The Boys Take Over Parliament Hill
by JOHN DOYLE (From Feb. 6th’s Globe and Mail)
OTTAWA – Now, I didn’t see it myself, but I have reliable reports that it happened. It was witnessed.
Stockwell Day, our federal Minister for Public Safety, walked into the room and looked around, seeking them out – them, the most important people in the room. Politicians do that. Especially here, where politicians are usually the special ones, the somebodies.
He sought them out, and found them. He walked over, smiled, shook hands, said hello and, of course, had a photo opportunity with them. Them, you see, are the Boys. The Trailer Park Boys.
I’ve no idea what usually happens in Room 200 of the West Block on Parliament Hill. Something serious, I’m sure. It’s a gorgeous room, with high ceilings, silk wallpaper and chandeliers. It’s a room built for power to reside there.
On Monday night, the Boys were the most popular people in the room.
Ricky (Robb Wells) and Julian (John Paul Tremblay) were like a magnetic force. At one point, there were more than 300 people in the room – MPs and senators, TV execs and reporters, TV actors – but the Boys were the central figures and the lineup to talk to them and have a photo taken with them was endless. I saw New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton arrive and, of course, head straight for the Boys to have his photo taken with them. Along with his wife, MP Olivia Chow, Layton looked immensely pleased to bask in the glow of proximity to those stoner-losers from Sunnyvale Trailer Park.
It was a testament to the power of television, and Canadian-made TV at that.
The event was called TV Stars on Parliament Hill, organized by the Canadian Television Fund to coincide with this week’s Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings on the future of the fund. The idea was to make politicians and the other powerful people in Ottawa aware that Canadian TV exists, that it is going from strength to strength and that some of its stars are Canadian icons.
As far as I could tell, it worked. If the vibe from the commissioners was hostile about the CTF and its shows, the vibe at the party on the Hill was all positive. I was told that 82 MPs or senators had said that they would come and many did. They mingled with the CTF executives and chatted with the gorgeous, the glamorous and the famous. The two lovely stars of Sophie, Natalie Brown and Amy Lalonde, were probably second only to the Boys in popularity for photo ops. Hanging around and watching, I found it both amusing and heartening to see male MPs turn into geeky, awe-struck teenage boys as they posed for a photo between a gorgeous brunette and a gorgeous blonde.
Amy Lalonde, a charming young woman, had a few things to say to me, in between the photo ops, about my negative review of Sophie. I can’t say we parted friends, but there was something significant about the very fact that we were in a room on Parliament Hill arguing about a Canadian TV show, one now sold to a U.S. cable channel, and that the actor who took exception to the review is certain to have a glorious future in TV and film.
Klea Scott, who plays Mary on CBC’s Intelligence, was there with her mom and reminded me that although we had had a pleasant lunch and chat in Toronto last May, I had never written a proposed profile of her. Peter Keleghan, from The Newsroom and The Red Green Show, was there with his partner Leah Pinsent, from ReGenesis and Made in Canada, and were talking to Scott Simms, Liberal MP for Bonavista-Exploits in Newfoundland. The talk was about Newfoundland-filmed TV and Leah’s famous father, Gordon. I asked Simms, who told me that he used to work for the Weather Network, to name his favourite TV show. He hesitated and said it used to be The West Wing – “I’m a politician!”- and then leaned to my ear and said, “Can I say this? Trailer Park Boys.” No surprise there.
Nicholas Campbell, familiar to all as Dominic Da Vinci, was a popular figure, always surrounded by people who wanted to meet him and talk TV.
At one point, he finally emerged from a crowd, descended on me, shook hands and said he had seen me on TV recently talking about soccer. “You actually sounded like you knew something about it,” he joked, before telling me he was flying back to Toronto that night and was sorry that he hadn’t planned to stay longer, because he was having so much fun.
Finally, I got to have a word with Robb Wells, in a brief pause between all the photo ops he was doing as Ricky from Trailer Park Boys. I asked him if he had needed much persuasion when invited to Parliament Hill for the event. “No way,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do more to promote Canadian TV, but it’s hard when I have to stay in character as Ricky, almost all the time. We need more Canadian TV. Now, I’m not saying that all Canadian TV is great. It isn’t, and by the way I agree with your review of The Border. But this event, all these people here – this is a blast.”
It was. In a place where the only Canadian TV that matters, usually, is the news coverage, these actors were stars, somebodies to be admired.
Wish I had seen Stock Day having his moment with the Boys. But I saw enough to know everybody had a blast.
