a little desire to steer away from some of the sensitive issues that might impact on the ratings? Where in all of this do we see any kind of treatment of a terrorist threat?

Q: They did a couple in the first season.

A: But it’s kind of drifting into the purely crime side and where do we really see the intelligence side of things, counter-intelligence, intelligence operations? It’s part of the colour of the program, but it’s not really part of the plot. Partly because maybe a CBC program, government-funded organisation, a potential Conservative government coming into a majority, not necessarily favourably disposed—maybe there are topics that it has to be a bit careful about, but it also has to have the courage to push back a little it against what it might imagine to be political stricture. So I think kind of a mixed message in the next season apply now. Some topical issues being addressed, but at the same time, there are maybe a few topical issues being shied away from, and always that concern that a program of this kind is just going to be dragged into the banality of a cop program of which we’ve seen countless examples. The Border is not going to win over an audience from Law & Order, who are going to watch the re-runs before they watch The Border, so be careful of the magnetic pull of a cop show, but it’s a work in progress, and from my perspective, if they can just get the balance right between the Bond franchise model and the LeCarré franchise model, they’re onto something that could be a winning thing.

'The Border' Extras - The Jez Littlewood Interview

I was quite glad to get someone of Littlewood's stature for the interview, and for him to take so well to the series despite his admission that he's not much for television.  Littlewood had a chance to review episodes 108 and 201 for the interview, and I think that 108 was the one that impressed him the most, which is why I suggested he watch it on top of the screeners sent.  It was also a relief that he had an understanding of what realism needs to be sacrificed for the sake of storytelling, which put his comments into a much better context.  Here's more of what Littlewood had to say:

Q: Overall thoughts?

A: One thing that struck me, in some ways it’s more sophisticated than I might have thought. My view while I was reading it was that this is definitely not an American-made TV series, partly because you have get debates or discussions characters are having, there’s nuance in issues, there’s some reference to history in issues, there’s dialogue between characters that’s not necessarily central to the plot but it’s an interesting side point. It’s politically as well, it’s quite up to date. I don’t know the timelines between production and final screenwriting, but I was struck by okay, it’s quite up to date. Overall, I thought it’s actually not bad, not bad at all. It gives a flavour of some of the main issues there, the tensions between bureaucracies, the importance of having to consider politics in decision making, but it’s also as you would expect in the one sense a very simplified structure. The idea of virtually no liaison between this group and other agencies and organisations in Canada—you never see that apart from the occasional dropping-in of the single CSIS character. You don’t see this individual really having to report upwards or get instructions from his upper management team, whoever is in charge of his organisation. The direct dialogue with the Minister, which is kind of possible but not quite actually because it would involve ADMs or DMs usually.

Q: One of the things that wasn’t really in either of those two episodes was that they actually do have a Deputy Minister character who often will call down from Ottawa, and he’s usually the one who gives instructions or tells them to back of a case, or something.

A: Exactly, and that’s a key sort of power point in the reality. I mean, obviously there are all sorts of other TV-friendly sorts of issues. Everybody has nice offices overlooking nice places. Government buildings don’t generally look like that. There’s also a sense of rarefied—everyone you need is in your team, so you’ve got your computer IT expert there, literally just at your beck-and-call, and it’s just like well no, we live in competing resources kinds of environments. Yes, you can have a specialist attached to you, but it’s not necessarily that kind of simplified. But it’s entertainment, it’s trying to tell its audience something as well as be entertaining and tell a story, so you’re going to have to knock off some of the less-attractive edges of reality. That’s one thing. There was also a couple of—in fairness, I’m only dealing with a couple of episodes—but certainly in the episode dealing with the terrorist plot, they were pretty lax with the whole sharing of information thing. They had the Imam in, ‘do you know these people?’ Now in a time-sensitive thing I can see yes, they might do that, sharing photographs of individuals, not necessarily saying why they’re interested. But having conversations while somebody who would probably not have any clearance whatsoever is in the room, even if you’re in another corner of the room or a door, no. Not even with real time-sensitive information. When the guy got called down to reception to see [Yvonne Castle], and the baby was crying and she could hear it—yeah, that really wouldn’t work in a government building. All these things are kind of necessary and adds to the TV plot, but it can give it a false impression. But in fairness, from the two I watched, I thought ‘this is really quite politically savvy.  Yes, it’s simplified, yes it looks nice, yes things are difficult but run smooth most times in the end, but there’s nuance in there, there’s a recognition of difficulties in different interpretations of views or political views of the characters. It’s not this straight line, ‘let’s sell this and no punches are pulled’ attitude, which I thought was quite good. It kind of reminded me a little bit—I was trying to think ‘what are my reference points?’ Have you ever seen the BBC series Spooks?

