The High Road by Terry Fallis

Author:Terry Fallis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780771047879
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The last two weeks of the campaign were a blur as we finally settled into a disciplined routine. The two Petes took the canvass into every nook and cranny of the riding with their ever-improving and growing team. They also spent some time on campus organizing a little group of engineering students in support of Angus. They called their little group “Engus.” A few engineering faculty colleagues also came on board. Small clumps of them would parade around campus with signs extolling the virtues of engineers in Parliament. Even though most members of the loose organization were not C-P voters, the moral support was welcome, and Angus got a kick out of it.

As for our candidate, he would mainstreet early in the morning to catch the commuters, do voter calls in the mid-morning, give a luncheon address somewhere in the riding over the lunch hour (hence the term luncheon address), mainstreet late in the day to catch the working crowd on their way home, canvass for an hour or so in the early evening in strategically selected areas, and then close with a nightly wrap-up campaign staff meeting at about 9:30 to plan for the next day. Then Angus would fall into bed, only to have the alarm rouse him all too soon to do it all over again. The days all melded together, making time seem like more of an elastic concept. But Angus hit his stride and actually seemed to enjoy some aspects of it, particularly the staff meetings and the going-to-bed parts.

In his stump speech, while never saying exactly the same thing twice, he stuck to the major themes that had always underpinned his approach to public life. Honesty, forthrightness, the national interest over the local interest, fiscal responsibility, and social justice. When asked esoteric and irrelevant questions he could not answer, which happened occasionally, particularly if one of Emerson’s emissaries were in the crowd, Angus would never try to skate around it as most politicians would. He’d simply say something like “I really haven’t the foggiest notion” and then look for another raised hand. When he did this at a gathering of the Cumberland Rotary Club, the woman who’d posed an unfathomable and obscure question about particular endangered species was not quite ready to cede the floor.

“Don’t you think you should know the answer?” she persisted.

“Aye, it’s likely I should know something about that, and in time, I hope I do. But there are some limits on what sits upstairs in my brainpan, so I’m concentrating first on the major issues that I believe are most significant to Canadians right now. The economy, equality and justice, our environment, jobs, and the prudent expenditure of our hard-earned tax dollars. When I have additional cerebral capacity, I’ll turn what’s left of my mind to the plight of the pygmy short-horned lizard and the Loggerhead Shrike.”

Many in the audience clapped.

In general, the campaign had unfolded much better than expected. Norman Sanderson had really stepped up on the fundraising front.

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