Best political books

A day before Canada Day, Samara has launched an effort to get people naming their favourite Canadian political books. I applaud this initiative and not just because I've dabbled in the political-book-writing business myself.

Canada simply does not have a healthy political-book industry -- it pales in comparison to the U.S. or Britain and it's far too weighted toward biography, in my opinion. Several years ago, when I sat as a judge on the panel of the Shaughnessy Cohen prize, I was flabbergasted by what publishers  were submitting as "political books."  I'd say about three quarters of the submissions had nothing to do with politics whatsoever.

Anyway, I heartily encourage folks to go to the Samara page and send in your submissions. I've put my list below and I already know two I wish I'd added: Not Without Cause by Georgette Gagnon and Dan Rath, as well as Untitled: Stephen Harper's hockey book. (I know, I know, it's not published yet, but do you know any other unfinished work that's received more press?)

Here's the list I sent to Samara: 

One-Eyed Kings by Ron Graham (beautiful, beautiful writing)

Harper's Team, by Tom Flanagan (important insights, should be on everyone's desk while Harper's in power)

Brian Mulroney by Brian Mulroney (best prime ministerial memoirs ever)

The National Deal, by Robert Sheppard and Michael Valpy

Spin Wars by Bill Fox

Reign of Error by Greg Weston

Playing for Keeps, by Graham Fraser

Mark my Words, by Marjorie Nichols/Jane O'Hara

The Dark Side or The Life, by Steve Paikin

The Secret Mulroney Tapes, by Peter C. Newman

Photographic memories

Further to this post this week, marking today's anniversary,  we have some photos.

Joe Mayer, who you might remember as a communications director for the Liberal Party in the last couple of years, has sent along pictures he took while sitting with Paul Martin's gang in the 1990 leadership vote in Calgary. Both Paul Martins are here, and the birthday cake too... 

Taking credit

The new spirit of co-operation lives on, even after Parliament has closed for the summer! Jim Flaherty's folks at Finance sent out an alert today, containing a link to the fiscal state of the nation in 1999, when, uh, the Liberals were in power and Paul Martin was in charge at Finance. It may be a backhanded way of reminding Canadians of better fiscal times. Or maybe it was a cry for help. Hard to tell.

-----Original Message-----
From: FinanceCanadaAlert_AlerteFinancesCanada@smtp.fin.gc.ca [mailto:FinanceCanadaAlert_AlerteFinancesCanada@smtp.fin.gc.ca]
Sent: June 22, 2010 2:49 PM
To:
Subject: New Finance Canada document notification

 

The following Fiscal Monitor has just been posted on the Finance Canada Site.

 

Revue financière - décembre 1999

http://www.fin.gc.ca/fiscmon-revfin/1999_12-fra.asp

 

 

 

20 years ago... another view

Further to yesterday's post, in which I was casting back to the death of Meech and the Liberal convention, I've been getting some messages and calls from fellow nostalgics.

Sheila Gervais, who was executive director of the Liberal Party at the time, has done a lengthy blog post of her own about her memories of the time.  You can find it in full here. I've put some excerpts below, including some neat insights into how the country ended up with a leadership vote and constitutional deadline on the very same day.

The only logistically feasible available dates in Calgary for the mounting of a Convention of this size were June 18-25, 1990 and when Quebec Party President and known Martin supporter, Francis Fox vehemently pointed out the folly in securing a date that could see the actual vote occur on the exact deadline for the approval of the Meech Lake Accord – June 23, 1990 – there was understanding, but, never mind, it was inconceivable that the process would run the full course, and we’ll create a “Meech Lake Strategy” Committee to deal with it just in case. It was far from as cavalier as that, and in the end the decision was made without a recorded resolution; we just sent out a little puff of consensual smoke.

***

While the country was watching this unfold, Chrétien, not so quietly, was sewing the Leadership up, Meech or no Meech, debates or not. Historical connections and the advantages accorded those with years of service and notoriety in Government and the Party, combined with access to formidable funding and a lame Canada Elections Act, helped as much as Chrétien’s popular nature. By the time delegate selection began in March, it was well known that according to (unverifiable) membership sales, Chrétien would likely have a first ballot victory in June. The Party was preparing to unite behind a new Leader, but the Meech Lake Accord would continue to divide.

***

That evening, as the Leadership candidates’ speeches took place on stage, some of Mr. Martin’s supporters solemnly sported black arm bands to mark The Accord’s passing. Clyde Wells, arriving after the close of registration, greeted Chrétien with a widely publicized smile and embrace.

At the morning meeting the following day, June 23, the day of the leadership vote, we continued our negotiations with Mr. Turner. A bit later in the day, but before the balloting and results of Leadership vote itself, the Party was ready to announce its new executive. Don Johnston, a former Trudeau and Turner cabinet minister, who had resigned from the caucus to sit as an “independent Liberal” in 1988 over free trade and the Meech Lake Accord had just been elected Party President. I’m not a large person and cell-phone technology at the time was not designed for convenience. My phone, about as large as me, rang immediately. As we met for the first time, behind the stage in the centre of the Saddledome, Mr. Johnston asked me how the announcement of the Leadership vote would proceed. “Well, Mr. Johnston”, I said, “we’re not sure about that. Perhaps you could bear with me for a bit.”

The diplomat as storyteller

Dale Eisler's curriculum vitae  is a bit awe-inspiring  A renowned columnist and magazine journalist from Saskatchewan, he leaped into government as an assistant deputy minister at Finance in 1988.  Then, a few years ago, he became Canada's consul-general in Denver, Colorado.

Now, as if those weren't enough laurels to rest upon, Dale has gone and  fulfilled a dream that many print journalists have -- he's written a novel. Called Anton's Story, here's a little plot summary from the website.

