University of Alberta

Canadian Political Memoir: The Burgeoning Years

by

Jennifer Kearns Bell

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in English

Department of English and Film Studies

©Jennifer Kearns Bell Fall 2009 Edmonton, Alberta

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•+• Canada Examining Committee

Julie Rak, Department of English and Film Studies

Cecily Devereux, Department of English and Film Studies

Linda Trimble, Department of Political Science

Susanne Luhmann, Department of Women's Studies

Linda Warley, Department of English Language and Literature, University of Waterloo Dedication

This project is dedicated to My parents, John Bell and Dian Bell And to my two favourite sisters, Meredith Bell and Devon Bell Abstract

This project analyzes the tradition of political memoir in Canada and the changing conditions of its cultural production throughout the last century. The genre's popularity indicates that political memoirs are active, public sites of political discussion. The genre's popularity also points to the importance of personal narrative in contemporary culture to contextualize public figures and public life. As such, political memoir serves as a cultural reflection of media- centric democratic practices in electoral politics and reflects the role of the politician as both cultural celebrity and commodity in Canada.

This project examines the tradition of Prime Ministerial memoirs in

Canada, specifically those of former Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker, Lester

Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Brian Mulroney, and Jean Chretien. It examines the construction and production of these former Prime Ministers as auto/biographical subjects and historical figures through the auto/biographical practice of ghostwriting, the use of multiple medias (photography, text, and film), and through the development of the subjects as commodities and cultural celebrities in the public sphere.

Finally, this project asserts that women possess a different relationship to the practice and the genre of political memoir than men. Women's political memoirs often reflect women parliamentarians' continual struggle to negotiate their gendered identities in a changing, yet still masculinist political system.

Women's political memoirs both reflect but also complicate feminist auto/biographical theory and practices while providing a critical analysis of legislatures as gendered spaces. Acknowledgements

I am blessed to have had the support of so many people in the completion of my degree. There are too many helpful people and too many kind gestures to name here, but I carry them all with me, and am very appreciative.

I am tremendously grateful for the guidance of my supervisor, Julie Rak. Julie was the most supportive, understanding and inspiring supervisor possible. Her wealth of knowledge was always thought-provoking, and her probing questions, encouragement, and enthusiasm were always energizing and affirming.

I am also very appreciative for the work of my committee members, Cecily Devereux and Linda Trimble. Their constructive comments at different stages of my work were invaluable. Cecily was especially helpful at the final stages of editing my thesis. Very importantly, it was Linda's classes and her extensive work on women and Canadian politics that inspired me to take my political interests in an academic direction. Thank you also to my defence committee members, Susanne Luhmann of the Department of Women's Studies and Linda Warley of the University of Waterloo. Their comments were valuable, thought- provoking, and will certainly help me take my project in new directions in the future. Thank you to Liz Czach for chairing my defence.

I want to thank the Department of English and Film Studies, and the people in it, for providing support in a variety of ways over the years. I want to especially thank the administrative staff in the Department for always offering assistance, guidance, and mostly such good cheer and kindness.

Many people provided helpful advice, constructive conversations, and professional support throughout the stages of my thesis. I especially want to thank John English, Graham Duncan, Julian Martin, and Julia Dumanian for this support and friendship.

I am extremely grateful to my nurse Donna Fisher for her continual care and kindness. Her energy and faith was tireless; she never questioned that there was an alternative to completing the PhD, and I am so appreciative of all that I gained as a result. Thank you also to the University of Alberta Hospital, Dr. Richard Fedorak, Dr. Sarah Bates, Bob McQueen and his team, and to the so many people who always looked out for me and without whom this would not have been possible.

It is with a big smile that I thank my friends near and far, old and new, who always provided laughter, comfort and encouragement at various stages of this journey. I must especially thank my wonderful friends in Edmonton for creating an intellectually inspiring environment full of productive discussion and debate. But most of all, I thank them for their warmth and friendship - for the countless and endless nights of long talks and lots of laughter, for taking care of Angkor, and for always always being there for me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart - you all know how much you mean to me. A special thank you to Melissa Stephens for, amongst other things, undertaking the process of submitting this thesis for me!

I am so thankful for my extended family: Wendy Eaman, Di and John Spearn, Barb Donaldson and Dave Roloefson, Hugh and DeDe Thompson, Robbie and Deb Nash, the Leicesters, and all of their families. Their love and generosity of spirit has been so important in supporting me throughout this process.

I want to thank my grandparents, Dorothy and the late Kenneth Thompson, and Mary Grace and the late Mackenzie Bell. My grandfather Ken Thompson would have been especially proud to see the completion of this thesis and his memory certainly was an inspiration.

Most importantly, I need to thank my immediate family, beginning with my two favourite sisters, Meredith and Devon Bell. They are my best friends, who make my universe complete. Their liveliness and beauty of spirit engulf me with love and their accomplishments make me so proud. Most of all, their laughter is my own. I thank them, so much, for their constant support and for never letting me be alone.

And finally, my parents, John and Dian Bell. Each of them provided inspiration and support on a daily basis. They taught me to love both books and politics which ultimately is the base of this thesis. They also taught me, by example, the pleasure and necessity of good friends and laughter, as well as the necessity of hard work and perserverence, all of which ultimately got me through this thesis. They are tremendous role models. Their unconditional love, support, faith, and encouragement is beyond measure and I cannot ever thank them enough.

It has given me great satisfaction to undertake this project rooted in Canadian politics and life writing. The memoirs made me wince, laugh, and cheer: after all, I am a partisan. It has been a real pleasure to have read about the political history of our country, as well as the many individuals who have contributed so greatly and proudly to its development. The memoirs are a constant reminder to me that despite the cynicism that sometimes surrounds politics and public life, we are extremely fortunate in Canada, and as Canadians.

So finally, a huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to this thesis, and who has been with me on this journey. I appreciate it. Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: The Genre of Political Memoir 31

Chapter 2: Prime Ministerial Memoirs 98

Chapter 3: Women's Political Memoir 182

Conclusion 274

Works Cited 287 Introduction

"Political memoirs, with few exceptions, are self-serving. Canadian ones are usually dull" (Simpson C30). Columnist Jeffrey Simpson, in a 1996 review of former Prime Minister Kim Campbell's memoir, effectively summarized much of the criticism of Canadian political memoir. But only a decade later, while political memoirs are still often self-serving, the state of the genre in Canada is anything but dull. In the fall of 2007, the much-anticipated duelling memoirs of former Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien burst onto the political landscape. Together, they offered insider gossip and competing partisan reconstructions of history, for sale. Months before the memoirs were released, rumours circulated as to their content, and the media built up anticipation for an expectant public. As one columnist eagerly wondered, "Will they be out to settle scores? Will they gloss over controversies or peel away the layers to expose truths and consequences? Will they be reflective? Defensive? Honest? Will they break news?" (Greenaway, "Chretien" A5). While perhaps only political junkies were losing sleep over these questions, the books certainly did make news, both in their content and in their constant promotion. Excerpts in newspapers, television programs on the authors, and publicity tours all helped promote the competing memoirs in the weeks and months before and after their release. Old political, partisan rivalries were now being fought on the publishing landscape, and the media and the public enthusiastically consumed the insider accounts and public attacks. Chretien voraciously attacked his successor, Paul Martin, and Mulroney lambasted Pierre Trudeau and Lucien Bouchard. The media attention paid to the

1 memoirs reinforced the fact that Canadian politics had been governed for many years by dominant, polarizing personalities who still loomed large in the Canadian consciousness, as well as the fact that politics, as a personal and competitive sport, was relevant and interesting to the Canadian public. Furthermore, it highlighted the role of memoir as an important site for political discussion and debate. Thus while individual political memoirs might be considered dull, the genre of political memoir is certainly exciting and relevant in Canada today.

What has changed in the seventy-five years since Prime Minister Robert

Laird Borden wrote his careful and detailed, but, by many accounts, dry and impersonal memoirs? This project analyzes the tradition of political memoir in

Canada and the changing conditions of its cultural production. As a genre, the reputation of political memoir, undoubtedly, precedes itself. In its current form, it usually promises juicy insider information about government process and tell-all gossipy revelations about politicians. As a result, the genre is somewhat suspect by academic standards: its self-serving and subjective nature taints the politician's explanation of history. Furthermore, the writing itself, the literary aspect of the memoir, is usually dismissed as plodding or rambling. Still, the genre is popular in Canada, and thus the complexity and appeal of the political memoir lies in these critical suspicions. Political memoir crosses disciplinary boundaries of history, political science, literature, and sociology and there are layers of motives, tasks, rationales, and varying degrees of political and literary accomplishment which inform the genre. Why do the politicians write? Justification, instruction, vindication, self-congratulation, and revenge are just some of the motivations 2 behind the production of political memoir, and all of these layers add to its intricacy as a genre. Despite its detractors, political memoir can be a useful comment on Canadian culture, history, and political life.

While the political memoir is a long-established genre, Canadian political memoir only began flourishing as a genre in the mid-twentieth century. Previous to this, relatively few Canadian politicians had recorded their experiences in memoirs. This limited tradition of political memoir is lamented by some politicians, for example Arthur Meighen and Paul Martin Sr., as well as historians, who insinuate that our understanding of history could only be richer and more complex with greater resources, however flawed. As Andrew Cohen writes, "the loss is ours whenever a public figure of any stature declines to write a memoir" ("Canada's leaders" A14). Even presently, while the number of politicians writing their accounts is constantly increasing and political memoir is enjoying a boom, some believe that the numbers are still "surprisingly small"

(Granatstein, "Political" n.p.), especially compared to the tradition of political memoir in the United States and Great Britain. Critics of different disciplines are divided on whether there is too much, or too little Canadian political memoir, which at times relates to divided opinions on the utility and quality of political

1 Meighen introduces Borden's memoirs as "an example," and writes that they distinguish Borden from other Canadian public men who have failed to record their lives (vii). Paul Martin Sr. writes in his memoirs that: "Some of the greatest Canadian public figures of my lifetime have scarcely revealed themselves or been revealed...This reserve is a pity. Despite all that is written and said, I believe that a public life is an honourable life" (x).

3 memoir. Shirley Neuman, in contrast, writes in her chapter "Life Writing" in the

Literary History of Canada, that "the temptation of life-writing proves irresistible to politicians" (352), suggesting that there are far too many political memoirs that dominate the genre of life writing. Whichever opinion one subscribes to, it is undeniable that there has been a proliferation of political memoir in the last half- century, and even more so in the last decade.

Meighen, in his introduction to Borden's memoirs, suggested that the

Canadian readership and market in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was too limited for a large production of political memoir (vii). It was with the politicians of Prime Minister Pearson's government that political memoirs began their slow increase. One explanation of this trend was that technological advances, such as the taped interview and a ready availability of ghostwriters, made writing and publishing memoirs much easier (Granatstein, "Political" n.p.).

Canadian historiographical practices in the mid-twentieth century were also shifting to embrace a more biographical approach to history. This approach emphasized the role of the individual in history and it is thus unsurprising that this shift coincides with the rise of political memoir in Canada. Even when this biographical approach began to wane or be questioned, shifting notions of political communication, with the focus on the politician as celebrity, have continued to keep the genre alive and popular for publishers, politicians, and readers. These factors will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 1.

