Message Event Proposal – The Great Fake Lake

Minister/MP:

All government MPs

Organizer:

Jenny Truqué, PMO set designer, image engineer and PM’s hairstylist/cardigan carrier

City:

Faux Muskoka lake in Toronto (steps away from a real lake)

Locations:

Experience Canada Alley” aka “Northern Ontario oasis”; Fake Toronto; bridge to nowhere

Other Parties Involved:

Lord Cultural Resources (specializing in museum exhibits)

Event:

Selling Toronto and Muskoka to foreign journalists with a “cloud city” Toronto and staged Muskoka scene; oh, and the G8/G20

Event Type: 

Chicanery

Strategic Objectives: 

1. Showcasing to the world Canada’s natural splendor through an indoor lake, a canoe sculpture, docks and Muskoka chairs. Think of the future tourism dollars and the increased demand for Holodeck vacations!

2. Convincing Canadians that $1.9 million for props and over $1 billion for security is a good deal for a three-day event.

Target Groups:

3,000 inebriated international journalists; credulous Canadians; androids; Na’avi

Desired Soundbite:

Enjoy a bottle of Moosehead while reclining in a deck chair by our reflecting pool. All the comforts of cottage-country without the mosquitoes and no idling for 8 hours on the 400.

Key Messages:

This is a marketing pavilion. Because of our delightful reflecting pool, you will leave with a great impression of Canada. An impression we’ve controlled, stage-managed, and sanitized. You’re getting sleepy, sleepy, sleepy…

Why sit in traffic for hours on end when you can enjoy a frosty beverage in a comfy Muskoka chair, gazing across a bridge at a Toronto cityscape suspended in the air? Can I get you another beer?

Look, the world doesn’t care about complex and arcane policy issues such as maternal and children’s health, aid for developing countries, global warming, or a bank tax. What they want is to be dazzled by staged backdrops and fake trees; things that draw tourists to any country. Witness the millions that visit Disney World every year!

Tone:

Always smiling; peppy yet docile; like an enthusiastic tour guide or Stepford Wife.

Ideal Speaking Backdrop:

Deck chair; Floating office towers; Reflecting pool; suspended canoes; Gary from Reuters doing a cannonball into the “lake”

Ideal Event Photograph:

3,000 journalists paying little attention to the G20 or protestors (who wants the ugly face of reality?) and instead lounging in an inner tube on the fake lake, enjoying a beer (Moosehead); hand-picked journalists in skimpy swimwear; anything that promotes tourism and ignores the G20

Attire:

Bathing suit; Bermuda shorts and Jimmy Buffet t-shirt; moose couture

Eric Mang

Eric Mang

Eric Mang served as a political aide in the Harris government in Ontario and the Campbell government in British Columbia. His politics have since shifted left. He works full-time in health policy, part-time...