COMPTES RENDUS Paul Martin's Climb up the Slippery Slope of Power — Now What?

C.E.S. Franks COMPTES RENDUS Savoie claims that there was a Diefenbaker came to power forty-six colours the Opposition’s views of the golden age, and frequently refers long- years ago, and governed for six years public service and makes adversarial ingly back to a time in the mid-twenti- with a deep mistrust of the civil service. combat, scandal hunting, and the eth century before the bargain had Much of his distrust was justified. The attack and defend mode of parliamen- been broken. It is a common human civil service had cohabited and grown tary combat the core of parliamentary tendency to believe we live in an age of with a Liberal government for 22 vital discussion of the public service, as of decline. T.S. Eliot believed so, as before and formative years. Every day in the most other issues. It would be wishful him (going back only four centuries) Commons Diefenbaker faced ex-civil thinking to expect these defining fea- did Matthew Arnold, Swift, and servants turned politicians on the tures of the structures of political Shakespeare. This tendency justifies Liberal opposition front bench. The power in Canada to change. dismay and revulsion at the confusion fact of a long-lived and dominant and ugliness of our own times. But I “Government Party” in Canada makes Charles E.S. Franks is a Professor believe the bargain was never anything the opposition mistrustful of the gov- Emeritus of Political Studies at Queen’s more than an ideal in Canada. John ernment and its works. This mistrust University.

Paul Martin’s climb up the slippery slope of power — now what?

Susan Delacourt, Juggernaut: Paul Martin’s Campaign for Chrétien’s Crown. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart, 2003.

John Gray, Paul Martin: The Power of Ambition. Toronto, Key Porter Books, 2003.

Review by Raymond Heard

hen I toiled, and I really tell the bad guys from the good guys; Given this dismal history, as a sup- mean toiled, for John they all wore Brooks Brothers suits. By porter of Martin but never one of his W Turner as his communica- my count, the Chrétienites made strategists, I have been observing, with tions director, we were all hunkered six futile bids to unseat Turner. They the delight of a sub-Arctic Machiavelli, down like jackrabbits in a Prairie hail- even tried to take him out early in the the 10-year-long crusade of the storm. It was our unpleasant mission 1988 election campaign before he Martinites, many of whom worked for to return fire not from the Mulroney memorably bested Brian Mulroney in Turner, to do to Chrétien, by fair Tories or the Broadbent socialists but the TV debate, a feat that forced his means or foul, what his capos did to from the enemy within — the faceless party belatedly, and very briefly, to his predecessor. It sure does go round rebels in our own party who tirelessly close ranks. When he came to power, in Gritland. conspired to force Turner from office. Chrétien rewarded these latter day Which brings us perhaps to the Indeed, working for Turner Brutuses with cabinet offices in which key moment in Susan Delacourt’s truly reminded me of the 1960s cult movie their service to the nation has not, by riveting (at least to inside-the- Night of the Living Dead. You could not and large, been distinguished. Queensway political junkies) account

110 OPTIONS POLITIQUES DÉCEMBRE 2003 – JANVIER 2004 Paul Martin’s climb up the slippery slope of power — now what? BOOK REVIEWS of how Martin’s loyal and disciplined the voters there, could be persuaded to inner circle, led by David Herle and his give Canada one last chance. partner in life, Terrie O’Leary, succeed- Chrétien and his hardline federal- ed in hounding Chrétien into his ist hawks preferred to play hardball belated retirement. with all separatists, not just the purs et After the media has disclosed the durs, thus respecting the legacy of their notorious “secret” meeting of Martin mentor, Pierre Trudeau, and his pro- strategists and MPs to plot Chrétien’s tégé, Donald Johnston, the original ouster at the Regal Constellation Hotel foes of the Meech compromise. near Pearson Airport in 2001, dimuni- History, in my judgment, vindicat- tive (he could have played a ed the concerns of the Martin “doves” Munchkin) Eddie Goldenberg, the when the complacent Jean Chrétien, PM’s alter ego, confronts Herle, slumbering at the wheel, nearly lost Martin’s bulky and bearded retainer, at Canada in the Quebec referendum, a a Liberal conclave. neglect for which history will judge Goldenberg is livid. The Regal him harshly. meeting was absolutely wrong, proof There are, then, two Liberal par- of Herle’s deceit. ties. There is the now-triumphant “That’s a bit rich coming from you party of Paul Martin that is so soft on after what you did to John Turner,” Quebec nationalism that one of his Herle replies. leading Quebec strategists, and a pos- Susan Delacourt sible future cabinet minister, is A “riveting” inside account elacourt confirms, as does John Montreal talk-show star Jean Lapierre, D Gray in his shorter account of the who left the Liberals after Meech to columns written about me,” he yelled, Chrétien-Martin wars, that by staging launch the Bloc Québécois with “not columns about what a great guy the Regal meeting, Martin’s team, Lucien Bouchard. Then there is the you claim to be!” instead of hastening Chrétien’s depar- receding party of Chrétien, which John Gray, one of the many tal- ture, actually persuaded him to accept may yet regroup when Martin leaves ented protégés of the great editor his wife Aline’s advice, and seek yet 24 Sussex, quite possibly as the victim Frank B. Walker of the Montreal Star, another term. of yet another coup. obviously had to hurry to beat In reviews of the Delacourt dissec- For a ripping good read that might Delacourt to the book stands tion of how Martin’s well-funded (some make the script of an Ottawa take-off with his spicy chronicle of the life $11-million) machine prevailed, fellow on The West Wing, I recommend and times of Paul Martin and his journalists have claimed that it under- Delacourt’s book. One quibble is that, father, Paul Sr. The general reader scores the “fact” that, and now I quote because they spoke to her so generous- who wants to see Martin in the broad Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail, ly, she is a bit too nice to her sources, new national perspective of the post- “There were...no compelling conflicts the vast majority of whom are Chrétien era will find Gray’s tome over vision between the Liberals’ two Martinites. Another is that, at the end, easier to digest than Delacourt’s rivals...The prolonged catfight Ms. Martin remains what Churchill, in dif- detailed study. Delacourt chronicles was not about ideas ferent circumstances, called a mystery Both books, in sum, tell us how or policies or principles, but about per- wrapped in an enigma. Paul Martin got here. Where he’s tak- sonal ambition and factional policics of ing us remains a mystery, reminis- the kind endemic in one-party states.” he real Paul Martin does not stand cent of a classic exchange in Jack I disagree. The Martin-Chrétien T up here, but he will have to as he Kerouac’s On The Road, when one war, as Delacourt notes without ever directs our destiny in the years to Beat asks the other: “Where we goin’, highlighting it as the seminal differ- come. On the other hand, there are man?” and gets the reply, “I dunno. ence, had a clear policy source: how to vivid profiles of Herle, O’Leary and But we gotta go!” handle Quebec. Paul Martin, like his other Martin power-brokers. Which mentor, John Turner, his Montreal brings to mind a vignette from the Raymond Heard, now a Toronto commu- friend, Brian Mulroney, Quebec Turner years. After Doug Fisher had nications consultant, was White House Premier Robert Bourassa, and Ontario declared in a column that Ray correspondent and managing editor of the premiers David Peterson and Bob Rae, Heard had a TV and print record that Montreal Star and head of news and believed that, through concoctions just might help Turner to survive the current affairs at Global TV before join- like Meech Lake, Quebec’s soft nation- Chrétienite slings and arrows, Turner ing John Turner as his communications alists, who comprise roughly a third of called me to task. “I hired you to get director in 1987. [email protected]

POLICY OPTIONS 111 DECEMBER 2003 – JANUARY 2004