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During the last three weeks, my graduate narratives course has looked at three films, each an adaptation of an historical book: North Country, based on the book Class Action about the Jensen versus Eveleth Taconite legal battle over sexual harassment; All the President’s Men, based on the book by that name; and Charlie Wilson’s War, also based on a book by the same name. In each case, the saga the book presents is long and complicated, and the creators had to make significant changes to fit the story into the constraints of the movie screen.

The three changed, or abridged, the story in three different ways.

North Country took a ten-year legal battle, focused on one aspect of it – the “nuts and sluts” defense against an accusation of rape – and told a fictionalized story showing that the protagonist had been raped by, rather than had consensual sex with, a high school teacher, and that she therefore was not a slut.

All the President’s Men took the 26-month Watergate investigation-Nixon impeachment saga and, while staying scrupulously true to the historical record, focused on the six month period at the outset when Woodward and Bernstein and the Washington Post were the virtually the only investigative journalists working on the story. The rest of the saga, in which the action shifts to the judiciary and the politicians, is summarized at the end of the movie in a series of headlines.

Charlie Wilson’s War took Representative Charlie Wilson’s thirteen year struggle to win Congressional backing for the mujahideen’s struggle against the Russians in Afghanistan, concentrated on the key turning points, and at the beginning very briefly summarized the back stories of Charlie Wilson and his partners, CIA agent Gust Avrakotos and Houston socialite Joanne Herring, and at the end equally briefly summarized the unintended consequences of the war.

Looking at the three narratives, which provides the most satisfying experience? That all depends on your criteria. I’ll suggest three: historical fidelity, emotional identification, and intellectual challenge.

In terms of historical fidelity, All the President’s Men is the clear winner, in that – as its creators intended – it told a very significant part of the story with scrupulous attention to the historical record. You learn a great deal about journalistic investigation from it though, because of its focus, nothing about political or judicial investigation.

Charlie Wilson’s War comes off very well, in that you get the outline of the story. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin’s talent is in taking a complicated story and presenting it a very concentrated way. The best instance is an angry three minute conversation between Gust Avrakotos and his boss that reveals Gust’s long and stormy history at the CIA and his fundamental mismatch with its dominant Ivy League culture.

North Country comes off least well here, because it takes one aspect of the original story and uses it to spin a story that is substantially different from the actual.

By emotional identification I mean the feeling of satisfaction or catharsis the viewer feels by identifying with a noble character fighting for a just cause and, at the end, winning. Here, too, All the President’s Men is the clear winner, at least for audiences who saw the movie when it was released in 1976. Woodward and Bernstein were fighting to expose a stolen election and a vast over-reach of executive power by a near-paranoid president. But, because the movie keeps Nixon off stage for its entirety, a contemporary audience that does not remember Tricky Dick likely has some trouble understanding why he and his men were such villains.

Both North Country and Charlie Wilson’s War provide less of an emotional bond with the audience. In North Country, Josie Ames (portrayed by the luminous Charlize Theron) has her virtue upheld, but the question that arises is why her virtue should be attacked in that way, or more broadly why the “nuts and sluts” defense should even be admissible in court.

Some viewers might find Gust Avrakotos, who had an anger management problem, and Charlie Wilson, who had what would now be called a sex addiction problem of Tiger Woods proportions, difficult to identify with. Furthermore, the irony with which the film ends, namely the victory of the mujahideen paving the way for the Taliban, necessarily leaves the audience contemplating whether Charlie Wilson’s triumph was a Pyrrhic one.

The third criterion is intellectual challenge, namely the input the viewer must provide to make sense of the movie. I think that, up to a point, intellectual challenge is a good thing. Here Charlie Wilson’s War is the clear winner. Sorkin has a great talent for writing scenes that distil a long and complicated story based on facts that are hinted at, but not spelled out. The viewer must either guess at or dig up those facts (say be reading the book) to completely understand the movie. This is certainly the case with his treatment of Charlie’s and Gust’s back stories in terms of their fit with, and role in, their respective institutional homes, the House of Representatives and the CIA.

All the President’s Men is less challenging, because it shows in great detail how Woodward and Bernstein did their research. Reviewer Roger Ebert found this repetitive, though as a researcher myself I found the depiction of all the different techniques of investigative journalism valuable and enlightening.

North Country is also less challenging because, while it is told in flashbacks, by the end of the movie the imagined events to which the imagined court process refers are revealed.

Looking back at the three criteria, I rank intellectual challenge first, emotional identification second, and historical fidelity third in importance. This leaves me with a slight preference for Charlie Wilson’s War over All the President’s Men, with North Country significantly behind both of them. Other readers may have other criteria, other weights, and therefore other rankings. But now you have mine.

Last week’s public management class was about crisis management, and I always start with a simulation. The scenario I came up with this year involved a high-level hostage-taking at the upcoming G20 summit in Toronto. Somehow, a group called the Tibetan Liberation Organization takes President Hu of China hostage in his hotel suite.

