'Canada Was Interesting Enough'

Is politics becoming a performing art?

Some might say that day came and went a long time ago, but Werklund Centre, the city’s performing arts hub, is offering a different sort of performative politics on Monday, September 28, when longtime Maclean’s Magazine columnist, author and Canadian political pundit Paul Wells brings The Paul Wells Road Show to the Martha Cohen Theatre at Werklund Centre.

That night, Wells will interview Alberta premier Danielle Smith, Calgary mayor Jeromy Farkas, and University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe, along with live music from Calgary alternative folk group The Dust Collectors.

Wells, who has been a mainstay of Canadian political commentary for three decades, has done a number of Road Shows in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa, including a holiday show that featured Canada’s outgoing United Nations representative Bob Rae –– which sounds like a perfectly Ottawa sort of guest to book, only Rae broke with format and told Wells before the show that rather than wax poetic about the United Nations in front of a sold-out house at the NAC, he wanted to sing.

“What my first thought was, (was) tell him he can't sing,” Wells says.

But then he thought about it a bit.

After all, it wasn’t a Maclean’s column, or a Walrus Magazine think piece –– it was a live show.

Maybe the best Prime Minister Canada Never Had –– as Rae has been called –– had a point there.

“(I thought) for my audience, it'll be like catnip,” Wells says. “Nothing could be more memorable for my audience than seeing Bob Rae singing a song that he wrote. So (he did) –– and of course, it worked out very nicely.”

All of which begs the question: will Danielle Smith –– arguably the most communicative Canadian politician ever –– offer to showcase any special musical talent once she takes the stage at the Martha Cohen Theatre? Will Mayor Farkas perform a few harmonica tunes he surely must have learned hiking the 4,300-kilometre Pacific Crest Trail in the gap year he took after losing his first run for mayor against Jyoti Gondek back in 2021, when he went from city hall heel to the new mayor in 2025?

Is Trevor Tombe secretly a good whistler?

Wells insists that’s not the plan, but then again, it’s a live show so you never know.

“You get a bunch of interesting people together, and the strangest things happen,” he says.

Perfect timing

The timing of Werklund Centre's show couldn’t be more dramatic if Wells tried, coming three weeks before the October 19 separation referendum that will surely be on the minds of every one of the 400 or so people jammed into the Martha Cohen Theatre that night –– which Wells says came about by happenstance.

“I am actually so naive that I was some way down the road towards planning this before this (amazing timing) dawned on me,” he said. “Autumn was the next open spot on my calendar, and we were several weeks into (planning this Road Show) before I thought, you know –– this thing is going to be about the referendums, whether I want it to be or not, so let's just kind of go with that.”

“The question,” Wells says, “is what to do with the proximity to the referendum?”

Whatever happens on September 28, Wells expresses a reporter’s gratitude to the Alberta premier, a former radio broadcaster and Calgary Herald opinion page writer who still hosts a bi-monthly radio show where she takes calls from anyone who calls in –– and occasionally breaks news.

“I want to give a shout-out to Premier Smith, because this country is full of politicians who won't give me an interview,” he says. “Every time I ask (her for one), I get an interview." (He’s done four separate ones with Smith). “And she knows that I ask challenging questions, and that I don't necessarily buy everything that she's selling.

“And… it's never a problem for her.”

“Right now, when everybody in the country thinks about Alberta, they think about Danielle Smith. Will she come and sit for an interview? And I didn't sense any hesitation.”

Interviewing people

Wells’ interviewing style is not what you might call the confrontational style that made Mike Wallace a television staple on 60 Minutes for decades.

It’s more –– for lack of a better adjective –– Canadian.

“My interviewing style is not to push people in the hope of making them crack,” he says. “It doesn't matter who I'm interviewing. And typically, if people hope that I'm going to break a witness on the stand, they come away disappointed with my interviews.”

He says he learned the art of the interview from an unlikely source for a political commentator.

“I'm a big music fan. The first 50 interviews I ever read with anyone were interviews with musicians, and the goal was not to get them to admit that they were lousy musicians. The goal was to draw them out about their process, and about their attitude towards their craft,” he says.

“My approach to an interview is get the interviewee talking –– and I find you get further with a respectful tone and a willingness to really listen than you do with, sort of any attempt to box them in.”

Is live the new magazine?

All of which begs the question: with The Walrus Talks, New Yorker Live, Globe and Mail cruises and various podcasters doing live shows and Dave Kelly Live in Calgary, are live shows the new magazine?

Have we replaced long-form journalism with smart talkers on stage helping us find a reason to get out of the house?

“There's more and more news organizations that are finding that they have a role in getting out to meet the community that they're building with their words,” Wells says. “The new editor of the Toronto Star is doing an awful lot of live events that usually involve one of their journalists talking about an interesting issue, and then experts on the subject getting out, but the feel of it is very social.

“I mean, often there's some drinking involved,” he adds, “and it's in a place that looks a lot more like a tavern than like a courthouse, and I'm finding the same thing (with the live shows).”

Wells still writes on Substack, is a regular contributor to The Walrus and has a podcast –– The Paul Wells Show –– that’s broadcast on YouTube, which has become the new magazine stand in the digital age –– and it’s all a reflection of how the way people consume media stories has evolved in ways that might have seemed unimaginable a few decades back, when printed magazines defined cool.

‘Wanted to throw them a party’

In 2022, after close to two decades at Maclean’s, Wells had to figure out what was next.

“When I left Maclean's Magazine to go independent, I had to figure out for the first time, for myself, what I was going to do as the brand,” he says. “I was no longer an employee. It was all me. And what I wrote on my LinkedIn profile was, ‘Tell stories, build community.’”

“And, getting out to meet the audience (at The Paul Wells Road Show) is part of the building of (that) community.”

What he’s not doing is building a political movement or pursuing some policy directive –– unless the policy is to get political bold-faced names to steer clear of their talking points and just tell some good stories.

“One thing that I've been learning is that… the people who read my words, listen to my podcast, feel like they're part of something that shares these values of respect and community and conversation and a real diversity of viewpoints,” he says.

“These road shows, which are more like a variety show, more like Vinyl Cafe or The old Prairie Home Companion –– the impetus for those was that I just wanted to thank my (Substack and YouTube) subscribers.

“I wanted to throw them a party.”

‘Canada was interesting enough’

Mix in a huge historical moment in Alberta political history, and The Paul Wells Road Show has a chance to be a memorable night out at Werklund Centre –– and a great reminder that all the biggest news stories don’t necessarily come from Washington, D.C.

“All my career, I've had some friends who thought they were complimenting me when they said, ‘Why don't you go and work in Washington or New York?’” Wells says, “And a lot of my favourite journalistic work gets done in Washington and New York, but I've always thought Canada was interesting enough.

“And we're kind of proving that with these shows.”