It’s late October, and in a corner of the vast exterior of one of Toronto’s most upscale hotels, a film crew is preparing for a take while 400 miles away across the Quebec border, the provincial election campaign has kicked into high gear.

The day’s news reports find a charismatic separatist and a devout federalist presenting two impossibly opposite political philosophies as they vie for the majority of votes from the same Quebec electorate.

But back out front of the posh Hogtown hotel, Quebec director Marc Voizard, seemingly oblivious to the country’s grander problems, edifies actress Caroline Neron (Diva) in her native French, and then proceeds to instruct actor Colin Ferguson (Family Business) in English. Voizard calls ‘action’ and the two impossibly good-looking thespians nail the scene. The crew moves on to its next setup.

True national bilingualism is at work in Toronto and functioning just fine, merci beaucoup.

They are filming a scene from Cover Me, a six-part, one-hour drama series for cbc, produced by Alliance Atlantis. Neron plays Pascale Laurier, a brilliant, sophisticated and beautiful csis operative from Quebec who is such a hard-core separatist that she ‘thinks Lucien Bouchard is a sellout,’ says Cover Me cocreator and executive producer Robert Lantos.

The show’s premise finds Neron’s character combating the forces of international terrorism on Canadian soil, alongside a conservative rcmp officer from Alberta named Andrew Chase, played by Ferguson.

According to Lantos, the character of Chase is a ‘cowboy from Alberta who thinks that Preston Manning is left wing.’

It seems the two diametrical characters have but two things in common: ‘They both hate Toronto, they share that,’ says Lantos, ‘and they want to fuck – but they really don’t want to admit that.’

This pairing of opposites (with a subtext of sexual attraction) is a proven formula in filmed entertainment. But surely, only Lantos would dare use Canada’s ‘two solitudes’ as fodder for dramatic tension in a high-flying, unabashedly sexy and entertaining television series that runs on the nation’s public broadcaster.

‘Cover Me uses the two cultural polarities of the country for dramatic tension,’ says Lantos. ‘Obviously, this is rich territory to mine with built-in social and political contradictions.’

The development deal for Cover Me was struck, says Lantos, on a serendipitous day at the Banff Television Festival in 1997. Then ceo of Alliance, Lantos pitched both Cover Me and Power Play to ctv ceo Ivan Fecan as well as to cbc head of programming Slawko Klymkiw, cbc executive director, network programming.

‘Ivan reached out for Power Play, almost immediately,’ he says, ‘Slawko (whom Lantos says is ‘the best thing that’s happened to the cbc in years – I really hope he succeeds’) took Cover Me.’

With a development deal in hand, Lantos handed off the project to Christine Shipton, Alliance Television’s senior vp of creative affairs. Shipton brought Lantos together with producer Peter Lauterman, who takes an executive producer and cocreator credit on the series.

Now at the helm of the production, Lauterman says the political issues at the heart of Cover Me will be presented in a matter that is anything but didactic. Cultural issues, he says, will only emerge through the actions of the characters.

‘If there’s any finger-wagging, we’re not doing our jobs,’ says the veteran producer, who cut his teeth working under Barbara Samuels and Wayne Grigsby on e.n.g. and later for six seasons of North of 60.

It was Lauterman, in fact, who created the Ferguson character as the foil to the beautiful csis op and gave the show its story structure. Cover Me’s six shows feature a continuing story arc, but each episode, he says, is self-contained enough to work on its own.

Lauterman penned all six episodes with help from executive story consultant Rob Forsyth and two well-known Toronto playwrights, Jason Sherman and David Young, who were hired as cowriters. Lauterman says Young was hired ‘because he would immediately understand the material of Canada in the late 20th century, the politics, all the societal aspects.’

Young’s own personality and passion for the eccentricities of Canada have ended up in the final scripts, says Lauterman.

Sherman, on the other hand, was hired specifically to pen a half-hour interrogation sequence that occurs in one of the series six episodes.

‘It’s a very theatrical sequence,’ says Lauterman. ‘I knew Jason would understand the international espionage elements of the show and the violence aspect, the ruthlessness of the world – the stuff that he writes about.’

Working with a budget of roughly $1 million per episode, Lauterman has elected to shoot the series in two-episode increments using two directors, Voizard (episodes 3 and 4) and Stacey Curtis (episodes 1, 2, 5 and 6).

Joining the show’s leads as their respective superiors are multi-Gemini award winner Jackie Burroughs (Road To Avonlea) and Philip Craig (More Tears).

cbc officials say Cover Me is currently slated to premier on March 3, 1999 at 9 p.m., in the slot currently held for DaVinci’s Inquest.