Greatest Hits Medley

The Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin now has ten columns by Richard Rohmer on its website. 

http://www.theenterprisebulletin.com/author/richard-rohmer

I don't want to give anything away, but if you check out the one from December 3rd, you may recognize some elements in a little plan Rohmer's come up with for getting "oil product" from Alberta to the Pacific while bypassing the "environmentalists and First Nations people" who don't know a good thing (carbon) when they see it.

Does it involve a pipeline and the Mackenzie River Delta?  That would be telling.

Carthage must be destroyed!

All that Mackenzie Valley stuff is there because the author just can't let pass any opportunity to argue for energy development the Richard Rohmer way. And M&S was happy to let him do it, giving no attention to the MS (hence, "the Place Ville Marie"). Besides, those seven pages provide much needed heft to a novel with no illustrations, maps, technical drawings or bar graphs.

What else we got?

• A somewhat inaccurate summary of Exodus/UK - 3 pages
• A word for word reprint of the final chapter of Exodus/UK - 3½ pages
• The US/UK Memorandum of Agreement featured in Exodus/UK - 4 pages
• Segments of the speech delivered by Gaston Belisle in Exodus/UK - 2 pages
• The Preamble and selected Sections from the BNA Act - 1 page

I finished Separation last night. Can I say again what a prick that Jeremy Sands is. The man single-handed creates an economic crisis in his country, creates a national unity crisis in ours, and causes a near riot on Parliament Hill. Then, as he ducks out the back way, leaving Roussel to deal with the angry mob, he blames everything on "the Arabs and their OPEC friends":

So, remember the Arabs in your prayers, because you can thank them for putting that unhappy crowd on the lawn out there, for dividing your country, and for bankrupting mine.  

Oh, and he gets his knickers in a twist because the Canadian Cabinet dares meet without him.

And, yet, I have a sense we're supposed to think that Sands is a good guy, smarter that everyone in the room save one.

I'll say no more until I know where you two are. In the meantime, it won't spoil much to present the updated Richard Rohmer Body Count:

Ultimatum: 1
Exxoneration: 200 (approx.)
Exodus/UK: 18*
Separation: 5
     * 17 according to Separation

Those seven pages killed me, too.  I think I underlined 19 mentions of the Mackenzie Delta, the Mackenzie River and the Mackenzie Valley.  But I wanted to finish the whole book to make sure that it never came up again.  You know, that it wasn't foreshadowing, and the solution wasn't that Quebec buys Sunoco.  But I had the same reaction you did.  I laughed out loud.  It makes you wonder if he's a lunatic.

Earnest Young Swain
I'm so nervous about meeting your father for the first time.

Charming Young Woman
You'll be fine.

EYS
But what will we talk about?

CYW
Just ask him about the Mackenzie Delta.

Exodus / UK, a book I've read, is head-and-shoulders better than ULTIMATUM and EXXONERATION.  While they were thoughts -- What if America wanted Canada's natural gas?  Well, what if Canada wanted America's oil? -- it's very nearly a novel.  Not quite, but almost.  At least it has a second and a third stage to the businessman's day dream: Saudi Arabia cuts off the United Kingdom's oil AND THEN the Prime Minister asks Canada to take millions of refugees AND THEN Quebec secedes.  (And then the Americans say they'll help England drill in the North Sea, but only if no trade unions are involved. Also, stewardess, are there any more golf magazines? All I've got is Macleans. What kind of first class is this?)

Of course, the premise makes no sense at all, and characters spend a fair amount of time defending it to each other:  "But why would the Saudis deliberately tank an economy that buys their oil?" (They're mad at England for selling Israel weapons.) "Okay, then why don't they cut off America's oil?" (They really need America's weapons.) "Who's going to pay to take care of all the refugees once they get to Canada?" (The UK.) "But then wouldn't it be cheaper to keep them where they are?  Even if it only meant not buying all those plane tickets?" (Unanswered.) "If the UK can get all the oil it needs from the North Sea -- in 18 months! -- once the unions get out of the way, why do all the immigrants have to immigrate at all? (Unanswered.  Stewardess?)