Furthermore, the increased popularity of political memoir is part of an increased interest in memoir itself in the late twentieth century. Memoirs have been 4 described as "blossoming" (Rak, "Introduction" 2) in the field of autobiography, and George Fetherling indicates that his anthology of Canadian memoirs is in direct response to the "booming" field (vii). There are a variety of explanations for this. Fetherling suggests that memoirs are receiving an increasing number of book prizes, which gives the field more attention, and, in turn, promotes the publication of more memoirs (vii). Julie Rak explains that the emerging popularity of memoirs is in part due to the fact that they have expanded beyond literary studies to cyberculture, ethnography, sociology, and history

("Introduction" 2). Non-literary forms of memoir have helped to promote a

"culture of confession" (Gilmore, Limits 2) which in turn gives attention and value to the stories and lives of individuals, again, increasing the interest in memoir (Rak, "Introduction" 2).

Returning to specifically political memoir, Rak also notes that the memoirs of celebrities and political memoirs sell well ("Introduction" 2), which naturally encourages publishers to publish and politicians to write. The memoirs of eminent politicians have a tradition of popularity within Canada: in 1969-1970 former cabinet minister Judy LaMarsh's Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage was a favourite title on the Quill & Quire bestseller list (Dyer 461). In October 1975, the memoirs of former Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson,

One Canada and Mike respectively, were simultaneously on Canadian bestseller lists (Munro 247). Jean Chretien's first memoir, Straight From the Heart, published in 1984, quickly sold 150,000 copies, and stayed on bestseller lists for months (Chretien, Straight ix). Mulroney and Chretien's 2007 memoirs 5 remained on the bestseller list into 2008 thanks to continual promotion and media

attention.

It is important to note, however, that bestseller status in Canada, from the mid-century on, has become increasingly difficult to measure, as Dyer, Saint-

Jacques, and Martin note, in part because of the "proliferation of designations and

the absence of reliable data" (461). Furthermore, I do not want to exaggerate the

genre's popularity: not all political memoirs are bestsellers. For example, when

Margaret Conrad approached Ellen Fairclough, Canada's first female cabinet

minister about writing her biography, Fairclough already had a memoir

manuscript prepared that had been turned down by two Toronto publishers. One

editor told her that "we could not find anyone who ever heard of you" (Conrad

vii). Many political memoirs of former politicians who lack contemporary name

recognition also go out of print and are therefore not highly accessible. Despite

this, it is safe to assume that in a burgeoning field of political memoir, market

forces play a role: most political memoirs sell reasonably well as commercial

publishers would not take the publishing risk if they did not. With the right

amount of name recognition and intrigue attached to the author's signature, the

Canadian public clearly has an appetite for the genre. This project will examine

the current popularity of the political memoir, in one respect, as a result of a

shifting trend to the politics of personality. The texts are popular because, while historical and political, they are also entertaining and highly readable.

Furthermore, they connect to a fascination and preoccupation with the inside

stories of public figures, as well as one's own relationship to public figures. Most 6 readers have lived in a time in which the author made decisions or led a party that may have affected them individually or as a citizen. As the back cover of

Mulroney's book immodestly states: "The boy from Baie-Comeau changed your life - now his life, frankly recounted in this extraordinary book, deserves a place in your home."

While perhaps implicit in terms of the genre's reputation, I want to clarify that by "political," I am referring to the organized electoral system in Canada.

This study is engaged with memoirs written specifically by politicians who are elected officials within Canada's House of Commons and provincial legislatures.

1 do want to note, however, that clearly this system possesses layers of political activity: memoirs by figures engaged in these structures, both working within, or even against the system, can certainly be considered political. There are a number of memoirs by political operatives, or "backroom boys," whose stories can be exciting, revealing, or explanatory also. For example, Keith Davey, Derek

Burney, Eddie Goodman, Dalton Camp, and most recently, Eddie Goldenberg and

Hugh Segal have all written memoirs. While the name recognition for these figures may not garner the public's attention or sell as many books as those of the politicians they served, these tomes are still compelling for a certain part of the population, and still reveal inside information about party and government strategy, practices and people. Chretien, in My Years as Prime Minister, even refers the reader to Goldenberg's and James Bartleman's memoirs in order to

2 Keith Davey and Eddie Goldenberg are longtime Liberal Party strategists. Derek Burney, Eddie

Goodman, Dalton Camp, and Hugh Segal are longtime Progressive Conservative Party strategists.

7 receive a fuller picture of his time in office (7). Additionally, many figures

connected to government have written popular memoirs; for example, former

Governors General Adrienne Clarkson and Vincent Massey. Canadian diplomats

such as Charles Ritchie, Alan Gotlieb, and James Bartleman have also produced

successful memoirs or diaries. Political journalists have written memoirs which

could also be considered political, for example Peter C. Newman's Here Be

Dragons, and so have political activists such as Maude Barlow and Kay

Macpherson. Wives of Canadian politicians, for example Maureen McTeer, who ran for office herself, and Margaret Trudeau have also written memoirs. While this study engages with many of these works, it focuses on the writing of elected politicians. This is because elected politicians have a different relationship with both the media and the public than unelected political figures. Because of politicians' elected accountability and public recognition, they more often employ the memoir to advance their cultural celebrity and employ the memoir as another

form of campaign literature - even if it is a campaign for their legacy.

It is important to recognize that while these politicians represent a select

and influential group of Canadians, they are not a homogeneous group. They represent different political parties, different regions of the country, different

levels of government, different genders, and possess varying ideologies, to name but a few of their differences. Their memoirs could potentially be grouped together for analysis under any of these divisions. But it is also true that the memoirs reflect, on the whole, an elite and influential group of individuals who have gained and possess recognized political power. Because many minority 8 groups are not sufficiently reflected in the Parliament of Canada, we do not yet possess political memoirs from all of these varying perspectives. The political memoirs being examined are individually subjective, but also collectively

subjective in terms of their authors' positions of relative privilege.

These obvious differences between politicians, between their memoirs, or between them and the general public, point to a larger question about the utility,

or even legitimacy, of studying these memoirs in a national context, as distinctly

Canadian political memoirs. As Rak notes, scholars from many disciplines have

troubled the idea of Canada "as a nation with an unproblematic history," and

identified nationhood as a problem that preserves some forms of injustice

("Introduction" 3). It may be, for some critics, that some of these national politicians have even been complicit in this. Furthermore, one must question

whether there can be anything distinctly Canadian about these memoirs,

especially given that the notion of Canada and nationhood can be problematized

and troubled. As Nelson Wiseman acknowledges, the notion of a Canadian

nation is highly contested (6). He writes that, "to assert the Canadian nation as

one entity is to reject the plausible dualistic and multinational conceptions of the

country that are held by many Canadians" (6). With the advent of post-colonial

theory, diaspora studies, the permeability of borders that challenge national hegemony, and globalization studies, how is the notion of "Canada" relevant?

(Rak, "Introduction" 11). For the Canadian politician, overwhelmingly, I would

suggest that Canada is relevant: as a concept, as a nation, even as an identity.

These memoirs are usually rooted in the notion that Canada is not merely a 9 physical place based on geographic borders where the memoirs are produced, but rather a country of different but collective cultures and ideals that is full of potential and opportunity and that is distinct from both the United States and

Great Britain. As Chretien writes in My Years as Prime Minister, "Canadian

federalism is more than a form of government. It's also a system of values that

allows different people in diverse communities to live and work together in harmony for the good of all" (115). While these notions may appear idealistic or romantic, most politicians do self-consciously articulate a vision for the country in

their political careers and their memoirs, and are highly invested in this belief.

This is not to suggest, however, that the politicians writing the memoirs have an untroubled view of the country. On the contrary, often they are very much engaged in the struggle of governing or creating workable strategies for a

country as large and as varied as Canada which encompasses competing histories

and identities, and whose policies might fall short of their expectations. This will be further discussed shortly. I believe, however, that it is still logical and valuable

to study these political memoirs in a national context, as on the whole, the

politician-authors are committed to working within the state apparatus and believe

in the state as a vehicle of change for their concerns. As Geoffrey Craig writes,

"the nation in many ways seems a solid and permanent collection of political

structures, institutions and culture, all confirmed through the weight of history"

(171). Political memoirs, and the politicians who write them, believe in these political structures and institutions, and are therefore constantly promoting them

in their participation within electoral politics. As Chretien articulates, "for me, as 10 for so many people I have met around the world, Canada is a shining example of tolerance, diversity, and equality of opportunity, and I have spent a lifetime working to make sure that Canadians from every region and background can be full and active partners in this magnificent country that spans a continent" (My

Years 114). This idealism articulated in some memoirs may at times appear to contrast the cynicism, the egos, the maneuvering, the backroom deals, and the games of the party system also very present in electoral politics and represented in the memoirs. These romantic views may be challenged, but they still often exist in the memoirs as hopeful and promising ideals and rhetoric for the future of

Canada and its people. For example, as John Diefenbaker wrote in his memoirs about his Canadian Bill of Rights, "my focus was on the individual betterment of

Canadians...'One Canada' stood for prejudice towards none and freedom for all.

There were to be no second-class citizens, no discrimination based on race, creed, sex, or economic station in the Canada of my dreams. 'Let us be Canadians first'....a call to a realization of our full potential as a nation of free people" (2:

32-33). And indeed, Diefenbaker won elections based on this vision and rhetoric.

This theme of bettering Canada as a country and working with the people of

Canada through the electoral system emerges and reemerges throughout the memoirs, making it relevant to study the memoirs in a national context.

Despite articulating a belief in the potential of Canadian federalism, however, many politician-authors do trouble an idealistic notion of Canada in their memoirs. Many of the memoirs reflect the fact that their politician-authors recognize that the notion of "Canada" is not simplistic and that there can be no 11 singular conception of national identity or what constitutes equal citizenship. In

the memoirs, it is regionalism and gender that most often challenge a unified or

optimistic vision of what it might mean to be Canadian. While national political parties often shy away from directly addressing regional cleavages for fear of

dividing their parties along regional lines (Wiseman 7), regionalism is a predominant characteristic of Canadian politics (Wiseman 2). This, as Wiseman

writes, "points to the ever-present challenge to political culture studies: how to

relate sub-cultures to an overall societal culture" (3). This is also a challenge for

Canadian politicians: how to represent and support both federal and regional

interests adequately. In terms of regionalism, for example, three of the Prime

Ministerial memoirs are written by federal politicians from Quebec: Trudeau,

Chretien, and Mulroney. All three had very different ideas and initiatives about how better to incorporate Quebec, and Quebeckers, into federalism. They all

spend a great deal of time in their memoirs, as they did in their political careers,

discussing referendum struggles and federal-provincial constitutional

negotiations, and, of course, criticizing each other's management of these issues.

But they all fervently believed in this cause and their memoirs recount their

struggles in this area. In terms of western Canada, for example, Preston Manning,

the founder of the Reform Party, writes in his memoir, Think Big, that western

secession was not at the root of the Reform movement, but that those in the

Reform movement did not feel comfortable with the country as it was. As he said,

" 'the West wants in' - not out" (29). Later he explains that the Canadian

Alliance was predicated upon the purpose to "bring into being a better Canada" 12 (364). Of course, how to build a "better" Canada is often an ideological or partisan endeavor in which there is no consensus; while Manning was popular in western Canada, his party never achieved national success.

