and Ted's
ttawa aiiventure

Bob Mackin
News Reporter

FRANK Zappa said government was
the “entertainment branch of indus-
try.”

If that’s the case, Parlia Hill in Ortawa is
our nation’s biggest stage, There is no shortage
of entertainment. In fact it’s an industry unto
itself that probably has as many fans as detractors.
It’s net a natural wonder, but it. ranks with
Niagara Falls and the Rocky Mountains as one of
the country’s most popular tourist drav

It’s a place every Canadian should e:
regardless of political views or feelings toward
big government. I spent two days there last
month observing nwo of the 301 Members of
Parliament, Reform’s West Vancouver-
Sunshine Coast MP John Revnolds
and North Vancouver’s Ted White.

Wed. Oct. 27

16 am. The grand gothic revivat
architecture of the — Parliament
Buildings is revealed as I walk west-
ward along Wellington Street. The
Peace Tower clock chimes as I enter
the ground floor lobby where I'm
directed to the third floor office of the
National Press Gallery. Two-day tem-
porary membership costs $16.0

11 am. Wandering, s
freely, i notice Heritage Minister Sheila
Copps is takiig # break from the week-
ly caucus meeting by an elevator bay I
must use. Her discussion with Sen
Ross Fitzpatrick turns to a whisper
after she sees the pass around my neck.
The power of the pass! A friendly
secret service agent points to the media
area outside the government’s meeting
room. All the police and security types
on the Hill } encounter are the most
congenial Pve met. Civil servants,
indeed! Prime Minister Jean Chretien
emerges from the meeting and dashes
to the end of the hallway cluding TV
cameras and reporters.

Noon: Meet Ted White ar his
office on the ground floor of the west
block, one uf two annexes on
Parliament. Hill. We walk briskly
through ar: underground tunnel wo
meet John Reynolds for lunch at the
Parliamentary Dining Room in centre
Hock, the main building. Few famous
faces at lunch today. Reynolds points
beyond a marble column at a table
once reserved for late ex-Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker.
Independent senator Marcel
Prud’homme, a former Quebec
Liberal MP, stops by our table to wish
White well, congratulating him again
for his 1997 election defeat of Liberal
Warren Kinsella. White says Kinsella is
now advising health minister “Allan
Reck on a possible bid to succeed
Chreticn.

. / 1:50 p.m. White and Reynolds go
to House of Commons’ afternoon scs-
sion.

2:05 p.m. Press and public gallery
in the . cathedral-like chamber open
after MPs prayer and singing of O
Canada. : .

2:15 p.m. Chretien strides briskly
down to his front row seat benwveen
Copps and deputy PM Herb Gray. Question
Period .begins promptly and lasts 45 minutes.
Today’s themes: the employment insurance sur-
plus and payroll taxation, Prairie farm crisis, and
the plight of the airline industry.

Reynolds, the justice critic, leans back in a
front row seat across from B.C. Liberal caucus
chair David Anderson. The empty seat to his
‘right belongs to Art Hanger, who has
Parliament's second best name. Inky Mark of
Reform is number ane.

Whice is four rows behind Reynolds next to
maverick ex-Liberal John Nunziata. When °
Australia’s senate president Margaret Reid is
greeted after Question Period, White rises on a
point of order. Reid, he says, was elected, not
appointed as senators are in Canada.

TRAN

WEST
Reynolds on the closed circuit TV monitor in
the Opposition members’ tounge during
debate on the Nisga’a treaty.

“That is nota point of order, but | am sure it
is a point of interest.” savs speaker Gil Parent.

White is Retorm’s hero for a moment, bur
Reid has already left the chamber.

3:05 p.m. White tables: petitions from con-
stituents RJ. Gelling (opposing the removal of
God from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms)
and Brian Jor (seeking deportation of
refugees who are “obvious aed blatant abusers of
the system"). Revnolds retires to the adjacent
Opposition members’ lounge to return phone
calls and review: files.

In the lounge there are five closed circuit TVs
showing the Padiamentary Channel, big com-
forsable chairs, phones, Xerox machines, fret
and veggie plates and coffce. A. scack of grcen
questionnaires seeks to find MIPs? favourite cup

PRIME Minister Jean Chretien vith Hungary's
prime minister Viktor Orban.

t
4
3

SPORTATION minister David Coltenette
at the centre of a press scrum.

eo yt cay ; ;
Vancouver-Sunshine Coast MP John

of joc. Ain’t democracy great!