Q: Yeah.

A: It reminded me a little bit of that, and differed greatly from the equivalent in the US, say 24. They were going to be my two reference points. At least there you see there’s a team—there’s a team effort within a government effort, whereas in 24 it’s an individual world saving the United States of America. And Spooks has that kind of same—it’s a team who seems to exist and do everything on their own without necessarily too much interference within the bureaucracy, the head of that team deals with ministers and governments and everything else like that, and you get that same picture here. The reality is, obviously there’s more fingers in the pie and more complex reporting structures, but that does not make for entertaining television.

Q: In terms of the kinds of issues that it raised, you watched one on a terrorist threat, and one on stop-loss as a cross-border issue, one in which we’ve got a lot of press right now with war deserters with deportation orders and so on. Judging from that particular aspect of how the issues are being looked at, how did you feel the show handled it?

A: I think they handled it reasonably well. I mean, the terror attack was—I thought it was going well until I realised they were dealing with anthrax and they really went for the big scary ‘what might these terrorists do’ which was a bit playing to the TV gallery, whereas a truck bomb or something else would have been more realistic based on actual terrorist methods, or maybe a suicide bomb or something like that. But the tensions between—there was a reference to okay, there’s an imminent attack, and one of the characters—I think it’s the CSIS character—says ‘oh, I got bored after the fourth imminent attack didn’t happen,’ and those kinds of things, and there is that sort of thing that you can see that. There was a reference at least that one of them said that Canada is overdue, and you do have that feeling here in one sense. Canada has been named since at least 2002, and if you look at everyone else who has been named in that note coming out of al-Qaeda or statement, everyone else has been attacked, Canada has yet to be—so that’s where I think it’s kind of politically savvy and up to date. The connections in the terrorist one between what was going on in Toronto and the neat connection with what was going on in Afghanistan with the two held soldiers was a nice sort of, it wraps it up for the TV. Having to make the trade-off in the end was I thought quite an interesting addition. The woman goes to jail, the warlord’s son gets sent back to Afghanistan with the child and he was going to be persona non grata in Canada anymore, and that’s the deal—that was kind of interesting. Saying that yes, it’s a murky world of there has to be a deal here—we get two Canadian soldiers alive, and suspected terrorist gets off free and goes back to Afghanistan. So that was kind of interesting I thought. Dealing with the stop-loss one, that played quite nicely I thought with the psychological aspects. There’s a number of things reporting in the press with different parts of the media from Time magazine to Newsweek, to I think the New York Times has also done a piece in the past eighteen months of the US military’s trialing of basically unproven drugs to assist soldiers under psychological pressure, and a tension of what happens when that necessarily goes wrong, and the guy leads him across the Canadian border, one of them is responsible for saving his life so he things he’s due. It works out quite nicely. It’s got its fingers on the right pulse, I don’t think it’s barking up the completely wrong trees, and it handles them in quite a sophisticated manner in fairness to it, works out some of the difficulties faced by Canada as well as some of the moral questions and the political realities of issues. I mean I looked through that show when I went to the CBC online to look through the episodes, and I see there’s a rendition flight that crashes, organised crime issue, there’s a drug issue—it touches all the main bases which are of concern to most Western democracies in terms of security issues.

Q: Do you think that it presents a fair face as to what Canada is doing on these issues, or do you think that it’s a bit too idealised?

