Two days later, active campaigning began.
Prior to that, I completed the mandatory training day for candidates. It included ten hours of chaos jumping between photo sessions and a litany of workshops labeled with impossible training goals.
Workshops such as: accomplished debating skills, successfully handling adversarial media, and positive persuasion of hostile constituents. I quickly concluded we were not being trained but were being assessed to identify who among us were naturals, and more importantly, who were the loose cannons likely to cause trouble for the campaign.
On top of these sessions, I was required to participate in the security briefing reserved for the leader and other senior or high-profile candidates who were deemed to have special security needs. Given my recent notoriety, the team had given me a ‘moderate to high’ risk rating.
Throughout the day I felt the overt efforts to establish control over the candidates. From early in the morning until the sessions ended in the evening, the mantra of ‘remain on message’ was repeated forcefully and often. We were told, like war-bound troops, that one simple slip up or maverick act could bring the entire team crashing down.
My lesson to ‘get in line’ came early during the photo shoot. We had been told to wear a suit jacket. Dressing that day, I picked out my favorite dark blue Armani suit with thin grey pinstripes and a new custom tailored Egyptian cotton white shirt. I opted for an open collar, in my opinion, a more fashionable way to dress. On top of that, the Dartmouth Cole Harbour riding I was running in is largely working class. I felt my open collar suggested a less pretentious, more approachable, image.
Waiting for my photographs to be taken, I was sitting in a folding director’s style chair when I recognized the make-up technician.
“Troy! How are you?” he gushed.
He leaned into my chair and whispered, “How did you get stuck with this crew? I would kiss you but that might get us both shot.” he joked.
“More likely burned at the stake,” I replied, “Jamie, how are you? You look great.”
We caught up as quickly as we could. We talked in hushed tones like we were in a school run by the Sisters of the Holy Redeemer.
With expert hands, he touched up my collar and fixed my hair. Suddenly, he stopped.
“Where is your tie?” he asked with concern.
“Tie? I don’t have one,” I replied.
“You don’t have one. Can you get one?” he asked with an anxious tone.
“Get one? Why? This is the look I would like in the photo. Relaxed, casual and open. Just like me,” I said with a wide smile.
“Not sure that is going to work… Kathleen is not going to be pleased.”
“Kathleen? Who the hell is Kathleen?” I asked.
“She is the Campaign Media Director. She instructed me to make sure everyone’s tie was knotted in a perfectly balanced double Windsor… you don’t have a tie so I can’t balance your knot. Can you find a tie? There is a lovely selection in the boutique in the hotel lobby,” he said quickly.
Sensing his growing anxiety, I tried to calm him down.
“Jamie, it’s okay, I am going without the tie. I think…”
Before I could finish, he, with a look of horror, bolted from the room. I sat stunned for two long minutes wondering what the hell just happened.
Jamie returned followed by a six-foot tall blonde woman wearing a blue power suit and high heels. With a determined pace, she marched toward me. Without an introduction she jumped right to the point.
“Mr. Myers, James tells me there is a problem with your wardrobe?” she said.
‘No, I don’t think so,” I reply.
“Where is your tie?”
“I don’t have a tie.”
“Can you get a tie?”
“I don’t want to wear a tie,” I repeated, this time with a slightly annoyed tone.
“All the men are wearing ties in their campaign shots,” she countered.
“Well, I am not. I want a casual, relaxed, and open look.”
She stared straight into my eyes and smiled quickly before responding with a firm, matter of fact, tone.
“Mr. Myers, what you want, is to be an elected member of Her Majesty’s government and if we are going to get you elected you need to work with us and stick with the program,” she said with the same dead smile.
“I get that part, but I think I have a better handle on what the people of Dartmouth want, and…”
“Oh, you do, do you?” she said interrupting me, “Well, media is my territory and I think men look better with ties. Don’t you agree James?”
Jamie looked at her and nodded.
‘See?” she said.
She then spied a heavy-set man coming out of the photo area. He was sweating uncomfortably from the hot photo lights.
“Mr. MacDonald, you look fabulous!” she said.