Students were asked to play the role of Prime Minister Harper, receiving a 3 a.m. call from Toronto Police Chief William Blair, informing him that shots were heard and that the Tibetans have taken President Hu hostage. The Tibetans are planning to release a list of demands and, if the demands are not met, they threaten to harm Hu. Say you’re the Prime Minister, what do you do?

Obviously, this scenario is most unlikely. First, we can be sure the Canadian Government will have the tightest possible security in place at the G20 summit. (When the 1988 G-7 summit was held in Toronto, from the street I happened to see Margaret Thatcher emerging from the King Edward, where she was staying. I doubt the people will get this close to the leaders this time.) Second, the hallmark of Tibetan resistance to Chinese domination has been non-violence, so the “Tibetan Liberation Organization” is a pure fiction. But, if you grant me these assumptions, then – as my students confirmed – you can have a stimulating discussion about how to react.

Here are some of the ideas that came out of the discussion.

First, get the facts. The simulation was purposely vague. To manage the crisis we need to know as much as possible about the situation in President Hu’s hotel suite. What is its layout? How many Tibetans? Armed with what? Who are the hostages? What are the demands? And what are the Tibetans threatening to do?

Second, recognize that this is not about Canada, but rather part of the conflict between the Chinese Government and the Tibetan resistance movement. Both the Tibetans and the Chinese must be contacted. On the Tibetan side, the obvious interlocutor is the Dalai Lama, and students quickly suggested inviting him to Toronto.

Third, recognize that, as in all hostage takings, there is a fundamental choice between using force to free the hostages and negotiating with the hostage takers. The history of hostage takings includes instances when force was used and most of the hostages were freed unharmed (for example, Entebbe) and instances where the hostages died (Munich). It is far from certain that President Hu could be rescued alive.

The hostage takers want to negotiate with the Chinese Government. But the Chinese Government may not want to negotiate at all. They may take a revolutionary hard line. Tibet is a province of China, period. President Hu, like any cadre, serves the people. If he loses his life serving the people, he died gloriously. And, if he does, the Chinese Government will find his assassins and will ruthlessly suppress the Tibetan Liberation Organization, wherever in the world its members are. They can run, but they can’t hide.

Fourth, while the Canadian Government’s immediate focus would be on resolving the matter rather than assigning blame for this egregious breach of security, ultimately it will be investigated, and it is very likely that heads will roll. The Commissioner of the RCMP and the Director of CSIS – most likely. Toronto’s Chief of Police too. Maybe even the Minister of Public Security.

Fifth and final point. Do contingency planning. The best way to deal with crises is anticipate and avert them. And, ultimately, that’s what this exercise was about.

Over the last three weeks, I had the students in my public management course simulate the Ontario budget process, and here’s what happened.

I assigned them to two-person teams, including the premier and chief of staff, minister and deputy minister of finance and of the largest program departments (Health; Education; Training, Colleges, and Universities; Community and Social Affairs; Transportation; Children and Youth Services; Energy and Infrastructure; Municipal Affairs and Housing; Environment), as well as a minister and deputy minister of the privatization secretariat.

The program departments were asked to contribute to reducing the deficit by decreasing aggregate spending by $3 billion, roughly a 5 per cent base budget cut. The privatization secretariat was asked to analyze total or partial privatization of the LCBO or Ontario Lotteries and Gaming (OLG). User fees were accepted as a substitute for budget cuts. The exercise was thus designed to reflect the challenges of restoring fiscal balance that Canadian governments will face in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

The program department teams had two weeks to research their department’s programs and budget and prepare submissions with proposed budget cuts or increased user fees. The minister and deputy minister of finance analyzed the proposals and made their own recommendations. The premier then convened a cabinet meeting to discuss the proposals and, a few days after the cabinet meeting, announced his decisions.

What, with the advice of cabinet, did the premier decide? To meet the $ 3 billion deficit reduction target, there would a partial privatization of the LCBO to bring in $1.5 billion, $ 940 million (32 % of the total) in budget cuts, and $ 560 million (18 %) in increased user fees. The budget cuts were primarily in Health (Local Health Integration Networks and the mismanaged eHealth initiative, rather than OHIP), Education (the public and Catholic school boards saving money by operating a joint school bus system), and Transportation. The bulk of the increased revenue came from higher hydro rates. The students, like the Ontario government they are simulating – as evidenced by its Throne Speech earlier this week – have little appetite for cuts in public services and preferred to balance the budget by increasing revenues.

As an instructor, my concern is whether this was a successful learning exercise. In general, the task of organizing a process to achieve a collective goal that conflicts with individual departmental interests is one that engages students. Consider more specifically the form the exercise took. We would like public sector budgeting to be as easy as managing a Facebook page, where you can readily add new friends or drop ex-friends. In reality, governments tend either to add many new programs, or cut many existing programs, but do not do both simultaneously.