A: I think that in some ways it can be a bit too idealised, but I think that what’s important is that there’s a sense that we’re dealing with actions within Canada. I think that if we were trying to portray a picture of what Canada is doing outside of its borders, that would become difficult. But it’s quite a clever focus on okay, we’re dealing with things that come into Canada and problems that arise in Canada have to be addressed. It’s a reasonably fair picture. I would imagine that CSIS aren’t too happy with being portrayed as the attack dog of this TV program. I can’t say to what extent other characters who are brought in from other agencies are portrayed, but you have these clearly personal tensions, and there are also bureaucratic tensions. That said, no one who looks at any history of intelligence or bureaucracy in making national security policies in any country can avoid the issue that individuals to matter. If two individuals who are supposed to liaise and work with each other can’t get along, that does affect the overall quality of work. I mean that’s quite a nice point—it may be overplayed, but it is quite a nice point that individuals do matter in these relationships.

Q: I was speaking with one of the writers and producers who said that they do have someone in CSIS who is trying to correct them about their portrayal, but they have people from other agencies who say that it’s a pretty accurate portrayal.

A: It can be difficult when you are the public top-dog, if you like, according to the way people think either politically or within the media, to work with everybody else. And everybody else feels like they’re doing the nitty-gritty work here, and sometimes these people get parachuted in and not always sharing information within or not always getting the full story, etcetera. There are always tensions between organisations in bureaucracies in every country, and it’s not just turf war and jealousy—there are reasons for those tensions, and there are different mandates and different jobs to be done by them. But I would imagine that yeah, CSIS was trying to steer that ship a little more to a fairer portrayal.

Q: The fact that the show created a fictional agency with which to situate it’s main characters. Do you think that enhanced its ability to tell these kinds of stories, or do you think it detracted?

A: I actually thought it was quite clever because you then didn’t have to worry about trying to portray the agency that’s already in existence. You’re not going to be compared to anybody else or another program that involves that agency or organisation, and it avoids having to sort of think about the obvious, ‘we never work like that,’ the agency might write. ‘We don’t do that, it’s an incorrect portrayal,’ so it sidesteps some of those issues. It’s quite a wise move on the writers’ part because they can say ‘okay look, we’ve got this fictional agency within this much broader gamut of organisations and agencies within Canada, and it allows us to portray certain things like different responsibilities and mandates, turf wars, political reporting, how teams work, etcetera, without getting too bogged down in how to accurately portray an existing agency.’ I thought it was probably a wise move, and I think in fairness, based on what I’ve seen, I think it worked. You always run into these kinds of problems, these lead characters seem to be involved in everything, but that’s the nature of a TV drama.

Q: How do you think a show like this contributes to the national discussion in terms of the questions it’s raising like terrorism, border security, immigration and so on?

A: I’m not sure it does, but I’m not sure that’s a fault of the program itself. I’ve found this as someone who’s fairly new to Canada—two years here now—but it’s something that I’ve heard a sufficient number of times from people who have been working in the Canadian security and defence world across all kinds of sectors of government and non-government, who’ve said to me, and I think it’s correct, that there isn’t a security discourse or discussion in Canada that’s active all the time. I think that’s true. What might be interesting here is that if it is classic ‘water cooler TV’ and gets people talking at work ‘did you see what happened last night,’ that might add to the sort of general consciousness and might get people thinking. To the extent that there’s a sustained outcome from that—it’s impossible to judge I think at this stage. I don’t see anything necessarily filtering upwards, but I think it’s early days—it began January of this year. Looking at the awards its won and the reports its had, it could prove useful. If it gets people thinking about security and national security of Canada, it can sometimes be a necessary and compromising business, just as the security of any state can be a necessary and compromising business—that’s a good thing. Things aren’t always clear cut, and that is one thing that it’s good that people can understand that. It’s not always a simple question of what’s right and what’s wrong. Tough decisions have to be made.

'The Border' Extras - The Janet MacLean Interview

I had a terrific interview with The Border's co-creator/writer/produce Janet MacLean, and because there was just too much good stuff that didn't make it into the article, here's a taste of some of our conversation:

Q: You’ve got some really topical episodes coming up in all thirteen episodes.

