101 Letters to a Prime Minister Read Free

twenty-seven years old and the money was manna from heaven. I made those eighteen thousand dollars last a year and a half (and considering the income tax I have paid in the wake of the success of my second novel,
Life of Pi
, this initial investment by Canadian taxpayers has been well worth it). The eldest artist there, representing 1957, was Jean-Louis Roux, great man of the theatre; the youngest was Tracee Smith, an aboriginal hip-hop dancer and choreographer who had just received her first grant. It was a thrill to be among such a varied gaggle of creators.
    The key moment of the celebrations came at 3 p.m. on March 28. We were sitting in the Visitors’ Gallery of the House of Commons, waiting. To those Canadians who haven’t been, I must mention that the House of Commons, and indeed Parliament Hill as a whole, is an impressive place. It’s not justthe size of the chamber, its grand design and ornate decoration; it’s the symbolism of it. A large part of the history of our nation has been played out within its four walls. While a practical venue, with functional desks, powerful, selective microphones and discreet television cameras, it’s also a space of dreams and visions where we Canadians have worked out who and what we want to be. So there I was, in the House of Commons, wowed by the place, and I got to thinking about stillness. I guess the word popped into my head because the unsettling brawl of Question Period was just coming to an end. To read a book, one must be still. To watch a concert, a play, a movie, to look at a painting, one must also be still. Religion, too, makes use of stillness, notably with prayer and meditation. Gazing upon a lake in autumn or a quiet winter scene—that too lulls us into contemplative stillness. Life, it seems, favours moments of stillness to appear on the edges of our perception and whisper to us, “Here I am. What do you think?” Then we become busy and the stillness vanishes, but we hardly notice because we fall so easily for the delusion of busyness, whereby what keeps us busy must be important and the busier we are with it, the more important it must be. And so we work, work, work, rush, rush, rush. On occasion we say to ourselves, panting, “Gosh, life is racing by.” But it’s the contrary: life is still. It is we who are racing by.
    The moment had come. The Minister for Canadian Heritage, Bev Oda at the time, rose to her feet, acknowledged our presence and began to speak. We artists stood up, not for ourselves but for the Canada Council and what it represents. The Minister did not speak for long. In fact, she had barely started, we thought, when she finished and sat down. There was a flutter of applause and then MPs turned to other matters. We were still standing, incredulous.
That was it?
Fifty years of building Canada’s dazzling and varied culture, done with in less than five minutes?I remember the poet Nicole Brossard laughed and shook her head as she sat down.
    I couldn’t quite laugh. What would the equivalent celebration of a major cultural institution have been like in France, say? It would have been a classy, year-long, exhibition-filled extravaganza, with the President of France trying to hog as much of the limelight as possible, that’s what. But there’s no need to go into further details. We all know how the Europeans do culture. It’s sexy and important to them. The world visits Europe because it’s so culturally resplendent. We Canadian artists, by contrast, were standing like dolts in a public gallery, getting in the way of more important business. And the thing is, we didn’t even ask to be there. We were invited.
    From the shadows into which we had been cast, I focused on one man. The Prime Minister did not speak during our brief tribute. He didn’t even look up. By all appearances, he didn’t even know we were there. Who is this man? What makes him tick? I asked myself. No doubt he’s busy. He must be aware every waking minute of every day