In terms of studying these memoirs in a national context, the regionalism of Quebec sovereigntists represents the greatest complexities. While many politicians struggle with federal-provincial relationships in representing their provinces, they are still theoretically working for Canada; whereas the politicians of the Bloc Quebecois (Bloc) and Parti Quebecois (PQ) are sometimes working not just for Quebec, but against Canada which is reflected in their memoirs. Rene

Levesque, former Premier of Quebec, for example, recounts in his Memoirs how he left his position as Member of the National Assembly for the Quebec Liberal

Party in order to form the PQ that would advocate for a sovereign Quebec. He saw it as "below [Quebecers] dignity" to continue to struggle within federal- provincial negotiations that always ended, in his opinion, in failure. Quebec's independence from the rest of Canada thus became his political goal (224). I am not engaging with these memoirs directly; however, they can still be very valuable in comprehending twenty and twenty-first century Canadian politics, as the history of Canada is very much about the history of Quebec in Canada.3 As

Lucien Bouchard, a former Mulroney cabinet minister who then founded the

Bloc, writes in his memoirs, On the Record, his purpose is to explain and describe

3 Furthermore, while in 2006, Quebec was named a distinct nation, the province of Quebec is still clearly part of Canada. The Bloc held 50 seats in the 39th Parliament, and was even the official

Opposition from 1993 to 1997. The PQ has also held power within Quebec.

13 his route. He believes it may provide readers with a "better understanding" of

"the way Quebec society moves" (ix).

It is, tellingly, in the memoirs of more left-leaning politicians, for example

David Lewis and Rosemary Brown, that social issues most often contribute to multiple understandings of Canadian citizenship. Rosemary Brown writes in her memoir that she built her campaign for leader of the federal New Democratic

Party (NDP) on the ideals of "socialism, feminism, the preservation and development of our natural resources, the protection of the environment and for the rights of all workers and people" (161). Through participating in the party system at the highest level, she appears to represent the most traditional form of enacting and promoting nationhood through the parliamentary system. But her narrative, as do others, challenges a cohesive, equal, or even optimistic vision of this nation and this system. Brown's memoir includes her personal tribulations, and she challenges legislation and social norms about gender, racism, and poverty, all of which can complicate a simplistic reading of Canada. Brown was frustrated and disillusioned as a Member of the Legislative Assembly within the

British Columbia government, but she was still committed to the federal NDP as both a social movement and an electoral machine in order to work towards change on a community and national level. Furthermore, political memoirs written by aboriginal politicians could contribute to multiple methods of reading and understanding Canada, and possibly challenge familiar narratives of nation. The

14 fact that there have been relatively few aboriginal politicians elected to Canadian legislatures is reflected within the genre of political memoir.

Rak suggests that "the 'need' for identity, and the subsequent need for biography and autobiography, is like the need for a nation to anchor itself in the fiction of continuous time against the ruptures and social dislocation of modernity itself, and to construct for itself an origin in serial time which gestures toward the future" ("Introduction" 12). Canadian political memoir appears to be very caught up in this process, at times promoting this fictitious sense of national identity, but simultaneously self-conscious about its impossibility, even while striving towards it. Leigh Gilmore writes that "the cultural work performed in the name of autobiography profoundly concerns representations of citizenship and the nation.

Autobiography's investment in the representative person allies it to the project of lending substance to the national fantasy of belonging" {Limits 12). Together then, these memoirs are engaged in a process of constructing, for readers, the individual's role in national citizenship and belonging: what it might or could mean to be a citizen of Canada as well as how the authors have negotiated their role as active and participating citizens. While certainly it is falsely idealistic to say that politicians in their memoirs are creating or advancing a national identity or identities, they are making readers aware of what national leaders and institutions are doing to promote their particular ideological positions. As Craig suggests, it is important to remember that the concept of "nation" itself is a

4 While James Bartleman, an aboriginal diplomat and former Ontario Lieutenant Governor has written multiple memoirs, as he is not an elected official, they are not included in this study.

15 mediated phenomena (178). Political memoir can be seen as an example of this, even if the politician-authors are offering different formations of it, or embody potentially different values. As David Bell writes,

Autobiographies shed light not only on cognitive beliefs and

values, but also on life experiences that reflect how important

those values are for behaviour.. .By studying the behaviour of

individuals, or the collective behaviour of institutions (i.e., their

adoption of various policies), skillful students of political culture

can excavate latent assumptions about politics and thus create a

picture of the political culture of both the present and the past.

(283)

Political culture, in turn, simply defined, is "the way of life of a political community or polity" (Wiseman 13).5 Canadian political memoir thus reflects

Canadian political culture, but it also serves to promote a certain political culture.

Again, however, there are cleavages and sub-cleavages with Canadian political culture, and these politician-authors are thus both promoting Canadian political culture as well as their personal, party, or regional interests, thus reflecting both the individual and collective interests with which many Canadians

5 A more specific definition of political culture is that it "consists of the ideas, assumptions, values, and beliefs that condition political action. It affects the ways we use politics, the kinds of social problems we address, and the solutions we attempt. Political culture serves as a filter or lens through which political actors view the world; it influences how they see the role of the state, and what importance they assign to politics and government" (Bell 275).

16 struggle. These interests are often competing against each other, as are the individual politicians and their interpretations of events. They offer multiple constructions of national identity and nationhood, and perhaps cast doubt on previously held versions. As political memoir can make an important contribution to our understanding of public policy, political events and individuals, as well as to Canadian history, it can then offer an important process to understanding the individual's relationship to political culture, both for the author and for the reader as citizen. Gilmore suggests that every autobiography is the "fragment of a theory," but also "an assembly of theories of the self and self- representation; of personal identity and one's relation to a family, a region, a nation; and of citizenship and a politics of representativeness (and exclusion)"

{Limits 12). The task of autobiography is thus to discover how these selves are situated in relation to each other. Gilmore sees this interface of singular and shareable as an issue of political representation, with the autobiographical self being cut off from others, even as it stands for them, as a metaphor for the citizen

{Limits 12). As such, the politician-author, even if supporting the larger concept of Canadian citizenship or national identity, may still be speaking from a certain position that may contest a dominant view of culture or history. Rosemary

Brown, as I noted, documented in Being Brown her often negative experiences with negotiating her gender and race within Canadian culture and electoral politics. As such, political memoirs can participate in exploring notions of nationality and citizenship. As Susanna Egan and Gabriele Helms write,

17 "auto/biographical practices offer a productive angle on questions of national identities," in part, because they complicate easy assumptions about nation (16).

Despite the troubled nature of nation in Canada, it is also relevant to study these political memoirs in a national context for economic reasons: the material conditions of Canadian political memoirs are that they are published in Canada, and their market, for the most part, are Canadian readers. These memoirs, accordingly, reflect a political culture in which the citizen as reader and voter also plays the part of a consumer. It is also relevant that these political memoirs are rooted in Canada, in terms of the fact that Canada, as a democratic society, places value on the existence of the individual as well as on freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. The revealing and contentious memoirs that some Canadian politicians have produced, especially those which might be critical of the government and other politicians, would not be possible in more restricted societies. Nigel Hamilton, in Biography, argues that life writing is the ultimate triumph of freedom. The biographers' attempt to interpret and reinterpret lives, never accepting a "single definitive account" is a better method of understanding those lives, and is in opposition to the manufacturing of propaganda in a dictatorship. He believes that "such freedom, which extends to the millions of individuals who read and view biographical work, is as much a measure of democratic reality as parliamentary government" (283). Hamilton has been accused of being somewhat "naive" to suggest that the public's appetite for life- writing is all about democracy and demystification (Menand 64); however, it is true that the free market of ideas and books and the opportunity for alternative 18 readings of history is certainly crucial, and has allowed political memoir in

Canada to thrive. Carl Berger writes that biography at a certain point "became a vehicle for reasserting the ability of men to make their own history" (220). This is also true of political memoir as individual authors place themselves in the pre­ eminent roles of the creator and narrator of personal and national history. In this respect, the memoir celebrates liberal individualism in its ability for men, or women, to create both their own personal and national narratives and constructions of history. Furthermore, in the process, the authors are inviting readers, as Canadian citizens, into this historical process and political world that often appears inaccessible. As Mulroney writes describing the process of the

Meech Lake Accord, "This is, as far as it can be reconstructed, history in the raw, and you are at the table" (771). Reading political memoirs thus becomes a form of engaging in active citizenship as the books both individually and as a collective explore multiple histories and constructions of Canada and its people.

There would certainly be value in an international comparative study of political memoir, for example, in analyzing different traditions between Canada and its closest neighbour, the United States, or Canada and Great Britain. Both countries have much longer traditions of political memoir than does Canada.

While this project touches on these traditions, it focuses on Canada as a ground for analysis in order to place the memoirs as part of a national tradition or autobiographical project, and for what they reveal about Canadian culture and

Canadian history. I am also choosing not to do an international comparison as

Canada possesses different political cultures and publishing markets than both the 19 United States and Britain, although this could be a valuable study. To give a brief example of this, although I suggest that Canada does possess a contemporary political culture focused on the politics of personality, the politician is still not a celebrity to the same extent as in the United States. There is greater focus on the individual politician in America, in part because of the long, drawn-out primary system of selecting presidential nominees and the media attention that accompanies it, and because of the notion of the President himself representing the state. The Parliamentary system in Canada discourages this reading. Because the Presidency "imposes a dignity on its former occupants," Cohen suggests that

American Presidents, after leaving office, rarely write "sulphurous" memoirs

("Symposium" D19). Because of this stature, however, the demand and market for Presidential memoirs is high. Cohen has written that in the United States, unlike in Canada, the political memoir is an institution. Presidents since the

1920s have usually written their memoirs quickly, within three years of leaving office. It is a lucrative market, especially in the age of political celebrity, but given the haste of their production, and their careful reverence for the office of the

President, their stories tend to tell little and they are cautious, "colourless" and

"innocuous" (Cohen, "Canada's leaders" A14).6 Conversely, Canadian political memoirs, and Prime Ministerial memoirs, tend to be more biting and

6 Journalist Mark Steyn, for one, laments this. As he writes, "mesmerizing figures, all too human, flawed but fascinating, they pick up their pen - or Dictaphone - and a truly audacious life turns to sludge. No politician lived more audaciously than Bill Clinton, and none could have written a wilder memoir. But My Life reduces him to Joe Clark with a bigger advance" (64).

20 controversial. Cohen writes that Canada has "a less civil political culture." As he writes, "our party leaders clash in Parliament and in election campaigns, and they come to dislike each other. In retirement, their smouldering animosities play out in print." Their memoirs are hence often "flights of finger-pointing and score- settling" ("Symposium" D19). The United States certainly possesses its share of scandalous memoirs that capitalize on the public's taste for indiscretion and inside gossip, but it is generally not befitting of a President.

It might appear ironic that Canadian political narratives at times challenge popular conceptions of "Canadian" values, not just in content, or interpretation of events, but in this biting tone. Susanna Egan and Gabriele Helms write that

Canadian auto/biography "provides the full range of auto/biographical production as it exists elsewhere, but for the most part it presents itself in a more hesitant, subdued way, possibly suspicious of its public role or the risks of narcissistic self- absorption" (14). This, in one respect, upholds the stereotype of Canada as a polite, inoffensive country. But Canadian political memoir, especially in the last decade, has been anything but subdued. Politicians eagerly claim the public spotlight and self-absorbed role through their memoirs. Furthermore, they can be vindictive and vengeful. As Mulroney stated to Peter Newman, long before he wrote his own memoirs, "there is nothing like the revenge of a prime minister writing his own memoirs" (Johnson, "Brian, Brian, Brian" D4). When Mulroney

7 For example, James McGreevey, former Governor of New Jersey, wrote a memoir entitled The

Confession about his secret sexuality and subsequent resignation from office. His former wife,

Dina Matos McGreevey, responded with a memoir of her own entitled Silent Partner.

21 did write his memoirs, they did exercise revenge against some of his former adversaries, but they simultaneously asked for gratitude and vindication.