A: We try! [laughs] We try for topicality, but what we try to do is do the stories that are concerning people about the world that they live in. Whether that’s trying to be topical or not, we try to hit the trigger points for people.

Q: When the show was launched, it came with the tag line of “24 with a conscience.”

A: I’m not actually sure of the origin of that tag line. I think that possibly it was a response to being compared to 24 a lot, more of a reactive tag line because some of our first episodes dealt with terrorism, but from the perspective of rendition, some of the things that were going on that were not very savoury in terms of our response to terrorism. So I guess that’s how that tag line got attached to us. I don’t like it to suggest that we are moralistic in any way, though, we try very hard not to be. The first episode, the pilot, which was about rendition, we had had three or four cases of rendition to Syria here in Canada, and it was written five years ago in a very dark climate, when it seemed that no one was questioning those kinds of practices. No one was questioning rendition, no one was even questioning torture for a while there, and so in that very dark atmosphere, I suppose a bit of trying to do the right thing kind of crept into that pilot, and I’m not sure that it was stronger for it. I think that since that time we’ve tried to be very objective and just tell good stories.

Q: The issues of intelligence and counter-intelligence is something that really never got much pop-culture play in Canada, possibly because you said we’re more of a supporting character on the international stage, and this series is one that’s changing that perspective.

A: One of the things that I really wanted to achieve—we all really wanted to achieve with our show—is to show that the same issues are playing out on the Canadian stage with the same urgency that they are everywhere else. We’re so used to thinking of ourselves as sidelined from these great debates and these great earth-shattering events, and we’re not. And in fact, the more research and the more people I spoke to, the more I discovered just how much we’re not, how in fact all of these things, from child slavery to terrorism, to every kind of international crime imaginable is going on here quite rampantly including espionage—we have something like ten thousand Chinese agents in this country. It’s phenomenal.

Q: And you’re tapping into this now.

A: Exactly! It’s just been waiting for us to start telling stories about. When we first started, we would get a response like [sarcastically] ‘oh, you’re going to have a show about border guards, that sounds exciting,’ but no, we’re telling—I think of it as an exciting police procedural for the global age, because it’s showing where Canada interacts with the rest of the world. On that stage, we are players.

Q: You were mentioning experts you’d talked to—can you tell me a little more about that?

A: We have a connection with CSIS—I don’t think he wants me to tell you his name though—a kind of highly-placed CSIS agent who we speak to. We have a few wonderful ETF and SWAT people that we speak to. We try and pick the brains of people like Misha Glenny, who’s just written a book about the globalisation of crime. I attended a wonder question-and-answer thing with Ahmed Rashid who wrote a book called Descent into Chaos. [Series creator] Peter Raymont, whose documentaries were a sort of jumping-off point, has a myriad of connections through the Canadian government, and as a long-standing documentarian, has a lot of people that he can put us in touch with when we need it. For instance, we’ve just been doing a story on Tamil gangs, and made a lot of use of one of Peter’s sources. It’s not that we try to get it right—we try not to get it wrong, and what we do is we tell stories. They aren’t factual, they aren’t based on any individual case. We know, for instance in the story that you mentioned, we can read books about child soldiers and we all know about international adoptions and celebrity adoptions, but what it comes down to is a good story. It’s not based on any particular story, any particular case, and we try to do it credibly. We don’t make any claims that we are casting light in any detailed way on any of these issues. We’re just kind of opening it up and trying to tell a good story.

Q: But at the same time, telling a story like that is going to bring attention to those kinds of issues.

A: It pushes it into the public forum for sure, and I think that’s what television should do is provide conversation for people who want to discuss the world that they’re living in. It’s a jumping-off point, but that’s not our main goal. Our main goal is to entertain our audience, let them feel that they’ve spent an hour not too wastefully.

Q: And your CSIS contact doesn’t take too unkindly to the fact that CSIS is portrayed a bit more darkly in this series?

