Federal election campaign open season begins this week, so I got this very up-to-date documentary about the last four years of rule by Justin Trudeau to educate myself and perhaps help me decide how to vote in October. The very experienced journalist author works as a senior writer with the CBC’s Parliamentary Hill Bureau, and previously worked for Maclean’s. It would be naive and unrealistic to expect any writing about politics to be entirely balanced and unbiased, and this certainly is not. There is little doubt that Wherry favours most of the programs and changes that the Liberals have tried to implement but he does not gloss over the problems that Justin Trudeau has encountered in his steep learning curve as a political boss-his failure to deliver on election reform, his farcical wardrobe display in Mumbai, his broken promises re the budget deficit, and his office’s apparent interference in the SNC Lavalin prosecution
There is a huge amount of interesting factual information as seen from the perspective of one with unusual access to all the major players whether they be the Ottawa pols or bureaucrats, their provincial counterparts, U.S. politicians, or business leaders. Just as one example, the controversy surrounding the SNC Lavalin prosecution is explained in terms that even I can now understand.
It appears that SNC Lavalin lobbying was almost entirely responsible for getting the Deferred Prosecution Act written into Bill Morneau’s 2018 budget. What is left unmentioned is that they allegedly have a mutually profitable business relationship with the billion dollar company, Morneau Shepell, a human resource company partially owned by guess who? Instead, the focus is on the apparent conflicts of interest, ego clashes, and differing legal perspectives between various people in the Justice Department, (unwisely combined with the Attorney General’s Office) and the Prime Minister’s Office staff. Why is Bill Morneau not held accountable for his part in this fiasco?
As is to be expected in any book rushed to publication (this one covers events up to June of this year) there are a few grammatical and spelling errors. And there is at least one factual error. In discussing and excusing Jean Chretien’s ability to deliver on only 37% of his 1993 election promises, Wherry says they faced a debt crisis half way through their four year mandate. That was clearly a crisis of their own doing.
To be a well-informed voter, I probably should now read a book about each of the other party leaders, but I am not sure I can stomach a book praising Andrew Sheer with his divisive, intolerant, vague promises on any number of issues, although he has no monopoly on ad hominem attack ads. My wife has pointed out that a number of candidates, in campaign flyers and newsletters fail to even reveal which party they belong to; it is as though they are running as independents. If our local Liberal candidate in Kanata-Carleton, Karen McCrimmon, is sure to win in October, I may vote for the NDP or Green Party, to increase ever so slightly their vote share. I am not, and never will be a partisan voter.
This is a very informative book that deserves to be widely read- with a grain of salt, before it becomes largely irrelevant by November.
The Passionate Reader 