It is difficult to slot this Ottawa lawyer and researcher’s commentary into the political spectrum. He goes to some length in the beginning to argue that he is not opposed to the small c conservative agenda, but argues throughout the book against the agenda of all politicians with almost equally cynical biting invective. If I had to guess, I would place him in centre left field.
However, he pours particular scorn on Pierre Polievre, the « Ripper » of the title, as he abundantly documents his lightweight opportunistic, self-contradictory, Trumpian, style of speaking, writing and living. Published just before the 2025 election upset, some of the content now seems quaintly irrelevant, and one wonders why he was not willing to wait until the results of that could be taken into account.
He goes to great lengths to discuss the dumbing down of the media, as they blindly accept the many lies that angry politicians spout.
The overall tone is very negative with so many problems and so few solutions. But the author has profound knowledge of 20th and 21st centuary Canadian political history and I learned a lot (or recalled events that I had long forgotten.)
One problem: the author seems to accept that Jack Layton died of prostate cancer, although Jack himself made it clear that, although he had prostate cancer, he was dying of an unrelated cancer of undisclosed origin.
A sobering lesson in Canadian history.
4/5
Thanks, Din
The Passionate Reader 