In order to analyze the tradition of political memoir in Canada, I have divided this project into three chapters. As noted, political memoir has often been dismissed by academic critics. Chapter One will examine this critical dismissal as a result of various cultural values. It will interrogate the historical influence and significance of these notions and suggest that they should not preclude the genre from critical analysis. As political memoir is interdisciplinary and is a genre that crosses traditional generic boundaries, Part 1 will examine this critical dismissal from the perspective of the fields of History and Political Science, and Part 2 will examine it from a literary perspective. Part 1 will begin by giving a brief history of the tradition of political memoir, and then analyze its reception within

Canadian historiography, especially with its relationship to other forms of political life-writing such as the political biography. This is relevant because the numbers of political memoirs in Canada began rising at the same time as a biographic approach to historical analysis became more acceptable. Still, political memoir, as an academic source, is generally treated with suspicion and skepticism within Canadian historiography and political science. Its subjective nature and potential unreliability have provided it with its questionable reputation, as well as its often gossipy revelations. It is often considered too concerned with the individual's narrative of his or her life story in a partisan, biased manner, and not attentive enough to more objective historical facts and details.

22 In Part 2,1 will discuss how the political memoir is overlooked or disparaged in literary studies as being too caught up in these historical facts and figures, and not focused enough on individual self-analysis or the quality of the writing. These dismissals are related, however, because they both appear to be connected to the motive of political memoir, and its association with the self- promotion of the public figure in the public sphere. As Historian J.L. Granatstein writes in his entry on Political Autobiography in the Canadian Encyclopedia,

"Most Canadian political autobiographies are little more than ephemera, written for self-serving purposes or to promote a cause. The few that are reflective and relatively honest.. .stand out like beacons on a wasteland" (n.p). This appears to be the most common criticism of the political memoir from all disciplines, and therefore Part 2 examines the tradition of the public figure and his or her reputation for artificiality based on his constant image management. It will examine how this tradition and reputation affect the critical reception of political memoir, as memoir can be viewed as just another form of this self-promotion, while ironically purporting to reveal an inside account of the public man. As

Shirley Neuman writes, "the reader of Canadian political autobiography who has already run the rapids of egocentrism and self-pleading must still face the shoals of tedium" ("Life Writing" 358). These criticisms, associated with political memoir's connection to the public man and the public sphere are also connected to the generic distinctions and critical analysis between memoir and auto/biography. Auto/biography is traditionally the more privileged of the two, relegating memoir to a secondary status because of its circumstances of 23 production and the commercial marketplace: these 'distrusted' public men are selling their books as a product and hence themselves. Their identities have thus been commoditized, even more so than in their status as politician. While this is not necessarily negative, and is certainly changing, traditional autobiographical criticism has deemed it as such, and political memoir still, for many, falls into a model of communication that sells in an age of political celebrity, rather than as a form of literature. I will thus analyze these conditions, and examine the role that political memoir plays in a political culture where the media operates as a powerful tool of democracy and the distinctions between electoral politics and entertainment are blurred for popular public consumption. This is important because while the memoirs are often critically dismissed, they are popular with the reading public. This adds to the cultural significance of political memoirs, because, as Dyer, Saint-Jacques, and Martin note, "although they are books, their status as 'bestsellers' is socially constituted, and they provide valuable insights into the social and cultural dynamics of reading as a real-world activity" (459).

Furthermore, understanding this popularity and the genre is critical to our knowledge of the shifting nature of political communication and strategy, as well as how this is informed by the relationship between popular celebrity, consumer culture, the media and the construction of identity in memoir. It is important because our national structures, leaders, governments and citizens simultaneously reinforce and are complicit in this cultural shift to a politics of personality. For its part, political memoir, while it can be an informative and entertaining read, also operates on multiple levels to support and encourage this cultural shift. As 24 Egan and Helms argue, "the role and function of auto/biographical genres

are... closely connected to our understanding of the times and places in which we live" (9). This is especially true of political memoir. In short, while the genre possesses weaknesses, it is still a valuable tool in understanding Canadian history, politics, culture, and political identity.

Chapter 2 will examine the tradition of Prime Ministerial memoirs in

Canada and analyze these memoirs as active sites of political discussions and

cultural reflections of the role of the politician and electoral politics in Canada. In this process, I will engage with the circumstances of the production of the memoirs, as well as reviews and popular opinions of the memoirs. I will analyze

Lester B. Pearson's Mike and John Diefenbaker's One Canada in conjunction with each other, as duelling memoirs by duelling politicians. Because both sets of memoirs possessed one of the same ghostwriters, John A. Munro, I will

specifically examine these texts in terms of the practice of ghostwriting within political memoir, and how this affects the memoir and the subject in these particular texts. The illusion of authenticity in collaborative autobiography rests

on notions of Philippe Lejeune's autobiographical pact, in which a contract exists between reader and author. There is a willingness on the part of the reader to believe in the author's intentions and accept a fusion between the author, the subject and the model, and let the autobiographical signature preserve the notion of authenticity. Collaboration in autobiography, however, Lejeune writes, breaks down the unity of the traditional autobiographical subject, and reveals the multiplicities of the subject instead (187). I will argue, however, that the presence 25 of ghostwriters in One Canada actually functions to unify and create the subject

of John Diefenbaker, while the overt acknowledgements of ghostwriting in Mike

serves to fragment the subject. Subsequent to this, I will examine Pierre Elliott

Trudeau's Memoirs, which were produced both as a book and a filmed mini-series

on the CBC. Here, I will pay special attention to the construction and

presentation of the autobiographical subject through the different medias

employed, focusing on photography and film. I will examine how the

photographs of Trudeau as father and athlete portray a carefully constructed

image of Trudeau for public consumption, specifically in reference to notions of

hegemonic masculinity. I will examine how the televised memoirs capitalize on

the performance of the politician and portray a perceived intimacy with the

subject that differs from the more distant written text. Finally, I will examine

Brian Mulroney's Memoirs and Jean Chretien's My Years as Prime Minister,

again, as duelling memoirs by duelling politicians, but also in terms of the

unprecedented media attention and affirmation of the politician as cultural

celebrity in Canada.

Chapter 3 will examine the practice of women's political memoir in

Canada. I have chosen to separate women's and men's political memoir in this

study as women's political memoirs often record the challenges, successes and

daily experiences of women parliamentarians operating as both insiders and

outsiders within party politics and the electoral system. Women's political memoirs, for the most part, reflect women parliamentarians' continual struggle to negotiate their gendered identities in a changing, yet still masculinist political 26 system. Male politicians in their political memoirs, for the most part, provide an un-theorized and uncritical acceptance of masculine norms in the political system.

Political memoirs thus operate differently for women in certain respects, as they provide them with additional opportunities to change public discourse and

examine cultural and historical moments and practices. Critical analysis of

legislatures as gendered spaces is an area of political culture which women politicians have embraced in their memoirs, yet male politicians have generally

ignored. Just as women politicians must negotiate their gendered identity within

the parliamentary system, they also must negotiate their identities as gendered

practitioners of the genre of memoir, specifically political memoir, which is

traditionally a male-oriented domain. This is significant, as feminist theories of

women in politics intertwine with feminist theories of life writing. Both address a

struggle for women in participating in these male-dominated practices, but offer

opportunities for women to distinguish themselves and potentially change these

male-dominated practices. Furthermore, they both engage with the notion of

"difference," whether men and women can or do practice politics and life writing

in distinct ways. I will argue that women do possess a different relationship to the

genre of political memoir than men, as often their experiences as women

parliamentarians are reflected in their books, and their memoirs provide an

opportunity for them to publicly discuss their challenges. This is not to suggest,

however, that women parliamentarians can be homogenized: while they do not

necessarily share interests, I would argue that based on their memoirs, they do

share perspective and often share common experiences which shape and inform 27 their texts, regardless of their ideological or partisan differences. While not all of these authors would consider themselves feminists (although most of them do), in showing the historical and material conditions of women's perspective and experience in Canada's legislatures they speak to the continual advancement of women within Canadian society. Therefore, althouh not all of the memoirs are necessarily part of a feminist project, they still reveal issues of relevance for understanding and hopefully improving the inclusiveness of the gendered political system. Specifically, I will examine some of these issues revealed in women's political memoir: for example, their individual and collective notions of fulfilling a mandate of difference in terms of their legislative approaches, leadership styles, and policy agendas. Other issues that I will examine in the memoirs will be the double standards often present for women in politics, women parliamentarians' relationship with each other, and the challenges of combining motherhood and electoral politics. To explore these issues, the memoirs with which I will engage are, in order of publication, Nellie McClung's Clearing in the West (1935) and

The Stream Runs Fast (1945), Judy LaMarsh' s Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded

Cage (1970), Therese Casgrain's A Woman in a Man's World (1972), Rosemary

Brown's Being Brown: A Very Public Life (1989), Audrey McLaughlin's A

Woman's Place (1992), Sharon Carstairs's Not One of the Boys (1993), Ellen

Fairclough's Saturday's Child (1995), Kim Campbell's Time and Chance (1996),

Pat Carney's Trade Secrets (2002), Sheila Copps's Nobody's Baby (1986) and

Worth Fighting For (2004), and Deborah Grey's Never Retreat, Never Explain,

28 Never Apologize: My Life, My Politics (2004). I have chosen to include Kim

Campbell in this section, and not in the previous section on the memoirs of former

Prime Ministers, as I believe that her memoirs offer the most value in the context of a gendered analysis, and as juxtaposed with other women's political memoirs.

As a group, these memoirs contrast the self-aggrandizing pattern of elected men's political memoirs, as does Campbell's, and I believe that her text thus fits most appropriately within this category.

Sir Robert Laird Borden once wrote lightheartedly to a fictional editor that "one who has filled a certain place in public affairs...feels impelled, from time to time, to lift up his voice in the press or otherwise." "In your vast museum," he continued,

there is a marvelous collection of systems, beliefs, thoughts,

theories, creeds, hopes, fears, methods and many other things that

have been abandoned or cast away and which doubtless you have

classified as 'interesting souvenirs of humanity' s attempts toward

higher endeavour.' What an amazing collection you must possess!

81 have chosen not to include Martha Black's My Ninety Years (1976) (first published as My

Seventy Years in 1938), because while she briefly served as the Member of Parliament for Yukon, her memoir does not discuss this period of her life at great length.

9 After Borden's retirement from public life, he wrote Letters to Limbo, a series of letters written to a fictional newspaper editor, "Limbo." The letters were a collection of his thoughts and opinions pertaining to public and current affairs from 1933 to 1937 (Borden, Letters v). This is a time period not discussed in Borden's memoirs, and therefore these letters provide us with

"glimpses" of these years and of his life (Brown, Borden xi).

29 What yearnings! What unwisdom! What pathos! (Borden, Letters

1)

Borden here acknowledges a politician-author's very self-conscious project of immortalizing his thoughts and acknowledges the "yearning" of it all: the desire for humans to mark their place in history and to be remembered as striving towards excellence through actively commemorating themselves. Borden admits the "unwisdom" of this enterprise, the foolishness and self-congratulatory aspect to it, as well as its transitory nature. But while he is self-conscious about this practice, and even mocks it, he simultaneously endorses these narratives by public figures; he believes that these letters and memoirs are important for the very things that they reveal about humanity and the cultural and historical reflections that they possess. We as a country are fortunate to possess such political memoir, and therefore it is with enthusiasm that this project responds to Borden, and the many politician-authors who would follow, when he asks his fictional editor to

"make timely preparation for I shall add to the deluge that is presently descending upon you" (Borden, Letters 1).

30 Chapter 1: The Genre of Political Memoir

"Obviously, there is in Canada a great market for political hokum" (Munro

249). To dub political hokum as a synonym for political memoir might appear somewhat cynical, especially coming from John Munro, the ghostwriter for the memoirs of both former Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson.

