PORT TOWNSEND — Bill Mann could be the last American journalist solely assigned to cover Canada.
He figures media cutbacks in hard times and America’s general disinterest in the land north of the border have a lot to do with it.
“Canada is our biggest trading partner and next-door neighbor, but it remains, paradoxically, a virtual stranger to the vast majority of Americans,” Mann recently wrote for MarketWatch.
Mann hopes to lift the Canadian curtain of mystery.
Dow Jones San Francisco-based MarketWatch.com has since June assigned Mann to cover all things Canadian, a job that sprang from his coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.
From his home office, Mann, watches Canada through its many media outlets.
“Port Townsend is the perfect vantage point to watch Canada,” said Mann, fluent in French/Quebecois.
“You have easy access to Victoria and Vancouver, and I get all the Canadian TV stations here.”
He can see the south end of Vancouver Island across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from his home.
Canadian connections
Although he was born in the U.S., Mann sees red maple leaves and has a son, Floyd, born in Montreal.
Besides TV, he each day reads all of Canada’s major newspapers plus CBC.com, while monitoring the English- and French-speaking radio stations beaming in from British Columbia.
Mann, whose career as a newsman, radio broadcaster, columnist and most recently a Huffington Post blogger, stretches back to the 1970s, has lived in Port Townsend for four years with his wife of 42 years, Jean.
He was a columnist at the Montreal Gazette covering the Montreal Expos baseball team, and has kept close tabs on Canada over the years.
He also picked up stints as a columnist at the San Francisco Examiner, Oakland Tribune and The Honolulu Advertiser.
“I can even sing ‘O Canada’ in French,” he jokes, and he relishes the fact that the Canadian junk food known as Poutine — fries topped with gravy and cheese curds – can be found on the menu at Port Townsend’s Public House Restaurant.
Humorist, playwright
He is the author of a Canadian humor book, The Retarded Giant, published by Tundra Books, Montreal, and co-wrote the Global TV comedy, “Les Montrealais,” even hosting a French- Canadian radio show on CKLV-FM in Montreal.
“Canada interests me and I want to cover what interests me,” Mann said, explaining why he accepted the assignment.
“I would encourage people to go up and learn more about Canada.”
Most recently, he writes about how Canada’s economically struggling Maritime Provinces are exploring deepwater oil drilling at a time when the U.S. faces its worst offshore oil spill in history, and how animal activists are targeting calf-roping at the Calgary Stampede, the world’s largest rodeo.
He works on Saturdays as a volunteer for the Port Townsend Visitor Center, where he enjoys greeting Canadians, especially those who speak French.
“And I can tell you that they are shocked to speak to any American who knows anything about Canada,” he said.
Canadian facts
He blogs about his fellow Rotarians mostly failing a quick Canada quiz with facts that include:
• Canada has no home-mortgage interest deduction.
• Canadian universities don’t award athletic scholarships.
• Canada has had only one bank failure in its history (and none recently).
• Canada has only 10 percent of the U.S. population, but it’s a far more urban country — 90 percent of Canada’s population lives in cities within 50 miles of the U.S. border.
• Canada’s income-tax system is more heavily biased against high-income earners than America’s.
Originally moving to Canada as a Republican, Mann said:
“Canada really changed me. It made realize that a little bit of socialism, properly applied, really works.”
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.