Like they say in sketch comedy, "buy the premise, buy the bit."

Once that's all rolling, Rohmer adds some features unavailable on earlier models: At least three characters with flaws and two professional-grade action sequences, a plane crash and a riot.  The plane crash doesn't actually affect the plot one way or another -- the PM wants to get to a meeting, his plane crashes, they rescue him, he goes to the meeting -- but it's still action.

Rohmer still has no practical sense of how a "ticking clock" functions in a thriller, but at least you get the sense that he gets the sense that he's missing something.  

Rohmer Gets Off a Zinger:

Carter-Smith was from a well-to-do, upper-class family and had discovered socialism on his way through university.  He was the worst kind of know-it-all radical.  With his family fortune behind him, he was ready to redistribute everybody else's money among the workers.  "Rather like a recent Canadian Prime Minister," Sands had been heard to comment.

Rohmer Makes a Cameo:

The Prime Minister agreed. "Excellent idea.  That plan was put forward by some lawyer from Toronto wasn't it?  I've forgotten his name.  Now Mr. Philips, the finance question.

People Tell People Things They Already Know:

As you know, Prime Minister, the Bank of England, with the approval of the Cabinet, has borrowed in the last two years twelve billion pounds...

As you know, the United Kingdom is in economic collapse...

You know, Gaston, we're dealing with the lives of people, men, women and children...

Madam Secretary, you know very well that our relationship with Great Britain is on a completely different footing...

In recent years, especially after the October War of 1973, when the OPEC countries quadrupled our prices within a year -- we have found ourselves with surplus revenue in our hands, in a scale of billions upon billions.  All this you know.

The emigration matter is very important to him as you know...

As you know, I'm the Chancellor.

You know, you're asking the United States to make enormous commitments...

You know, you people are asking for a lot...

... the National Assembly having unanimously passed their secession resolution of which you are all aware...

As I said to you when we talked earlier this week...

He's already on his way, as you know.

As you know, it was as up as high as 10 per cent in late 1975.

Things Secretary of State Jessica Swift is:

tall

trim

slinky

elegant

attractive

articulate

attractive

beautiful

superior

attractive

superlative

"beautiful, beautiful"

Mentions of the Mackenzie Valley, Although it Has Nothing to Do with the Story: 4

Drawings of aircraft: 7

Of air routes: 2

Gentlemen, your thoughts?

The GOBSMACKING SHOCK CLIMAX came as no shock, but only because I've remembered it these past four decades. Wonder whether my eleven-year-old self was floored. I'm guessing not, though it probably woke me up some after the pages devoted to parliamentary procedure, Air Force One flight plans, and the technical details of underwater gas system tower types.

Anyway, you gotta wonder just how President Blank's October Surprise would work in his favour. Wouldn't it destabilize… well, everything? Throwing the world into political and economic crises hardly seems like a good re-election strategy.

I was more interested in Bob Porter. I'm pretty certain we're meant to think of him as a real leader, but I'd lost faith by page six – and that's before he starts in on how Canada hasn't treated the Americans all that well, and how they kinda own our natural resources 'cause they found them.

Who voted for this guy? His friends, I suppose. The Governor General, a party supporter, is his old boss; the terrorists are old friends, as is the editor of the Toronto Star. Staff Sergeant Ray of the North-West Territories? Porter knew him, too… and his family.

Funny to think that Trudeau, prime minister in 1973 (when Ultimatum was published), was the actual prime minister in October 1980 (when the novel takes place). Rohmer was right in predicting that there'd be a Democrat in the White House, but Jimmy Carter wasn't anything like President Blank.

The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline was never built.

Wonder how a fella from Georgia would've felt about that.