But he was speaking here of the enormous success of each of these projects, and identifying the popularity and marketability of the modern political memoir in

Canada, even while pointing to its potentially questionable content. Still, as the

author of such "hokum," his comments are somewhat amusing, but also unsettling. The implication of his words is that political memoirs, and the politicians writing them, playfully deceive consumers and readers. Because of the promises of inside stories and political intrigue, readers are quick to consume

such hokum and hence risk falling prey to the ad-inventions of character that the politicians in question have created for themselves. Specifically, Munro warned readers of Diefenbaker's memoirs to "proceed with caution" in their reading

(244).

Even if, however, readers are conscious of the risks of the genre, as

Munro acknowledges, this doesn't interfere with the popularity of political memoirs. Over thirty years later, in an age of increased political celebrity and blurring distinctions between the public and private spheres, consumers continue to create a market for the memoirs of politicians. Academic criticism, however, at times dismisses and overlooks political memoir, often denying it the critical

examination that can inform and add to the cultural and political understanding of 31 national structures, individuals, communities, and histories. This neglect, to a certain extent, is part of a larger problem with memoir in general: Egan and

Helms write that even as publications and sales figures for memoirs soar, academic attention on the genre is still somewhat limited (3). They note that while scholars have increasingly become more focused on the poetics of the genre of memoir, more critical inquiry is necessary. This attention is crucial, they argue, not only because memoirs increasingly form a significant component of

Canadian literature, but also because "the role and function of auto/biographical genres are so closely connected to our understanding of the times and places in which we live" (Egan and Helms 3). This is especially true of political memoir, which provides an important snapshot of political and popular culture through the political structures, proceedings, and personalities of times and places. It also functions as a promotion and reflection of shifting political cultures and publishing trends in Canada. Yet political memoir is critically orphaned: often regarded as too subjective and fictional for many political scientists and historians, but not literary enough for literary studies. This chapter will examine the critical dismissal of Canadian political memoir, but will suggest that its contribution to articulations of Canadian cultural and historical studies justifies its consideration.

32 Part 1: Dismissal of the Political Memoir within History and Political

Science

The relationship between the political memoir and the historical record is often contentious for historians, biographers, and political scientists: it is at times

conflicting, at other times revelatory, and always shadowed by the circumstances

of its production. Robert Young, a biographer and historian, argues that the political memoir is "dispensable" as a historical source. He points to the

"limitations and imperfections" of the genre, that it is self-interested and unreliable. He argues that it possesses "too much distortion and special pleading," and that it is too "narrowly conceived" in its restriction to politics,

especially given the availability of many other, potentially more exploitable

sources (63). He even cynically proposes that the decideurs (in his words), the

senior politicians who voted in cabinet, are merely puppets, never understanding

what they are voting for or why. He suggests that the memoirs of the actual

decision makers, senior bureaucrats or political operators, would be far more

revealing and interesting (64). However, even as Young derides the value of the political memoir, he eventually concedes, and appears to guiltily admit what he has gleaned from them. Political memoirs offer the revelation of character he

argues, "for better or worse" (74). Some of the political memoir's perceived

weaknesses then, as forms of accurate historical documentation serve as its very

strength in the exposure of historical character and culture.

This dialogue on the potential dispensability and reliability of political memoir in terms of its value as a historical source exists within a long established 33 relationship between history and political memoir. The contemporary political memoir has developed from a long convention of political leaders seeking to memorialize themselves, a practice which precedes print literacy itself. Georg

Misch outlines and examines the tradition of political autobiography in the ancient Oriental, Greek, and Roman cultures and the genre's multi-purposes of self-glorification, historical documentation, and self-promotion. The genre, however, has evolved throughout history, and has reflected the time and culture of particular eras (Egerton 224). George Egerton writes that from the ancient

Roman period, through the Renaissance, up until the eighteenth century, the distinction between the historian and the political memoirist was blurred and indefinite. In the early eighteenth century, however, British memoirists, presented with the rise of scientific historiography and the professionalisation of history, first disposed of the pretense of historians, and considered themselves memoirists with distinct roles and functions (Egerton 228).10 Since they then felt less constrained in their narratives, they were freer to write more about the personalities of the time and included more private or insider accounts of events.

The fracture between the memoirist and the historian that Egerton observes in the eighteenth century is still present. Canadian political memoirists are not historians, nor do they claim to be. However, they are very conscious of their role as chroniclers and their power and ability to influence and even create an historical record. Mulroney and Chretien's duelling memoirs in the fall of 2007 were widely seen as a "race to define history" (Canadian Press

"Chretien").

34 While this gossipy element of the political memoir had always been somewhat present, (as Misch writes, "the public interest in anecdotes and disasters in court

history is revealed only too clearly in the Roman tradition" [205]), this

differentiation between historian and the political memoirist for Egerton marks

the definitive point of departure for modern political memoir (229). The

nineteenth century saw an increased publication and expanding readership for

political memoir, in part due to new markets as well as new printing and

distribution technologies. This trend continued into the twentieth century, as

production of the political memoir continued to expand worldwide and the rise of

non-print mass media allowed the political memoirist new opportunities and

venues for their memoirs (Egerton 231). While the genre has changed over time,

it still maintains an obvious, if debatable, place within historiography.

In order to situate the political memoir within a field of historical inquiry

in Canada, I believe it is worthwhile to first briefly examine the biographical

tradition within Canadian historiography. Political biography and political

memoir have been called "first cousins," (Bothwell, "Let Us Now" 121) and

indeed, as life-writing, they both occupy a somewhat troubled position within historical research. Furthermore, while Canada does not possess a long history of political memoirs, their increasing emergence in the mid-twentieth century

coincided with changing approaches to Canadian history and political biography.

Carl Berger, in The Writing of Canadian History, traces a brief account of political biography in Canada. He asserts that in the Victorian period, political biography was often constrained by "a mania for good taste, respectability, and 35 decorum" (218). The private life and personal character of the individual was sacrificed in accounts that commemorated rather than explained the subject, and that aimed to exemplify "character" for the "edification of the young" (Berger

218). The genre shifted, however, in that after the 1920s, political biographies became more focused on the state and were more directly tied to political and economic history. Here, the individual was often relegated to the background. As historian Donald Creighton asked, "Are there really biographies of Baldwin,

Hincks, and Laurier, or are these merely lives of Robert Responsible-Government and Francis Responsible-Government, and Wilfrid Responsible-Government?"

(Berger 218), referring to biographies of the three politicians. Tellingly, there were almost no political memoirs being produced during this period, with one exception being that of Sir Robert Borden. By the late 1930s and 1940s, however, conceptions of political biography began to change in Canada as

scholars became interested in an increasingly personal and intimate vision of the past. Donald Creighton, with his publication of biographies of John A.

MacDonald in the early 1950s, was largely acknowledged as transforming

Canadian historiography and advancing the notion of Canadian history and biography as a literary art. As Creighton wrote in 1945, "History is not made by inanimate forces and human automatons: it is made by living men and women, impelled by an endless variety of ideas and emotions, which can best be understood by that insight into character, that imaginative understanding of people which is one of the great attributes of literary art" (Berger 220). Berger views Creighton's publications as pivotal in reviving biographical historical and 36 political writing in Canada, as well as setting standards for the genre and contributing to its respectability (Berger 222). Furthermore, global and cultural circumstances also implied that biography represented a change in the way the past was conceived: as Berger writes, biography "became a vehicle for reasserting the ability of men to make their own history" in the wake of fascism and communism (220). He sees the pinnacle and dominance of the genre in historical analysis as represented by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography begun in 1966

(Berger 269).

At this time, journalists also began writing and melding Canadian history and biography in a genre that Denis Smith described as "political journalism"

("Introduction" v). Peter C. Newman's 1963 Renegade in Power, a close and brutally direct (for the time) commentary on John Diefenbaker, was a "pioneering initiative" in this field, popularizing the genre for both writers and readers.''

While Newman offered disclaimers that Renegade "does not pretend to be history" (Renegade xiv) and his chosen task, to make "facts dance" is often contentious, this book sold extremely well and introduced a meld between biography and history that gained public interest. It was within this generation of changing biographical practices and interest that Canadian prime ministers and cabinet ministers began writing memoirs.

Not all historians, however, were comfortable with this focus on biographical studies within historiography as Robert Craig Brown acknowledged

1' The book also sparked a public feud between Newman and Diefenbaker to which Diefenbaker would allude in his own memoirs.

37 in his Presidential Address to the Canadian Historical Association in 1980. While he confirmed that historians used, and needed biographies, he still emphasized that this relationship was rather uneasy (Brown, "Biography" 155). Biography, as

Brown stated, could and should "inform and enrich the study of the history of the society." But, he argued, "without a clear linkage to social history, biography is incomplete and its utility is vitiated" ("Biography" 157). Brown, furthermore, cautioned against the increasing prominence of psychology being applied to historical biography, for him a problematic development which he attributed to the field of "literary studies" ("Biography" 159). Other familiar risks of the genre that historians identified were the tendency for biographers to be partisan, and to vindicate rather than analyze their subject (Whitaker 7). Biography, then, could be important and successful, but only the right kind. "Properly conceived," political biography could be, as Whitaker wrote, an "illuminating guide to the working of politics" and "can fuse historical context with the human interest in individuals and their actions" (6). While political biography and political memoir are different genres, the same critiques are often applied to political memoir, and the genres often possess many similar benefits as well as drawbacks, along with a related tradition.

If historians had an uneasy relationship with political biography, it appears to be in part because of an uneasy relationship to the prominence or role of the individual's influence in history. Whitaker suggests that at times the genre might appear to be too influenced by the "Great man" theory of history, with its

"disregard for the social and economic forces at work around individual actors" 38 (Whitaker 7-8). Thomas Carlyle famously wrote that "The History of the World

[...] was the Biography of Great Men," (22) and posited that such "men" changed history through their divine inspiration, leadership and intellect. Carlyle's nineteenth-century theory is generally considered out-dated, and thus political life writing, which inherently celebrates and acknowledges the importance of the individual and their contribution to history, might be also. As such, biographers,

Berger wrote, were forced to become "defensive about their craft" (Berger 270), and Brown suggested that biographers, were like "eccentric cousins" or "old fashioned" in their insistence that "individuals can and do shape the historical process" ("Biography" 155). Furthermore, Brown noted a shift in trends in historiography: history was becoming more collective, in contrast to biography's focus on the individual ("Biography" 155). Moreover, Canadian historians observed that social history was becoming more localized and, as Cohen writes,

"specialized," "segmented," and "narrow" {Unfinished 84). Cohen is quick to point out that this kind of history has its place; however, he sees one of the consequences to be an academic abandonment of writing political and national history (Unfinished 84). In this trend, biographies of elite figures such as national politicians were not as prevalent.

I believe, however, that this trend is changing. This past generation has seen a proliferation of political life writing, even if some texts are more valuable to the historical record than others. One does not have to subscribe to the "Great

12 Cohen quotes Granatstein and Bliss (Unfinished 84).

39 Man" theory in order to be interested in the individual's role in history. Michael

Bliss explains this carefully in Right Honourable Men, a book where he chose to write political history through the biographical lens of Canadian prime ministers

(xiii). He explains that he uses "the careers of prime ministers as pegs on which to hang quite a bit of more general Canadian political history and a number of arguments about the thematic evolution of Canadian politics" (xiii). A reader of political memoir can potentially gain the same insight. But even as Bliss validates his biographical approach, he is careful to distance himself from Carlyle's "Great

Man Theory." He admits that this is "history from the top down," and "a study of the 'great man' in Canadian history," but is careful to say that "I am not a

Hegelian and I do not believe that political leaders, least of all prime ministers of

Canada, are personifications of the world spirit." He sees one of the central tasks of the essays being, in fact, to determine whether specific prime ministers actually changed Canadian history or made Canada a different country. But because every prime minister has been unique, and responded to new issues and changing problems in what may be a unique manner, there is still great strength in a biographical approach (xiv). As we will see, despite these similar concerns, these are some of the qualities that give strength to the political memoir.

