June 21, 2000
A death and a new Senator - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER -- Yesterday, while reading the papers I was shocked to here of the passing of Nancy Marchand. I’ll explain that later, but I was also taken aback on learning of Prime Minister Chrétien’s latest appointees to the Senate.
As I am on the PMO’s newswire service on my e-mail, I learned at around 5:00 yesterday afternoon of the summoning of both Raymond Setlakwe and Betty Kennedy to the Upper Chamber. Routine business you say? Well, sort of. Routine in the sense that we’re dealing with Chrétien and that these appointees are simply installed to pass the Liberals’ Clarity Bill, promptly. (The PM had announced 3 other appointees less than a week ago.)
Bill C-20 has faced heat from both Tory senators and Mr. Chrétien’s own Liberal senators. So, what better way to quell the upheaval by padding the Senate with two lickspittles who will gladly vote in the favour of the PM.
It sickens me frankly. I don’t know of M. Setlakwe, but as his c.v. states (as sent to me by the PMO) he is a prominent Montreal lawyer who served on this and that board for this and that amount of time.
We all know of Ms. Kennedy however. She is probably, having never met the lady, a wonderful and nice person, and I’m sure terribly honoured by being summoned to sit in the Red Chamber. But really the Senate has become an orgy pool of patronage at its very finest. I thought that was what the Order of Canada was for?
In Mike Campbell’s Sun column yesterday he wrote of the horrible funds going to waste in the severance and pension plans for MP’s. MP’s, at least a good chunk of them do splendid work and deserve the pork barrel.
Why is no stink being raised about these Senate appointments is beyond me.
Does one realise that Ms. Kennedy is not a politician? Sure, she spent decades on the Front Page Challenge panel trying to identify politicians and interviewing them on her CFRB radio show, but come on, giving her a Senate seat? Sure, she’s a member of the elitist Order of Canada, with honours mind you, for her impressive résumé in charity and philanthropic endeavours, but come on, a Senate seat?
On top of that, she’s 74 years old and she’s being appointed to a chamber where the mandatory retirement age is 75! The bill will get fast-tracked into law, the Honourable Senators Kennedy and Setlakwe will vote the Chrétien way and then the house will fall for summer recess. They won’t sit until October, perhaps, and then an election may be called, and so the house won’t sit at all till next Spring. By then Ms. Kennedy will have, if lucky, sat through no more than 10 sittings (not consecutive, mind you) of the Senate and then be carted off into a gold-plated pension and retirement.
Senator Kennedy will probably give that money away, but really Mr. Chrétien has yet again, demonstrated his contempt for the people by affording the Senate no regard, but as that of a political pawn to further his own legacy as Prime Minister. As Prime Minister of a country, mind you, that he’s fractured on his very own.
I like Senator Kennedy very much, and I wish her my deepest congratulations on the honour, but Mr. Chrétien can stick it.
On a separate topic altogether, I was set with genuine shock and disbelief when I read in the papers Tuesday of the death of Nancy Marchand. An actress, Marchand won 4 Emmy’s playing opposite Ed Asner’s Lou Grant. And she was recently nominated for an Emmy for her role as the matriarch of the HBO hit, The Sopranos. Now, in complete honesty, I’ve never seen Marchand act. Re-runs of Lou Grant are unavailable in this town, as are episodes of the ultra-popular The Sopranos which fail to air West of the Rockies.
Regarding The Sopranos for a moment, CBS’ failed pilot, Falcone was modelled after the success of The Sopranos, but that failed. The HBO show, however, has been a critical and commercial hit, regardless of the fact it contains graphic nudity, excessive swearing and only airs on cable. The Sopranos follows the saga of a New Jersey gangster and his mobster pals. We fail to see it here, because of some bureaucratic glitch, but CTV will air the mob drama come this fall. Like the many TV watchers in this town, I can’t wait.
Marchand played the matriarch on the show and while winning those four Emmy’s, she started her career in the theatre. Like all noble thespians, her career in the theatre failed her the prominence of fame until the Mary Tyler Moore spin-off of Lou Grant, hit the air in 1978. Marchand’s death leaves The Sopranos cast a huge and highly unfillable role. Even though, I haven’t seen an episode, her presence has been duly noted in the press since The Sopranos first aired a couple seasons ago. Marchand was felled by lung cancer and while on an oxygen tank, she’d brave the hectic filming schedule of the show. We won’t feel her passing right just yet, but we will once The Sopranos airs in this part of the continent, this fall.
Nancy Marchand was 71 and one hell of an actress.
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