A: [laughs] I think that’s one of the reasons he’s so willing to talk to us, because he’s so highly placed, is that he’d like to gently correct our misapprehensions of CSIS. But I have to say that other people that we’ve spoken to in other agencies have consistently told us—and of course Agent Mannering is not based on any individual all, he’s a complete fabrication—but there is someone in CSIS that reminds a lot of people of. [laughs] You’ve seen the one about the stop-loss. One of the odd things that happens to us is that sometimes the headlines seem to follow us around, and in that case, it was the week that we were shooting, and there had been a number obviously—I was just interested because I happened to notice in my neighbourhood that there was a group forming to support American deserters, and I’m old enough to remember American draft dodgers, and this stop-loss thing was a new wrinkle on it because it meant that it was effectively a draft, and while we were shooting, there was the case of Jeremy Hinzman that he was allowed to stay in the country—he was blocked from being deported. I always find it really interesting when we’ve managed to get to a story, to anticipate what’s going to be on people’s lines and then the headlines. And then other times it’s just sheer [luck]. The week that our show about black market organ trafficking hit was the same week that the big black market organ trafficking story with the Canadian connection in India. So sometimes it’s just serendipitous.

Q: And it could also say that you’re on the pulse.

A: That would be nice. [...]  One of the things I was thinking about when I was thinking about this “24 with a conscience” thing is that torture is another factor there. In that 24, as we know, has embraced torture to a degree that alarms even the American military where they were actively trying to get them to tone it down because Cadets were embracing Jack Bauer as a model, and in the one episode where we try to deal with torture in episode 108, we try and come at it from a lot of different directions and not make any definitive decisions, but look at where that line is drawn, and how you draw it. We try examine those things instead of pronounce on them, and embrace them.

'The Border' a sophisticated but sometimes unrealistic look at real issues

My story about CBC's drama series The Border is now out on the Canadian Press wire.  This was a story that I had first pitched back in the spring, when the series was ending its first season, but the timing wasn't right for various reasons.  When the start of the second season approached, I pitched it again and this time it was picked up.  And then the real work started.

I had originally wanted to have my panel of experts consist of Janine Kreiber, one of our foremost experts on counter-terrorism in this country, Janice Gross Stein from the Munk Centre for International Studies, and Peter Harder, former deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and frequent guest on Politics with Don Newman.  However, timing here was not good--Janine Kreiber is currently on a campaign plane (as she also happens to be Stéphane Dion's wife), Janice Gross Stein was out of town, and I couldn't get in touch with Peter Harder after a week of trying.

The two experts I did get in touch with, however, were superlative, and each offered a differing point of view on the show, and it was also great to talk with the showrunner, Janet MacLean, because I'm always fascinated by the people behind shows that I like to watch.  Also very cool about this piece, was that I got to watch episodes 201 and 203 before the rest of the country--and they were pretty good.

Despite some fraught moments getting all of my expert interviews done in time, it was a very fun piece to write.  In total, I have over an hour's worth of interviews that had so much good stuff in them that it was hard to pick out what I had to compress into an eight hundred word piece.  I'll pick out some more highlights for you in the next couple of days.

(Interestingly enough, the version on the Yahoo reader has my byline on it but the one on the Google reader doesn't.  Unfortunately, the Yahoo one expires in just a few weeks.  Such is the peril of writing for a wire service, I guess).

Tories skip all-party meeting on arts and culture - Online

I have a piece on Xtra.ca today about the Vote Culture town hall meeting that took place here in Ottawa last evening. I also have a photo to accompany the piece, which is a rarity for me because I'm not the world's best photographer--but I did not too bad this time around. It's not often that I get to cover big events like this, so it was something a little different for me, but something a little exciting nevertheless.

Gay Tories Rare - Reprint

Just a quick note to say that my xtra.ca story on GLBT voting habits in the 2006 election was reprinted in the current print edition of Capital Xtra, but under a new headline of "Gay Tories rare."