This biographical approach appears to be gaining re-energized purpose.

Cohen lamented the "paucity" of fresh biographies on former prime ministers, with the exception of Pierre Trudeau, especially those before 1950. He suggests a possible reason for this being the lack of autobiographies by Canadian prime ministers. But Cohen acknowledges and appears encouraged in noting that this 40 tradition is changing: there are an increased number of biographies being written on prime ministers after Trudeau {Unfinished 87). This, in turn, coincides with

an increase in memoirs written by Canadian politicians and prime ministers, even if the timing of the biographies and memoirs do not always coincide exactly. The

growth of each genre, however, indicates an increased interest in political life writing, both by authors and readers, and the increasing role of personal narratives to illuminate public history. In terms of critical attention to the genres, political memoir, compared to political biography is generally under-theorized within

Canadian historiography13, but it is worth recognizing the parallels that it possesses with the Canadian biographical tradition within this field. The benefits

of, but also unease for some historians with biography as historical analysis only becomes more pronounced with political memoir.

Returning to Young's initial remarks, historians often treat the genre of political memoir as an academic source or reliable historical document with

skepticism because of its subjective and personal account of history. For these reasons, while potentially entertaining, political auto/biographies and memoirs in

Canada have been trivialized and dismissed as "unscholarly treatments"

(McKenzie 91), "intellectually suspect," even "disreputable" (Bothwell, "Let Us

Now" 121). As historian Ludmila Jordanova writes, in the polarizing relationship between objectivity and subjectivity, "subjective" possesses pejorative

13 George Egerton's Political Memoir Project at the University of British Columbia, the conference and the accompanying book, makes the most significant contribution to the field. The

focus was international, with Bothwell and Munro writing on Canada.

41 connotations. It implies "a partial, insubstantial perspective not to be trusted"

(94). Political memoirs, as subjective documents with a crafted and imposed narrative structure, at times, for some historians, come dangerously close to a literary or even fictional rendering of history. Here we see discomfort with

Creighton's emphasis on history as a literary art. George Fetherling, in his

Preface to The Vintage Book of Canadian Memoirs, states that "memoirists or other life-writers create from actual experience but allow themselves the fiction writer's freedom of rearranging and telescoping in order to make what happened worthy of being called a tale" (x). While this subjectivity is what Fetherling appears to find appealing about the memoir, and what he believes accounts for its popularity, it is precisely why some historians dismiss it. Politicians have carefully selected and prepared their narratives for public consumption, usually with an aim to construct themselves in the best possible light. Whether they write to explain or vindicate their actions, to create and preserve a legacy, or simply to tell their tale, their narration of history is potentially uncritical and clearly partial.

This 'fictional' aspect of the political memoir, however, is naturally tempered by the fact that many circumstances and events that the politician-writer describes are part of a public historical record: whether they are recorded in

Hansard, media interviews, ministerial and constituency correspondence, or election literature, to name a few possibilities. As Susan Jackel and Shirley

Neuman write, "it is generally assumed that autobiographers, having chosen to tell their life stories, may write selectively and with some dramatic colouring, but 42 will not deliberately mislead the reader as to essential facts." Of course, however, part of the allure for readers of the political memoir is the promise of inside

information, the revelation of that which is not part of an accessible public record.

It is therefore precisely this subjectivity that gives a memoir an exciting 'tell-all'

flavour and is part of its entertainment value. This gossipy and even

sensationalizing feature is alone enough to make some historians suspicious of the

contents and will be discussed in greater detail shortly. However, in terms of

factual accountability, even while autobiographers may not deliberately mislead

the reader, all choices within the book, such as organization and selection of

information, are subjective and therefore become crucial to the blurred

distinctions between truth and fiction, or more realistically, reliability and

inconsistency. It is these potential inconsistencies and distortions that cause the political memoir to be distrusted in historical circles. As Young writes, "if it is

only data we are after, [the political memoir] may be disappointing, even

dangerous" (74).

Munro, for example, speaks to what he terms the "ad-invention" of John

Diefenbaker in One Canada. Peter Newman had suggested that the success of

Diefenbaker lay in the invention of himself, and Munro proposes that it is this

"apocryphal man" that the memoirs actually describe (Munro 248). Munro,

furthermore, carefully admits that certain parts of One Canada might represent a

"departure from reality," hence his comment that a reader should "proceed with caution" (244). While it was for different reasons and under different circumstances, Pearson's memoirs too, according to Munro, were "refined" to 43 "protect the integrity" of the volume as well as Pearson himself and the Liberal

Party of Canada. Munro concluded with the statement that "ultimately, no one gains when the truth is deliberately distorted, however that is accomplished"

(250). Given these comments, it is clear why the historian might be suspicious of the material in these memoirs. However, it is also worth noting that these comments did nothing to detract from the popularity of the memoirs. Perhaps they even contributed to the books' media attention and allure.

More recently, Sheila Copps's second memoir, Worth Fighting For, has endured multiple accusations of being vengeful, bitter, and arrogant. It possesses stories and details that her critics accuse of being embellished, exaggerated, and that defy "easy belief as the honest truth" (Martin, "Revenge" Al). Copps wrote

Worth Fighting For after suffering from losing what she considered to be an unfair and rigged 2003 Federal Liberal leadership race to Paul Martin. She suffered more political humiliation at being edged out of her nomination (by these same forces) in her home riding in Hamilton. As a result, as journalist Don

Martin writes, her book "lets loose the angry howl of a wounded and scorned political animal" ("Revenge" Al). Combating her opponent through her memoir,

Copps tenaciously and stubbornly credits herself with single-handedly saving the

CBC, the Canada Health Act, and seniors' pensions from Paul Martin's budget cuts. As Don Martin continues, however, "revenge is only sweet if it's true"

("Revenge" Al). Paul Martin himself, his team, and senior bureaucrats publicly debunked the memoirs, and Copps responded in the media with frustration that the Paul Martin team was still out to discredit her. Although Copps stated that 44 "the truth is more powerful than any spin doctor," ultimately, however, as is the case with many political memoirs, Copps had to admit that she could not prove, for example, the contents of a fax that arrived at her home at midnight over a decade ago ("Facing down" A16). As Don Martin writes, it is likely that there is

"a kernel of truth wrapped in a web of high-gloss exaggeration" ("Revenge" A6).

From the historian's perspective, it is undeniable that the controversy surrounding this memoir would discredit it from a purely factual reading or perspective.

Before continuing on the place of subjectivity within Canadian historiography, a brief note should be made about the legal aspects and consequences of such subjectivity and interpretations of history within Canadian political memoir. The reputations of named individuals in political memoir are protected by Canadian defamation laws, specifically the tort of libel. Libellous comments are those that are written or published in a permanent or non-transitory form (Williams 45, McConchie 9). A libel, furthermore, is actionable without proof of the plaintiff suffering special damage as a result of the publication

(Williams 45). Even though "reputation" is a slippery concept, the law of defamation assumes that "individuals are entitled to the enjoyment of a reputation unimpaired by false and defamatory statements" (Brown, Defamation 3). The political memoirist, one believes, is thus held to certain standards of correctness, if not neutrality. As a result, readers are also theoretically somewhat protected from a tirade of accusatory and unsubstantiated claims. In non-fiction works, however, such as political memoirs, Raymond Brown maintains that a court will

"take special care" in differentiating between what would be considered 45 "legitimate" accounts of historical episodes that are controversial, and "gratuitous defamatory comments implicating innocent persons" {Defamation 51). What is somewhat surprising in Canadian political memoir, is that while these laws exist, rarely have they been employed. One reason is pre-emptive: one safeguard against this potential legal problem, and hence another form of protection for both author and reader against inaccuracies, is that publishing houses have lawyers comb the books pre-publication. Munro, for example, when discussing Volume III of One

Canada, expressed regret at what the libel lawyers mandated he remove: in his words, they "savaged" it. He was convinced he could have "escaped suit" in 90% of the cases, but went along with the changes for the ease of the publishing schedule. (Munro 252). In the only example in Canadian history of suits involving political memoir, former cabinet minister Judy LaMarsh and her publisher,

McClelland and Stewart, were required to pay $2500 worth of damages for defaming a member of the Press Gallery (Ed Murphy) in her 1969 Memoirs of a

Bird in a Gilded Cage. As the court proceedings state, however, "if Mr.

Murphy's head is left bloody it is not the only one" {Murphy v. LaMarsh 3).

Despite the numerous instances in Canadian political memoirs in which "heads are left bloody," and reputations insulted or at least confronted with potentially illegitimate versions of events, the accused rarely use the law to defend their

14 A further example in political life-writing (although not memoir), is Brian Mulroney filing suit against Peter C. Newman in 2005 over the publication of The Secret Mulroney Tapes. The suit was settled in 2006. Newman at the time was also being sued for libel by Conrad Black, for comments Newman had made about Black in his own memoir, Here Be Dragons.

46 reputation. Why not? There is the fact that just as protection of reputation is a

"fundamental democratic value," so is freedom of expression (McConchie 1).

There is also the potential that even if a remark is derogatory, it might be defensible. Possibly, many politicians have no desire to drag their name into the mud further even by defending themselves: as McConchie states, defamatory cases often pit "reputation against reputation" (5). Further to this point, the circulation and readership of the book is worth considering. Many readers of political memoir are reading with partisan or pre-conceived notions; would a court case actually be successful in changing the public's mind? It might be more demeaning to the book or author to simply not acknowledge and thereby dismiss it. Furthermore, is it worth it? Legal battles cost the defendant financially, and there are certainly other methods of battling for one's reputation as a public figure, most notably in the popular press as witnessed in the example of Paul

Martin's dismissal of Copps's memoir. The press thrives on such discrepancies and scandalous language, as do readers, a fact of which authors and publishers are aware. Furthermore, the publication of one's own memoirs, and the press that surrounds them, can also achieve this vindication.

The undoubtedly subjective nature of the political memoir, however, need not discredit it from critical analysis within history and political science. Most historical sources are subjective to some extent, and this subjectivity can often help reveal different aspects of historical and political analysis. The question of whether one can 'trust' memoirs as (historical) truth is one of the customary and familiar complications of auto/biographical studies. Historians who would not 47 accept the memoir would appear to be those whom Jenkins describes as traditional historians, who are caught up in "common sense empiricism and realist notions of representation and truth" (1). Similarly, Gamble likens some political

scientists to "detectives," searching out a 'true' account of an event. While he

acknowledges the validity of this and suggests that some memories can be proved

"plainly wrong" by scholarly research, he writes that there can be many different perceptions of the same event as reality is constructed and experienced in many different ways (142). As Jordanova states, "It is healthy to acknowledge the provisional nature of our knowledge. However, it does not then follow that the

quality of historical knowledge is unimportant, only that the concept 'truth' does not seem terribly productive" (94). Determining what actually happened, then, is

an impossible aspiration to achieve (Gamble 142). The subjective nature of the political memoir should thus not necessarily stand as a hindrance for its ability to provide one historical perspective and interpretation. Indeed, this subjectivity can be considered one of the benefits for historians and political scientists, in that one

can read various and perhaps contrasting accounts of events or policy decisions, providing the historian with a fuller account of events that relies on many sets of details. There are varying accounts, in Canadian memoirs, of crucial moments in

Canadian history. The Meech Lake Accord, Brian Mulroney's attempt in 1987 to negotiate amendments to the Constitution Act of 1982, for example, is much

48 discussed in the collection of Canadian political memoirs.15 Clearly, no two accounts are identical: most raise different points and suggest different interpretations of and perspectives on the politics and the negotiations surrounding the Accord. These varying details and accounts, however, contribute to a more well-rounded and fuller understanding of the personalities involved and the negotiations and events that transpired.

