A CBC Radio interview popped up on my Facebook news feed a few times in the last week, and it’s getting plenty of attention for its irate subject.
The public radio show segment from This is That, hosted by Peter Oldring and Pat Kelly, contains an awkward — to put it lightly — interview between Oldring and a senior Canadian Border Services agent.
The interview is about the agents being federally mandated to take public relations courses to address their sometimes abrupt attitudes toward travellers.
Things get really awkward around the minute mark of the five-minute interview when Oldring interrupts the agent, who’s talking about border security for travellers on land or air, with the comment, “Or by sea.”
It’s the beginning of the end of any semblance of goodwill from the agent as he begins to grill Oldring, and the interviewee, who’s on the show to address border agents’ abruptness, becomes the interrogator.
The interviewer gets totally shaken during the interrogation and positively crumbles under the agent’s repeated demand that he answer if he thinks the “demeanour of our border guards needs to be softened.”
If you’re thinking this turn of events is ironic, congratulations: you’re right.
It’s a satirical news show, and irony is kind of the point — although that seems to have been lost on a handful of people sharing the clip online and commenting on it.
Its hosts are comedians.
The “100 per cent improvised, satirical send-up of public radio” is a self-described “current affairs program that doesn’t just talk about the issues, it fabricates them.”
Clicking around the program’s site, you’ll find headlines such as “Hospital in Kelowna serves best food in the city” and “CBC News commenter wins argument, all other online commenters concede defeat.”
Though the show’s headlines are not as politically incorrect or as boldly absurd as some of those on U.S.-based news spoof site and paper The Onion — which inspired a blog called “Literally Unbelievable” that’s dedicated to sharing people’s incredulous Facebook reactions to articles they believe are real news — the show’s content still points out the absurdity of many aspects of a uniquely Canadian life.
For instance, that the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission could mandate high school students to represent “Canadian content” on 70 per cent of their clothing during the school week by wearing T-shirts with moose and geese on them points out the absurd idea driving the CRTC at all: that a group can force people to exhibit national pride when it could hinder their other priorities.
Good satire presents a point of view that toes the arbitrary boundary between what’s acceptable fringe and what’s flat-out ridiculous. Good satire doesn’t just make a mockery of a situation, it makes a commentary on a situation that’s meaningful because with a stretch, it’s within reach.
I can easily recall an instance when I had to deal with a very grumpy and rude border agent at a crossing in Manitoba, and maybe some of you reading this can relate. But, as this satire points out, it’s neither here nor there for border agents to be the face of Canada’s public relations. It’s their job to try to make sure you’re adhering to the laws of the country when you enter it, not to make friends or even friendly small talk with everybody entering it. Even though a tough attitude and lots of rapid-fire questions are not always pleasant to deal with, they are a reflection of the tough job border agents do.
