“There’s just one line I’d like to change,” says the American.
The dialogue doesn’t quite line up with the actor — the accent betrays that this is a Canadian production — but the look is down pat. Slicked back hair, Oliver Peoples glasses, a designer suit that seems better tailored than his Canadian counterpart’s. He could easily have been an extra in Wall Street or American Psycho. The two men are seated at a table, alone in a large, well-appointed room, going over paperwork. The American and Canadian flags are behind them. The men’s voices echo in the empty room, the color of the film is desaturated. A backroom deal is being worked out in plain sight.
“Which line is that?” asks the Canadian, incredulous.
“Well, this one here, it’s just getting in the way.”
The camera shifts to a top-down perspective as we see the American use a pencil eraser to gently remove a line from a map of North America. It’s the border between Canada and the United States. The rest of the thirty-second spot asks, “Just how much is Canada giving away in the Mulroney trade deal?” — a reference to former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney’s free-trade proposal. Water? Health care? Culture? The voiceover reminds viewers not to let Mulroney deceive them again, and further states that the 1988 Canadian federal election wouldn’t be like any other. It was, in effect, not just a referendum on free trade, but on the future of Canada itself.
“Erasing the Line” may have the peculiar distinction of being the most successful political advertisement in Canadian history that didn’t help the party it was created for. Though the majority of Canadians voted against free trade in 1988, the vote was split between the Liberal Party of John Turner (which had commissioned the advertisement) and the New Democratic Party of Ed Broadbent. During a particularly heated exchange in a televised debate, Turner said Mulroney had sold Canada out, and that the inevitable…
Auteur: Taylor C. Noakes