Furthermore, as Young argues, all historical sources are subjective to some extent; therefore, the political memoir should not be dismissed as a result.

Although he writes that political memoirs are "tainted sources," he does say that this is a feature they have in common with all sources the historian employs (73).

In this respect, it is useful to regard the memoir as a "historical resource" rather than a "historical discourse" (Buss, Repossessing 2). And even though, as Barnes argues, "the value of memoirs, however well documented, inevitably diminishes once the historian has access to the relevant source materials," they nonetheless

"retain some value as a guide to sources" (36). Memoirs, therefore, can be treated as another resource, to be considered in conjunction with many others. They can provide a valuable source of evidence, but obviously must be approached critically (Gamble 142). Reynolds refers to writers of political memoir as writing a first draft of history and providing an initial framework for structuring recent political history ("Official" 400). It should also be noted, however, that not all

15 For example, Lucien Bouchard, Sharon Carstairs, Pat Carney, Sheila Copps, John Crosbie, Jean

Chretien, Deb Grey, Audrey McLaughlin, Preston Manning, Brian Tobin, Pierre Trudeau, Bob

Rae, and Brian Mulroney all address the Meech Lake Accord in their memoirs.

49 political memoirs are, or should be, treated equally from a historical perspective.

Different memoirs offer very different amounts of details, verification of events, or preliminary research. Bothwell wrote, for example, of Diefenbaker's One

Canada, that it was "of slight use to students of foreign policy" ("Foreign

Relations" 77). Or, as Bliss commented on Trudeau's Memoirs, it is "very thin

stuff, a once-over-lighfiy. It's not useful for people like me, for academics and historians" ("It's a stinker" C2). However, if memoirs possess great amounts of verifiable details, Gamble argues that they can be of great assistance to political

scientists and historians studying anything from the nature of leadership to the

development of policy decisions. He uses the British memoirs of Margaret

Thatcher and John Major as examples. While some Canadian political memoirs have not been detailed to the same extent as the above, some memoirs, such as

Brian Mulroney's or Paul Martin Sr.'s are extremely well documented and cited.

Meanwhile, we see the possibility of the influence of useful memoirs in some historical works. For example, Bliss refers to memoirs in Right Honourable Men,

and gives a "reading list" in the "Sources" section that includes blunt comments

on the utility of many Canadian political memoirs for historical research. Many

of the articles in Doug Owram's Canadian History: A Reader's Guide offer this

guidance also. The potential utility and influence of well-constructed political memoirs can be seen in biographies of such politician-authors, such as in John

English's biographies of Lester Pearson. Pearson's memoirs were widely

acknowledged to be useful. After the publication of these memoirs, Peter C.

Newman grudgingly acknowledges that The Distemper of our Times, about the 50 Pearson years, should be read as a companion piece to the memoirs {Distemper xix).

The fact that political memoirs often include personal information about the subject (rather than purely public or political details) further complicates their reception in historical fields. The suspicion can exist that the subjectivity and

emotional appeals behind these personal experiences might serve as narrative

devices operating to prey upon the reader's sympathies or create entertainment value through the revelation of scandalous insider secrets and gossip. This, however, Egerton writes, is the unapologetic nature of the genre. He writes that,

"Political memoir is by nature personal; it records personal political engagement

and experience, or what has been witnessed [...] The personal linkage between the author and the past in memoir transforms the description of events, behaviour,

and circumstances into the narration of personal experience" (235). The

assumption, however, is that not just is the personal narrative voice somehow historically unreliable and suspicious, but that personal details may be irrelevant

in reference to the public individual and his or her position in history. This debate was present in political biography's place in Canadian historiography as previously discussed. The co-relative is that historical settings and events are

independent of the personal life of the subject (Neuman, "Life Writing" 360). As

such, the political memoir has the potential to be marginalized within historical

studies. This assessment, however, is not true of all historians or their work. Late nineteenth-century scholars believed a good autobiography should be

"representative" of its times, or, as Dilthey describes, "the human side of history" 51 (qtd. in Bruner 43). Social historians might actually consider the great defect of political biography to be "the omission of 'what is richest and best' in favour of the poverty of the biographical approach" (Bothwell, "Let Us Now" 122). This is relevant from various perspectives: one being the personal side of history, the other being the personal side of the historical figure. Kristina Spohr, in writing on the unification of Germany, acknowledges the pitfalls in using memoirs as source material, such as their "inherent subjectivity and one-sidedness." She argues, however, that for her study, memoirs were important and should not be easily dismissed because of what she considered the "crucial personal element" in the

German unification process. Because so much diplomacy was conducted on an informal, personal level, she found the accounts and information in the memoirs to be of vital importance, especially as these details existed outside of traditional historical documents (xx). Another aspect of the role of the personal is in respect to the figure himself. Robert Young defends his work on Barthou's bibliophilia even when others would argue that his public persona and his politics were more significant because: "First, his politics remain obscure without a knowledge of his non-political life. Second, his life would be incomplete without the politics; and it is that goal - the life diversified, complex, contradictory - which interests me" (69). This non-political life might veer too closely to Brown's concerns with political biography and the role of the individual in historiography. But despite this, there is still a role for the personal. As Brian Mulroney stated, when initially speaking to Peter Newman in the mid 1970s about the type of biography he himself wanted written about him, "I find myself so goddamn frustrated, as a 52 modest student of history, wanting to know, what was the guy really like? Did he get laid? Did he look after his family? Did he swear? Did he get drunk? It's safe to say that the only bloody Canadian prime minister who really comes across as a human being is Macdonald" (qtd. in Newman, Secret 25). At this point, many biographies of Canadian prime ministers had yet to be written, and it was

Creighton, who saw biography as a "literary art" who had accomplished in his biography of Macdonald what Mulroney wanted: a broader understanding of the individual within history. Mulroney himself expresses his willingness to subject himself to this scrutiny for the sake of the historical record. As he told Newman,

"I've always said that if I were ever lucky enough to be in that position as prime minister myself, I would not object at all to people reading about my warts and my failings. They're part of me. So as I say, I don't want a puff job" (Newman,

Secret 25). When Mulroney produced his own memoirs almost thirty years later, he was acutely aware that he was constructing history, but he does not produce the "puff job" that he railed against: he is willing to reveal his "warts and failings" as will be further discussed in Chapter 2. Furthermore, how relevant the personal is in explaining the public persona and the public's desire to gain access to this private person will be discussed in greater detail. However, in terms of historical reliability, as these comments indicate, while political memoirs should not be used as the only source, there is much for historians and political scientists to glean from them in terms of history's characters and crucial personal relationships that can often affect the development of events or policies.

53 For those who would criticize the political memoir, it is not necessarily just about reliability, however; it is also possibly about perceived notions of politics and history being "dumbed down" for mass-market appeal, as well as political or monetary gain for the author. Egerton suggests that the popularity of political memoir is in its very capacity to personalize and dramatize political and historical phenomena, a process by which academics might be suspicious and sometimes critical (Egerton 221). The political memoir's popularity, however, can be considered an exciting feature of the genre. Some Canadian historians,

(for example, Granatstein in Who Killed Canadian History? and Bliss in Right

Honourable Men) lament the decline of political and historical literacy within

Canada. Political memoir, as a popular genre, offers an opportunity to revive and reinvigorate this interest and understanding of Canadian politics and history. As

Pierre Sevigny, a minister in Diefenbaker's government, writes in his memoir,

This Game of Politics, "I will try to simplify - and even humanize - what to many will look like mysterious happenings in a far-away land, the federal capital of

Canada. Politics should, and must, be understood by one and all, if Canadians wish to appreciate to the full the advantages of living in a democracy" (xi). The power of political memoir, perhaps grandiosely, rests also in its humanizing and even democratizing effects. Cohen hypothesizes that the popularity of television shows such as "Canada: A People's History" shows that the challenge in Canada for understanding history is not necessarily demand but supply {Unfinished 91-2).

16 I am not suggesting that Granatstein necessarily views the genre this way. In fact he disparages political auto/biography in his article on the subject in the Canadian Encyclopedia.

54 Similarly, the political memoir can offer inclusiveness, accessibility, and excitement to the political and historical process. Furthermore, the memoir can also fill in gaps in Canadian history in narrating what might at times be omitted or not receive enough attention from more traditional historical records.

Chapter 1, Part 2: Dismissal of the Political Memoir within Literary Studies

While the genre of political memoir is often dismissed by political scientists and historians, it is also often marginalized in literary studies. When

Shirley Neuman stated in 1990 that, "all is not well with life-writing in Canada"

("Life Writing" 352), a subtle implication was that this was in part due to the predominance of political auto/biography and memoir within the genre.17

Neuman attacked what she deemed the "self-serving" and "self-aggrandizing"

("Life Writing" 358) nature of political memoir. These descriptions are often very true; however, they should not preclude the genre from critical analysis.

When commenting on the fact that most entries in the Dictionary of Canadian

Biography before 1900 were of politicians and civil servants, she editorialized that "we can only regret that this remains true" (357). For Neuman, it was in part because she found political memoirs "too preoccupied with the 'record' over other auto/biographical concerns," and believed that this preoccupation dominated their work. She considered this to be a "limitation" of political biography, and believed that it proved that most auto/biographers still view life-writing about

17 As noted, ironically, historians and political scientists often do not think that there are enough!

55 Canadians as primarily an historical genre. The writing, according to Neuman, is sacrificed in favour of the life and historical details ("Life Writing" 361).

Furthermore, she regrets that these historical details (which she implies are dry and uninteresting) take precedence over the personal information of the subject.

As she writes, memoirs that rely on candid anecdotes and conversations present themselves to the non-historian far more credibly ("Life Writing" 358). Of course, as displayed, this is in contradiction to the qualities on which a historian or political scientist might assess the memoir. Again, however, the issue of the credibility of the political memoir is in the forefront, this time in opposition to historical fact. Neuman appears to privilege aesthetically pleasing material and implies that readers of literature should be somewhat distrustful of historical facts and figures, as if they are working to conceal or even obscure the true person.

She states that the subtitle "A Political Biography" points to the limitations of these works when we consider biography as a literary genre. As she writes, "what many of these biographies account for is a public figure, not a man; historical events, not a life and the ways it is determined by and determinative of those events" ("Life Writing" 360). By this assessment, furthermore, Neuman diminishes not just the political biography, but also the notion of the public man and the politician in general: the implication being that a public figure is not a

"man" and historical events do not constitute a "real" life. The public man, in his memoir, is here deemed incapable of introspection.

Neuman's criticism of the political memoir thus appears to be connected to notions of the commercial, artificial performative nature of the public man, and 56 his tendency towards self-promotion, as well as drawing on traditional critiques of memoir. Suspicions about the nature of the public figure have a long history, and

in Canada are ever present. Cohen argues that public figures and public life in

Canada are often regarded with suspicion. Politicians are often considered

"venal, vapid, and vainglorious," and public life in Canada, former Prime

Minister Joe Clark stated, has been denigrated beyond anything he could have

imagined {Unfinished 233-4). Pierre Sevigny, for example, acknowledges that he

is hoping that through his memoir that he will convince Canadians that the "vast majority of [Canadian] politicians" are "not expensive parasites, but men of great

integrity, fully dedicated to the advancement of Canada and its people" (xi).

