The Day BC Quit Canada

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

It doesn’t take the reader long to ascertain the political bent of
John Haskett. He writes in his acknowledgements that he dedicates the
book to his children, and also to “the never-ending supply of Ottawa
political and government incompetents, illiterates, and ignoramuses, who
have made this book and its inexorable successors certain.” Well,
okay, then. But the word “inexorable” is frightening. Are we to be
inundated by a veritable flood of such anti-Quebec, anti-bilingual,
anti-federalism, anti-French, and pro-American sentiment—all
masquerading as a novel? If the fiction in The Day B.C. Quit Canada were
even pedestrian, the prospect of a sequel wouldn’t be so terrifying.
But it is hard not to be concerned about a novel that contains such gems
as “Premier Inglehaurt is certainly a leader. Behind his piercing
water-blue eyes you can see that he is always thinking. When I first
asked him about the possibility of B.C. leaving Confederation, he summed
up his feelings in a rather masculine term starting ‘bu’ and ending
‘it.’” Want more? Here’s one of the requisite sexual bits:
“Miss Wilkes smiled at Anderson’s anger. He was especially good in
bed when he was worked up over something, and she hoped his anger would
carry through to this evening when she had to visit his downtown
apartment for some special ‘dictation.’”

Perhaps Western secessionists will find common cause with this book.
That would be sad, since so much of it is sheer vituperation. It is one
thing to criticize and work toward solutions; it is quite another to let
off steam in such an amateurish manner.