Surprise! Gays don't vote for Tories: study - Online

Today I have an article on Xtra.ca, talking about the recent LIPSOS study which showed that not only did gay and lesbian voters in the 2006 federal election not vote Conservative, but that gay men disproportionately voted Liberal and lesbians disproportionately voted NDP. I spoke with one of the people behind the study, as well as a community activist who shares her theories as to why.  The article can be found here.

Nancy Ruth's Panel Extras - September

To round off our bonus questions, here are those from Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth, as well as excerpts from our extended conversation.

Q: What was your highlight for the last session?

A: The Auditor General has committed to doing an  audit of gender-based analysis of some federal departments in May, so for me that was the highlight of the last session.

Q: How are things with the Defence and Security Committee? You’d been doing work with the Human Rights committee, so how is it moving to this one?

A: I did ask what kind of internal change has happened since the Michelle Douglas case [from 1992] in terms of homophobia and monitoring and measuring that, and I’ve never had an answer. I did ask General Natynczyk, just days before he became king, why since they recruited at the Dome Stadium with helicopters and tanks and stuff, why we didn’t recruit at the Pride Parade in Toronto, and he didn’t know the answer to that and lo and behold they all turned out, and some people say they were just gorgeous and cute as hell. But there was no talk within the queer community in terms of what is the implication of having a military and Canada being at war—it was just the superficial ‘oh, isn’t he good looking?’ But I have seen the military’s report on their recruitment that day—they ran out of pamphlets by four o’clock in the afternoon and they were open until eleven. There was a huge number of people, and they ended up with thousand and thousands of names, and they had about two hundred and fifty recruitment possibilities.

Q: What was the low point of the last session for you?

A: The low point to all sessions for me is when we get into playing party politics and stupid little bickering and delays just because we’re playing games—it drives me crazy. It drives every woman crazy—it’s not the way women do business. You’ve got a job to do, you do it and then you go home. They don’t threaten to keep you there another week or whatever. I hate that stuff—that kind of political process just drives me up the wall, and every June and every December it’s the same. Once you get close to wanting to leave for your break, all the games start about a month before.

[Further to the Panel question]:

I have always wondered how it would impact Afghanis when they see that we legitimise [queer] soldiers—I don’t know the answer to it, but it’s something I’ve questioned. It would be interesting to ask, but I don’t know how you’d ever get an answer, if you asked the local Kandahar tribal ruler, what kind of answer would you get?

I also understand that there’s a woman officer in Afghanistan who is responsible for implementing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 which deals with women’s peace and security, so it’s her job to push that agenda in the external relations, outside the wire, so it’s probably good. So to guess what kind of impact it is to have GLBT troops would only be totally speculative. I’ve heard stories of other NATO troops coming to our and Australian chaplains where they’re afraid to go to their own.

I was on a naval frigate at the end of June, and one of the corridors I went down I saw a rainbow bow stuck on a file cabinet, so I inquired later and asked if there are many homosexuals on board? And this was in the one-up from the Ordinary Seaman’s level of dining rooms, and the answer in this great conviviality was “Oh, no, we gave him that because he’s so anti-queer, and that’s a joke.” But there was no further discussion of the issue. I can tell you, of the four days I spent on that naval frigate, I did not come out. I did not raise the issue—I was in enough trouble with whatever feelings I had after one of the big anti-aircraft guns went off, and someone said ‘What was that like for you, Senator?’ and I said ‘Well, I’m on a boat with 250 other people who have committed to going off to war and killing people—that’s new for me.’ And then I was not seen as sympathetic to the military. I’m not anti-, but it’s difficult for me. I wish nation states didn’t have these, didn’t have to solve problems through this business. So I was not going to ask queer questions except for the one time that I asked it at that level, and I don’t think I would have believed anything. Senior officers would have said anything because it was a big propaganda thing for them—they had Bob Rae and Alexa McDonough travelling back on the same boat to Halifax that I and [another senator] came up on.

On recruitment:

What I know of the recruitment in the military is that they recruit something like 6500 a year, and Canada’s having a hard time training these folks because all the people who train them, the staff sergeants are all off in Afghanistan. So that’s an issue—how do we stay at war and expand our military? But I also know that the number of people who are leaving the forces, through attrition of either they’ve come to their time, or they’re leaving for family life, is 5500, and it’s only a net gain of a thousand. That’s pretty horrific. Queers without children might be a very good group to recruit from, because the attrition, a lot of it is related to family from what I hear. Except for those who’ve done their twenty years’ service, or whatever.