A simulation that deals with new programs (say a pot of $ 3 billion in new spending) is relatively easy because the participants can find ideas for new programs bruited about in the media, and then concentrate on new programs to the exclusion of their departments’ existing ones.

A simulation that deals with cuts to existing programs is more challenging because it forces the students to learn about their department’s programs and mandate, go through the Estimates, and then make some choices about what to cut. Learning how to make sense of the Estimates is particularly valuable. In addition, looking for efficiencies gives students an incentive to search intensively. For example, the Ministry of Education team found a pilot program in the Peterborough area where the public and Catholic school boards are sharing buses and recommended scaling this up province-wide.

One of the fascinating things about a simulation is that teams in a comparable situation may react differently. For example, the Community and Social Services (COMSOC) team refused to offer any cuts, arguing that their mandate involved helping the hardest hit victims of the recession, and these people should be spared any additional pain. On the other hand, the Children and Youth Services (CYS) team reluctantly were willing to propose cuts to child welfare benefits and programs targeting at risk, low-income, and disabled children. The finance minister and premier, acting compassionately, agreed to exempt COMSOC and rejected most of the proposed CYS cuts.

One question that arises is whether some of the cuts proposed were classic “Musical Ride cuts.” The Ministry of Education team went so far as to propose merging the Catholic and public school boards. They were not aware that Ontario’s Catholic schools have their status enshrined in the Constitution, so at most this would have been an unconscious Musical Ride cut. But I think there is more to it than that.

We have had quite a few things entrenched in the Constitution – for example assured ferry service to Prince Edward Island – or enshrined in agreements – the Crows Nest Freight Rate – that have ultimately been modified in response to economic and technological change. So, for the students to challenge the separate status of the Catholic schools was not a clever attempt to outsmart a budget cut, but rather an honest recognition that the province bears additional cost in having two school systems and that, under conditions of fiscal constraint, it is reasonable to look for ways, such as shared bus service, to rationalize them.

Another concern in a budget-cutting exercise is what Eddie Goldenberg calls the PIMBY, or please in my backyard, syndrome. While there are some public investments that most constituents and legislators don’t want in their backyards – prisons, garbage dumps, nuclear waste storage facilities – there are others – highways, government offices, museums – that they yearn for.

The Ministry of Transportation proposed delaying construction of the Windsor-Essex Parkway, but the minister of finance and premier rejected the proposal. If you look through the cabinet lineup, you’ll discover that Finance Minister Dwight Duncan represents Windsor-Tecumseh and Economic Development Minister Sandra Pupatello represents Windsor West, so it’s easy to see why that proposal wouldn’t make it through Cabinet. On the other hand, if at some point in the future the Ontario Government becomes very intent on balancing the budget, then you could imagine the Windor-Essex Parkway would be the first major transportation project to be delayed, with Finance Minister Duncan leading by example.

For an instructor, a simulation project like this takes considerable time for design, social engineering, consultation, evaluation, and feedback. However, I’m convinced that the students gain a deeper understanding of the budget process, discover how concepts apply in practice, and enhance their management skills by being responsible for a management process. And they now await the McGuinty Government’s budget to see how it tackles the issues they have confronted.

Now that I’ve actually used the Nexus kiosks on a quick trip to Boston, I have three more things to say.

First, one of my readers mentioned that he applied to the Canadian Government and received his card in 4 weeks, which was a week or two faster than my application to the US Government. The US program is more convenient – completely on line – and less expensive ($50, rather than $80) but the Canadian program delivers faster. Take your choice.

Second, the kiosk was easy to use. A female voice – call her Iris – tells you how to position yourself so that the iris recognition camera gets a good picture. I wore my very soft and flexible bifocal contact lenses, which are a pale blue and have the numbers “123″ printed lightly to help the wearer ensure that they are not inside out, and Iris still had no trouble recognizing my irises.

The third point concerns the economics of the Nexus program. In a competitive market, the long run cost of production should equal the value of the product to the marginal user. The Nexus program, of course (or at least we should hope) is a monopoly, so the relevant question is what it should charge. As it now stands, for $50 you get the cost of the application (processing your information, an in-person interview, and the production of a high-tech RFID card) as well as 5 years’ use of the kiosks to short-circuit immigration queues going into the US or returning to Canada from anywhere.

That strikes me as a great bargain. Likely $ 50 doesn’t even cover the cost of the application process, making some allowance for contributing to the cost of the technology. Yes Nexus does reduce the operating costs of the Canada Border Services Agency and US Customs and Border Protection by diverting trusted travelers from the their agents’ queues, but how much cost saving would that diversion represent?

In a world where both the Canadian and US governments will be looking for ways to increase user fees to reduce the deficit, I can’t imagine that they won’t target Nexus. Conclusion: get your Nexus card while it’s still a great deal.