In a land laid waste by the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, civil war, economic calamity and famine, a young boy tries to cope with a reality of violence and suffering he could not understand. Together with his friend, he slowly begins to understand the truth of his life in a small, German-speaking village on the Russian steppes. The two share a friendship deepened by the misery they endure in an adult world gone mad. 

Dale Eisler will be launching the book later this week at the National Archives in Ottawa. I'm sure he'd be delighted if the event was mobbed with book buyers. Or simply order the book online -- all the details are on the website.

20 years ago tomorrow

Hard to believe, but tomorrow will mark 20 years since the death of the Meech Lake constitutional accord. Coincidentally, I got to do a constitutional-related story today - you can find it here.

In the 20 years since that crazy time, I don't think I've ever experienced such an intense set of back-to-back events in federal politics. June of 1990 was a whirlwind of constitutional negotiations, roll-the-dice strategies (and interviews) and then, in the midst of it all, the Liberal leadership convention in Calgary.

I have some vivid memories of those few days in Calgary -- Trudeau walking around the Saddledome in a bright saffron-coloured shirt (impossible to miss);  Clyde Wells and Jean Chretien embracing (with me, ducking out of the way and holding up my tape recorder between them); drinks with Paul Martins Sr. and Jr. after the defeat; a wild  party with the defeated Martin gang on Electric Avenue, and so on. 

Of course, the most surreal part of Calgary was how the  collapse of Meech (on the Friday, June 22) took over the whole event -- all of us riveted to the TV and the death throes of the constitutional accord, while the Liberal leadership convention soldiered on.

  Some years ago, a Liberal who was there in Calgary gave me a video he'd recorded in the stands on the day of the vote. Once I put it on, I couldn't stop watching it (I've since lost it. (Shawky Fahel, if you're reading this, I'd love another copy; I'll even post it here.) You can see in that video how eerie the mood is; half the convention upset about the death of Meech, half celebrating it. At one bizarre juncture, the whole hall broke out into a chorus of Happy Birthday to Paul Martin Sr.

 If you have memories of that time and want to share them here, please send along any and all reminiscences.... 

Back to blogging

I have been egregiously absent from this blog over the past week or so -- a combination of being out of the country on a mini-vacation; rallying some resources/ideas for summer projects and, yes, a bit of preoccupation with some comings and goings in our little media world on Parliament Hill. 

Like everyone, I'm following with interest the emerging new Sun TV channel and what it will mean for politics and journalism here. For now, it seems like some people and I admire, like and respect have received new jobs and some people I admire, like and respect have lost their jobs. In other words, it's complicated. I'm hoping that this new journalistic voice remembers that the world often works this way. And that saying outrageous things doesn't make you interesting/less boring/in touch with dinner-table conversation. It just makes you, well, outrageous. 

Susan Riley says it far better than me today in the Citizen. Definitely worth a read today, as is Dan Gardner. 

Mergers, coalitions, etc.

For several days now, I've been wondering whether I had anything to add to this conversation about Liberal-NDP co-operation, beyond what I babbled about on CBC's Power and Politics last Friday. The short version of my comments, by the way, is: bad idea; witness what happened when forays were made for Liberal-Green co-operation and since when did Liberals do well by rushing to the left? If anything, the past couple of decades have shown that the Liberals only come to power when veering right.  I'm not one of those who sees the Liberals and NDP as natural allies. 

But beyond that, here's why the whole discussion seems odd to me. 

I think the political future belongs to those who understand the fragmented state of the world.  I'm not sure it's possible to create any political party that unites people under a huge banner, or one big tent. This whole search for one big thing, in fact, seems kind of 1970s-ish.  

The Conservatives have figured this out, and Chretien, to a lesser extent, also did during his time in office. Getting and keeping power now is a constant process of shaping coalitions around smaller issues -- coalitions that form and dissolve, and move from left to right to centre.  You need a clever leader to do this, but you don't need a great leader or a messiah. 

There's this incredible temptation, mainly by the boomer generation, to believe in this mythical power of "one big thing."  But we're finding this out in my industry  too --  one big thing doesn't exist anymore; the days of media giants and big, authoritative voices  are over. The media universe is now an ever-shifting group of smaller, even individual voices.  The military is facing the same issues -- the challenges of pitting one big army against the fragmented forces of the terrorists are well documented this century. This is a huge cultural shift everywhere. 

So that's why I'm largely uninterested in this conversation about grand coalitions or mergers. I don't know if you can unite the voting public under any one big thing.  

What's more, on a more pedestrian level, I'm convinced that  this latest flurry of speculation  is rooted, at least in part, in just plain mischief. Since I came to Ottawa more than 20 years ago, I've watched various factions of the Liberal party trying to undermine the faction in power. I even got a book out of it. It's kind of a well-worn routine now, though. Isn't it time for a new story line?  

Art meets marketing meets politics

If you're visiting Ottawa this summer and are interested in art and politics, you have a couple of options. You can go see Chretien's new portrait at Centre Block, or you can go to the new Pop Life exhibit, opening next week at the National Gallery of Canada. 

I've written in today's paper about how the main theme of the show -- where art meets marketing -- is not that different from the Conservatives' fusion of marketing and politics.  This has become an enduring subject of interest for me -- last week, at the Congress of Humanities conference in Montreal, within the meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, we got to hear more about where academics such as Alex Marland, Thierry Giasson and Anna Esselment are taking their studies in political marketing. It's a relatively new subject in Canada -- you can follow some of the ideas on a Facebook page. Or wait for the book that's in the works now. 

Meanwhile, the Ottawa Citizen has also given a huge blast of attention today to Pop Life. Peter Simpson's excellent articles can be found here and  here.