OTTAWA — The bickering beavers and foxes of the forest are feuding a little less in a revised version of the Senate’s own children’s book.
Wise owls, supposed to represent senators, are still the heroes of this fairytale depiction of parliament, but some of the drama — including a badger’s complaint about “unfair” treatment by the Council of Animals (the House of Commons) and the lioness ruler’s (the Queen’s) rebuke, “Can you not govern yourselves?” — has been toned down in a second edition.
The National Post first reported the Senate’s communications staff had come up with the new brochure at the beginning of May, ruffling a few feathers in Ottawa. Some wondered why, with several scandals brewing, senators would brand themselves as the wisest creatures in the Canadian wilderness.
But senators said it would be a good teaching tool and, case in point, several teachers reached out to the Post asking how they could obtain a copy.
The new tweaks make the book feel more deferential to the other forest-dwellers (MPs). The storyline now also more accurately depicts how the upper chamber came to be. (The original version suggested a discordant House of Commons called the Senate into being to help it out of a crisis, when really both chambers were born at the same time.)
An activity page at the back of the book now offers a “spot the difference” game, so the Post took the liberty of spotting a few differences in the text.
Gone is an early reference to how forest animals, having formed a system of government, no longer scratch, claw and bite each other when they argue. Now, they just live “together in harmony.”
Gone, too, is a reference to how the “most popular” animals got to sit on the Council, how the foxes chose the “slyest” fox and the moose picked the “strongest, tallest” bull. Now, the fox is simply clever, and the moose simply endowed with large antlers.
Suggestions of conflict are watered down. The Council of Animals no longer devolves into animals only thinking about what’s good for their own kind — though “not everything was perfect.” Differences don’t turn to “bickering.” A badger no longer stands and accuses the Council of unfairness, and no longer says, “How dare you?” to a beaver across the proverbial aisle.
Removed are a couple of phrases that suggested the Senate was there to “watch over” the Council, and added is a comment about how some animals in the forest, early on, “wondered if the Senate of Owls was really necessary.”
The main story in the book describes a fantasy version of the Senate amending a bill to preserve the rights of minority groups (read: getting beavers to cut down trees in an unoccupied part of the forest), with the animals of the forest unanimous in their approval of the Senate at the end (and a “roar of assent” from the lioness).
Reinforcing a narrative of animals’ respect towards the owls are two other small additions. One adds, to a phrase about everyone in the forest knowing the owls are wise, “there was no doubt about that.” Another new line has animals cheering after the owls intervene with a solution.
But there are no “dramatic changes,” said Jacqui Delaney, a spokeswoman for Sen. Leo Housakos, one of the senators from a communications subcommittee that approved the project.
“The layout of the brochure remains exactly the same, as does the essence of the story. There were some minor changes to incorporate the input of senators who expressed the desire for changes for various reasons, including to reflect the fact the Senate was created at the same time as the House of Commons,” she said.
“This children’s brochure was drafted to provide senators with a resource for outreach activities that involve younger children. This product uses a storytelling approach to capture kids’ imagination and to provide an introduction to the important role senators play in Canada’s parliamentary democracy.”
The experiment has proved popular. The communications directorate had spent just over $6,000 on 3,500 copies and they ran out almost immediately after the book’s release. This time around, 8,000 copies were printed (in both official languages) at a cost of $5,858 out of the existing communications budget.
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