Siksay's Panel Extras - September

Further to this month's edition of Outlooks' Queer Parliamentary Panel, here are NDP MP Bill Siksay's bonus questions.  Mr. Siksay was the one panel member in town when I was working on the piece, which allowed us a sit-down interview.  He was far less optimistic about how things were going in Ottawa at the time.

Q: What were your highlights from the last session?

A: There’s a couple of things around GLBTT issues, certainly with Tom Lukiwski’s comments was a serious incident in the last Parliament, even if it was something that happened seventeen years ago, I don’t think the government really handled it very well. He appropriately apologised and quickly but there needed to be some follow-up to show that those opinions weren’t the basic beliefs of Lukiwski or the Conservative caucus, and to see some GLBT-positive action on their part, and we’ve never seen that. So that was a dramatic moment and that’s still outstanding. I was disappointed that we haven’t had a chance yet to debate the bill to include gender identity and expression in the Human Rights Act, but I did table another private members bill to add provisions for protecting trans folks in the criminal code so it can be into consideration as a hate crime at the time of sentencing, and hopefully we’ll have a chance to debate those. And if we get to a new Parliament, I’ll make it into one bill and deal with it all at once. The whole question around Bill C-10 and the film and video tax credit has implications for the queer community. Certainly Conservatives are wont to complaint about film and video that reflects our community, so I think that whenever you have a provision that’s as broad and open as the personal interpretation and preference of a minister, around approvals of a tax credit, there could easily be problem, so that was a really important one.

Q: In terms of what you’ve been working on generally, what was your highlight?

A: I did some important work around CBC, and certainly changes to CBC Radio Two and the CBC Radio Orchestra which is an important local issue, and for getting that out and they haven’t reversed that policy but it got some attention. I did some ongoing work on security certificates, and issues that I’ve been involved with again wasn’t a victory but we’ve raised profile around concerns of how Canada is using security certificates and some of the fundamental injustices of the process including the new process where they’re appointing these ‘special advocates’ to help represent these people.

Q: Lowest of the session for you?

A: There are so many low points, but I think in a way the low point is that we’re still here. Despite all of the problems that opposition members have identified with the government, in terms of disappointing directions or problematic direction that they’re still in power. And despite the protestations of the Liberal Party that they don’t agree with any number of specific measures, they disagree vehemently with some of them, there were no confidence votes. I think that we could have gone to an election before, so the fact that we’re still here is an overall disappointment.

Brison's Panel Extras - September

To accompany this month's edition of Outlooks' Queer Parliamentary Panel, I asked each panellist a few extra questions to set the mood.  First up is Liberal MP Scott Brison.

Q: What were the highlights from the last session for you?

A: There’s two things. One—I co-chair the Liberal Party of Canada’s platform committee with Bob Rae, so the last session I spent a lot of time working on policy and platform issues, particularly focusing on the Green Shift. The highlight of the last session from my perspective was seeing the successful launch, seeing Stéphane Dion move forward with the Green Shift. I was very pleased to see a political leader put forward a bold idea and create a national debate—that’s the way politics ought to work.
Also, as industry critic, I was very involved with the whole discussion of the whole MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA) and the proposed takeover by the Americans, and ultimately played a role in building pressure in Canada against it. That was certainly a highlight as well. From an opposition perspective, it was the Liberal Party that kept pressure on the Conservatives to come clean both on the Chuck Cadman affair and the Elections Canada affair, and I think we did a good job on that. I think it’s very important, but the politics that I find most exciting are where you’re involved in the development of new ideas and new thinking, and that’s why seeing Stéphane Dion move forward with the Green Shift is the kind of politics that I enjoy very much, where it’s not just focused on scandal, but you’re focused on an idea that’s important to the country and the future of the country.