Reynolds, 4 Toronto native who grew up in
Montreal, joined the Tories in 1970, a day after
mecting Liberal MP Tom Goode at a Christmas
party.
“We were giving Tor a hard time about
(Pierre) Trudeau not doing anything in the West
and his only answers were ‘If you’re part of the
caucus you've got to do whar the caucus wants’.
I thought at the time it would be a very good
thing to learn what the process was all about; 1
never thought Pd get elected.”

He was elected twice in Burnaby-Richmond-
Delta and served happily until Joe Clark suc-
ceeded Robert Stanfeld as party leader. “I lost
my energy and drive to be in politics. Joe was a
red Tory then, he’s a red Tory now.”

» MacKenzi

Sunday, November 21, 1999 —- North Shore News - 3

SUNDAY FOCUS

NORTH Vancouver Reform MP Ted White (left) and West VYancouver-Sunshine Coast
Reform MP John Reynolds in iront of Parliament Hili's Peace Tower in Ottawa.

Reynolds did what old B.C. politicians do:
become a radio talk show host. He had a daily
gig on CJOR.

He re-entered politics provincially as West
Varicouver’s Social Credit MILA in the carly °86s
and served as speaker of the house. He retired
again from politics after losing the 1991 election
to Liberal Jeremy Dalton. He ran successfully for
Reform in 1997.

He is summoned to the lobby to give BCTV
a soundbites about a West Vancouver man want-
ed by the U.S, government for escaping a petty
drug sentence 30 years ago. He returns long
enough for a page to remind him of a beerless
meeting with beer lobbyist Greg D'Avignon and
Molson Breweries’ Scott Ellis. Bencath a portrait
of ex-Liberal Prime Minister William) Lyon
King, they brief Reynolds on their
concerns: high taxes, warning labels and bottle
deposits. Reynolds returns to the lounge. Aide
Greg Yost waits to discuss research on drug
crimes and punishment in B.C.

4:45 p.m. White speaks in the House against
the Nisga’a agreement. Ongoing bartle rages
between Reform MPs and Liberal house leader
Don Boudria over when debate on Nisga’s will
be adjourned for the day.

5:40 p.m. Reynolds tells the House he was
flattered to be mentioned in Dancing With
Dinosaurs, a Liberal pamphlet critical of Reform.
“I would rather dance with a dinosaur than be in
the water with a Liberal shark,” he says. “Sharks
cat people for no reason at all.”

Liberal MP David Iftody is offended and
unsuccessfully asks the deputy speaker to repri-
mand Reynolds. ,

6:37 p.m. House adjourns. Reynolds and
wife Yvonne, vice-president of the Parliamentary
Spouses" Association, and Saanich Reform MP
Gary Lunn invite me to national marine day

‘otion at Chateau Laurier hotel. Port author-
ities’ executives from coast-to-coast schmooze.
Transportation minister David Collenette offers

_a brief toast.

7 p.m. Grab a taxi with Lunn and Reynolds

for the three-block ride to the Brewers’
Association of Canada’s Oktoberfest banquet at
the National Press Club. MPs and bureaucrats,
and the odd reporter, sip the country’s finest
microbrews. Events like this happen nightly.
Special interest groups like to wine and dine law-
makers to get their message across.

8:30 p.m. Former North Vancouverite Roy
Cullen, now chair of the Liberal’s Ontario cau-
cus, is introduced by the emicee as “beer caucus”
chair. MPs line up for the German smorgasbord
— Coquitlam Liberal MP Lou Sckora races to
the front.

9:30 . Reynolds and Lunn leave for their
downtown motels. John is on his way to
Saskatoon Thursday to campaign with Reform
byelection candidate Jim McKenzic.

Thurs. Oct. 28 .

9:30 a.m. White splits time in his office
beoveen a constituents’ correspondence file and
preparing for a committee considering a new
elections act. Chief electoral officer. Jean-Pierre
Kingsley is making a presentation. White has a
six-page document with 18 questions he’d like to
ask. His concerns include patronage appoint-
ments of returning efficers, restrictions on third-
Party campaign spending and the 50-candidate
requirement for a party to get official status and
its name on ballots. The latter has caused an odd
alliance between Reform and the Communist
Party of Canada. (Comrades?)

11:07 am. A committee meeting is con-
vened in a large room: with ornate murals.
Kingsley and two assistants sit at head table. The
bespectacled, bald man looks every bit like the
Dr. Evil character from the Austin Powers
movies. White lobs multi-faceted questions at
Kingsley.

“How many hours do I have to respond?”
says Kingsley. “Mr. White, as usual, the questions
are excellent.”

A light lunch is served for the conmmittec. -

See A day page 8