I immediately recognized Billy Joe MacDonald. He was one of the lions of the Conservative party in Nova Scotia. He was seeking his seventh term and had been a minister in Mulroney’s two governments.
“Can you do us a big favour? Mr. Munro has forgotten his tie. Would you be so kind to let him borrow yours?”
He unknotted his perfectly balanced double Windsor and handed it to me.
“Here kid, keep it. I hate the fucking things. Feels like a goddam noose around my neck.” he said before turning and leaving.
James grabbed it and began tying it in a Windsor knot. Kathleen smiled and left the room as quickly as she had come in. The entire room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when she was gone. That was my first run-in with the uber-femmes of the top campaign team, if by team you meant oligarchic cabal of strong-willed control freaks.
I saw Kathleen again during the last session of the day at the security briefing. I was sitting at a conference table with the other security risk candidates. With me were: Sylvia Beech a longtime resident of the southwestern shore, a longtime community activist and very proud of her Black Loyalist roots; Peter McNeil, a two-term Member of Parliament from Pictou County with a strong conservative pedigree and rumoured future leadership candidate; Cameron Shebib, an outspoken Cape Bretoner with a University of Toronto law degree. His family owned many of the businesses in Sydney and the surrounding . Completing the group was Billy Joe MacDonald, the old Conservative party star. He seemed happy and comfortable with his open shirt collar.
The five of us enjoyed a few moments of genuine conversation. Our casual chat did not last long however. Kathleen marched into the room followed by an overly muscular man. He was five foot four inches and almost as wide as he was tall. His sky-blue tailored suit fit his body like paint. Kathleen towered over him with her two inch heels. She reminded me of a James Bond villain with a snarling mutant attack hamster at her side. Without waiting for us to finish talking, Kathleen got down to business.
“Good afternoon everyone. Please let me introduce Clive Bilodeau. Clive is the campaign’s Director of Security. Clive has fifteen years of experience with the Canadian Armed Forces Joint Tactical Forces Two. He has completed three tours to Afghanistan and has been to the Ukraine and Syria. Clive’s job is to keep you safe for the next thirty days. Please pay very close attention to what he has to say.”
That said, she turned and left the room.
“Ok folks. Time is short so let’s get right to it. As Kathleen said, my name is Clive Bilodeau and I am the Campaign’s Director of Security. You are here because the National Campaign Team has identified you are at risk. Given the chaotic nature of political campaigns and the complex mesh of contingencies that we are required to deal with, the job of keeping you out of harm’s way is no small task indeed. These are interesting times to say the least. One of you has already been shot.”
I blushed.
“Yes, shot for taking a sound political position—something all of you will do every day for the next month. Saved only by dumb luck. However, dumb luck runs out quickly. It won’t cut it on my watch…”
“It wasn’t dumb luck,” I interjected.
“Excuse me?” asked Clive somewhat dumbfounded.
“Literature saved my life. Tolstoy specifically. War and Peace, all one thousand one hundred and eighty-six pages of it.”
The rest of the group laughed. Clive did not. The corners of his mouth twitched and his eyes narrowed.
“Okay Mr. Myers, given your previous success of surviving people’s attempts to kill you may I ask what is your plan for this campaign? With the many shithole corners of Dartmouth and Cole Harbour you will be required to go, are you stuffing your pants with copies of the bible and Quran to create a barrier between you and all the lunatics? Is that what you have in mind? Now, please pay attention. We don’t have much time so stick with the program,” he countered.
With that, Clive continued with his training. He talked about the importance of situational awareness being the key to assessing our surroundings for signs of danger. He illustrated his point with combat stories from Kabul, The Crimea, and some conflict-ridden corner of Syria. He shared stories of close calls with improvised explosive devices, gunfights, and the famous story of the army Captain hit with an axe after he took his helmet off as a gesture of respect to a village leader. It was Clive who shot the axe-swinging assailant. He had our undivided attention after this revelation. His Captain had dropped his guard and paid a big price. He did not want us to do the same.
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Clive wanted us aware of our surroundings. He explained our heightened level of awareness would allow us to see into the future a few moments. This sounded like a super power to me. If it worked, I was all in.
Having been shot once, I was keen to avoid repeating the experience.
Troy Myers 