Q: I know he mentioned you specifically in helping to change his mind [about a carbon tax], so that must have been pretty gratifying.

A: It’s not gratifying in that sense. I’m very proud of what he’s doing and proud to be part of his team, and I’m looking forward to him becoming Prime Minister because I think that he’ll be a very courageous, and strong, and principled and effective Prime Minister.

Q: Any particular low points in the last session for you?

A: I thought the attack on Navdeep Bains by the government and the Prime Minister was very low. I was really hoping that we could have a constructive debate on the environment, a serious debate about a serious issue, and I was very disappointed in the Prime Minister’s response. The Green Shift proposal has received a positive response from bank executives like the Toronto Dominion Bank Chief Economist, Don Drummond; positive response from economists and tax experts like Jack Mintz; positive response from environmentalists like David Suzuki, and the Prime Minister insults the intelligence of Canadians when he responds to a serious plan by calling it ‘insane,’ or when he takes the goon squad of the Conservative youth, people who are employed by the government, who work in minister’s offices and putting them in silly t-shirts with talking oil spots—it’s really an insult to the intelligence of Canadians. I’m disappointed in what he does to Canadian politics, because Canadians realise now that they can’t expect anything near statesmanship from this guy. But beyond that, he is a Prime Minister who is really bad for politics and for how Canadians view politics and politicians. I think particularly for young people he represents the very worst image that a politician can put forward.

Of course, outside of politics, but still kind of tied to politics, I’m nearing the first anniversary of my marriage on August 18th of last year. In eleven years of public life—my first election was June 2, 1997—I’ve seen a lot of changes and advancements in rights in the last twelve years, and who could have predicted in the eleven years since I was first elected what great advances we’ve seen in Canadian human rights, particularly around gays and lesbians but not exclusively. In politics, quite frequently, you’ll hear people saying that the longer they’re in politics, the more they lose faith in humanity. I’ve found the opposite to be the case, and I’ve found that my faith in humanity has been fortified significantly, largely because I’ve learned that with Canadians, and my own constituents in Kings-Hants, is that if you give them the opportunity to be progressive and to be open minded that they will rise to the occasion. I feel there’s a real responsibility in politics to appeal to people’s better angels, where Stephen Harper consistently tries to bring out the worst in people and try to appeal to their dark side. I think that Canadians are looking for positive leadership that enables them to rise to the occasion, and that’s just a matter of faith in people, and faith in Canadians, and when you expect them to be progressive, by and large they’ll rise to the occasion and that’s what I’ve seen in my political career.

[Further to the Panel question]:

Senator Barry Goldwater in the US, who once ran for President, was the dean of American conservatism, and he was considered a very right-of-centre guy, but he was kind of a libertarian who believed in free people and free markets. I always like the quote that he came up with when Bill Clinton was president and they had the debate about gays in the military, and at the time Clinton came up with the compromise position, which wasn’t really a great position—“Don’t ask, don’t tell” which was really kind of goofy—but anyway, Goldwater came out with a statement saying “It doesn’t matter whether you are straight, it only matters if you can shoot straight.” I thought that was pretty good.

Outlooks' Queer Parliamentary Panel - September

In this month's Outlooks, we're launching a new regular feature--our Queer Parliamentary Panel, where we ask a question to gay or lesbian MPs and Senators of the three major national parties.  The panel consists of MP Scott Brison for the Liberals, MP Bill Siksay for the NDP and Senator Nancy Ruth for the Conservatives.  I've met and interviewed all three at some point in the past, and I was happy that they all agreed to participate in this panel on an ongoing basis.  We'll be asking a new question every month or two, and helping to engage the Canadian GLBT community politically the way that a national magazine should.

This month's question was in large part inspired by the work I did on the article relating to the diminishing presence of homophobia in the Canadian Forces earlier in the summer.  Being as Senator Ruth is on the Senate Security and National Defence committee, she provided a lot of added insight into the issue which I plan to build upon as I look to revisit the issue in a future article somewhere down the line.

The panel can be seen online at the Outlooks website here, or you can download the full issue in .pdf format here.  (The piece is on page 14).