These suspicions about the integrity or performative nature of the politician as

public man have their history in the tradition of the bourgeois public sphere, and public man himself. In the late eighteenth century, many forms of printed gossip began challenging official personas of the elite (Ponce de Leon 16). This formed

the basis for Habermas' notion of the bourgeois public sphere, which was a

discursive space where private individuals could come together as a public to

express and form views: an "historically unprecedented" use of their reason

(Landes 139). By the nineteenth century, as literacy and communication

increased, so too did the public spaces and the rise of public figures within these

spaces. Having this public space influenced individuals and the methods in which

they could craft and create their public personas and identities. With the mass

circulation of the press, individuals could increase their visibility and publicity

and could become 'public figures' in a public sphere (Ponce de Leon 18). Ponce 57 de Leon argues convincingly that it was in the modernizing changes of the nineteenth century, in the spread of market exchange and economic trade, that the growth of cities created a wealth of opportunity for the self-creation of individuals

(25). While one had to earn the respect of others, one also had to self promote, and success thus rested as much on one's appearances as on one's accomplishments (27). Because this public space became increasingly influenced by commercial values, the public sphere became gradually more dominated by material and personas that were "self-promotional, sensational, or produced for a specific effect" (17). These, of course, are also descriptions often applied to the political memoir and the politicians who write them. A certain recognition and distrust emerged of the performative and artificial nature of appearances and self- presentation in the public sphere. In contrast, outside this public sphere, in private, it was believed that individuals could be "unmasked" and their "real" or

"true" selves could emerge (30). Consumers thus clamoured to know about the

"real self behind the public figure, and therefore realistic portraits in the mass circulation press were offered to expose and unmask the subject. Ponce de Leon views this as the mission that has inspired celebrity journalism since its maturation around 1900, "the illumination and exposure of the subject's 'real self" (7).

The irony of political memoir is that while it functions explicitly in the self-promotion of the individual in the public sphere, it purports to tantalize readers with the promise of the exposure of the "real selves" of the politicians, independent from the media's construction of them. It is often an attempt to re- 58 create one's public identity that, despite the cultivation, may have become tarnished, or even misunderstood along the way. Former Prime Minister Kim

Campbell notes that:

A political career, I believe, robs you of your persona. People you

have never met feel at perfect liberty to describe and explain you.

Family and friends pick up their newspapers and read descriptions

of a person bearing your name whom they don't recognize at all.

If you become really well known, every person who ever disliked

or held a grudge against you is now an eager interpreter of the

"real" you. One thing is certain, in seeking public office, you were

up to no good! (Campbell 1)

Campbell's frustration is evident here, and memoir can thus be employed as a tool

to reclaim one's public profile through exposing and unmasking the "real self."

Of course, however, these private "real" personas have been carefully constructed

for public consumption. Neuman's criticism of the political memoir thus appears

to be connected to the artificial and self-promotional notion of the public man

(and their association with the market-place). She writes that politicians possess a

"degree of self-serving" rarely matched in other auto/biographies. She describes

Joey Smallwood's / Chose Canada, as one example, as being "unremittingly self-

aggrandizing; all events appear in either a self-justificatory or self-promoting

light" ("Life Writing" 358). As such, writers of the political memoir appear to be

deemed incapable of escaping this public sphere or self-serving performance in

order to provide serious, personal, or useful reflection. 59 Such dismissal of the political memoir appears, additionally, to derive from traditional distinctions between the genres of memoir and auto/biography.

Rak describes how memoir has been treated as a "poor relative" or minor form of auto/biography. As Rak explains, auto/biography became privileged in life writing as critics attempted to prove that it was as worthy of critical consideration as the novel. They hence built a canon for it based on literary value and notions of the creativity, primacy, and uniqueness of the self that originated in

Romanticism ("Memoirs" 307). This canon included the life writing of

Augustine, Rousseau, and Beckett. Similar to fiction, in these auto/biographies, a priority is placed on the creation and development of the individual, and the aesthetics of these writings pointed to "higher truths" (Rak, "Memoirs" 308). As

Gusdorf states, "The author of an autobiography gives himself the job of narrating his own history; what he sets out to do is to reassemble the scattered elements of his individual life and to regroup them in a comprehensive sketch...[he] strains toward a complete and coherent expression of his entire destiny" (35). More recently, in The Canadian Encyclopedia, Jackel and Neuman reaffirm this definition in writing that autobiography "highlights the unfolding drama of self- knowledge and growth."

Memoirs, conversely, are often considered more concerned with circumstances external to the author's life. The memoir instead, "privileges not the author's developing self, but the individuals and historical events through which the author has passed" (Kadar, "Introduction" xii). As such, Jackel and

Neuman regard memoirs as "loosely constructed," "anecdotal" and "episodic," 60 with the "focus dispersed among the many interesting people and places the writer has known." Because of this lack of focus on the developing individual and other common features of the auto/biography, memoirs were thus traditionally linked to

"less valued aspects of life writing" in auto/biographical criticism (Rak

"Memoirs" 308). As Gusdorf writes ironically, "Memoirs admirably celebrate the penetrating insight and skill of famous men who, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, were never wrong.. .One is never better served than by oneself

(36). In his analysis, public men write memoirs for self-serving and egotistical purposes, and therefore it is their representation and reputation that is primary in their works, not their art or introspection. Gusdorf also disparages the memoir for its popularity and connection to the marketplace which still affects the critical treatment of memoir. This point will be discussed in greater detail, but these combination of factors led memoir to become, as Rak states, a "form of life writing associated with [.. .]non-professional or non-literary textual production"

("Memoirs" 306).

Critical attention to life writing then has often privileged auto/biography over memoir through rendering it more literary and artful, hence attempting to disassociate it from the often public spheres and personas of memoir. Jackel and

Neuman explain that autobiography is more apt to draw in the literary critic, "who analyses the autobiography's projection of a narrative persona, the deployment of

18 Of course, these are the opposite qualities that make a "good" political biography or memoir within historiography, where too much focus on the individual without enough concern for external events is contentious.

61 dramatic, descriptive and narrative skills, and the achievement of structure, pattern or design in the whole." Comments from other critics support this, as

George Woodcock privileges what he considers to be creative auto/biographies,

and considers ones that "extend [the] perimeter[s] of art" to be examples of the

achievement of "a luminous concentration of insight" (62). Furthermore, the first prerequisite of "a good autobiography" writes Robertson Davies, "is not that the

author should have had an interesting life, but that he should be able to write"

(Stich xi). Memoir, in contrast then, occupies a somewhat unstable place in

literary analysis, as it is this "interesting life" that is often the purpose of the book.

Memoir is a genre that floats between the public and the private, between 'auto'

and 'bio,' and between literary discourse and non-literary writing (Rak,

"Memoirs" 306). While this flexibility and elasticity, in Buss's terms, allows the

memoir to be an easy discourse to access, and allows it be open to

experimentation (Buss, Repossessing 2), the criticism, based on traditional

auto/biographical theory remains.

Political memoir is often especially rebuked for lacking the self-

reflexivity and degree of literariness privileged in autobiographical theory, as

politicians often write about external events and are better known for their

political prowess, not their literary skills. Many politicians, furthermore, as will

be discussed in Chapter Two, also use ghostwriters to help render their narratives

more artful. Jackel and Neuman write that "prime ministers occasionally write

memoirs, but seldom autobiographies." This statement implicitly suggests that

politicians are not capable of writing the more privileged autobiography. 62 However, their memoirs are then still often critically assessed based on their conformity to traditional expectations of auto/biography. As noted, however, politicians often specifically choose to write memoirs as the appropriate genre for their experiences. Woodcock also belittles autobiographies by Canadian political leaders to be generally of "scant literary merit," explaining that most of them are written by ghostwriters or academics (63). This, of course, also implies that neither ghostwriters nor academics can write 'literature.' The politicians'

"interesting life" then, the probable reason that they are writing in the first place, is rendered inconsequential. Some of Woodcock's further comments on biography and autobiography echo this notion, as he writes that they can be genres "in which amateurs, with neither art nor craftsmanship, are most likely to indulge because they think their own experiences are worth recording, or because they believe the same of other people's careers" (58). Politicians, as well as lawyers, who are the other group he employs in this argument, are reduced to being amateurs lacking writing skills. It is also implied here that it is only in their own minds that their experiences are worth recording. Clearly, however, based on the popularity of the political memoir, readers would disagree.

It is telling that Fetherling does not include any selections from political memoirs in his Vintage Book of Canadian Memoirs. In fact, Fetherling does not even consider the 'auto/biographies' of politicians or other professional public figures to be memoirs. He believes that they are too "formal" and follow "the straight conventions of non-fiction" too closely. They are also too self- promoting for Fetherling to consider them to be literature. A memoir, which 63 appears to be, for Fetherling, actually a memoir written by an author of fiction, he believes is "more tightly focused," it is "daring in construction," and "(its author hopes) more penetrating" (Fetherling vii). While, as Rak has noted, Fetherling is reversing traditional definitions of auto/biography and memoir to account for the popularity of memoir ("Memoirs" 305), the fact remains that he still considers political memoirs unworthy of the status of memoirs.

Gusdorf, Woodcock, Fetherling, and Neuman's comments about the "self- promoting" aspect of political memoir returns us to the notion of political memoir as a tool for the public man to perform his identity and craft his self-presentation.

Political memoir appears to be distrusted within literary studies much as it is within historical studies as a result of its circumstances of production: memoir often appears to be a book that a public man or woman has produced for the art of political communication, with carefully crafted messaging for political purposes.

As Gamble writes, the political memoir can be "a continuation of spinning by other means" (142). While public figures are not a homogeneous group, and neither are their political tactics or what they hope to achieve through their political memoirs, political memoir has developed a generic reputation. Even while, as public figures, politicians write for multiple reasons: whether it is to demonize former colleagues, to produce a tell-all scandal, to generate a campaign- type document, to make a political statement, or to pay tribute, sometimes, admittedly, to themselves, it is understandable that none of these motivations sounds particularly sincere, candid, or worthy of serious critical attention as the intentions of the author might verge on what might be considered propaganda 64 rather than memoir. Furthermore, the author might disguise a political statement or message as a memoir in order to take advantage of the mass market for memoir, rather than the limited market for a policy manual. Campaign literature and politicians employing memoirs during election periods will be discussed in greater detail later.

Politicians, recognizing the self-promotional reputation of the political memoir or auto/biography, at times attempt to distance themselves from it in their books, helping to solidify the dismissal of the genre of political auto/biography or memoir themselves. As Pierre Trudeau wrote in his memoirs:

I must confess that the genre of autobiographies has always

seemed to me slightly suspect. There is something self-

aggrandizing about the political leader who surrounds himself (or

herself) with teams of researchers and literary assistants, who then

produces many volumes, rife with footnotes and reference to

Cabinet papers and internal memoranda, that treat almost every

single day in office as worthy of attention in detail, (x)

He did not feel that such memoirs would be of "general interest" (x). Despite this proclaimed "self-aggrandizing" aspect to the process, with time and encouragement, his memoirs were produced, and they received great public interest. Jean Chretien writes in Straight from the Heart, "My objective has not been to write a political autobiography. I am not trying to settle any old scores or create new ones." He is instead trying to give some "perspective" on the political process in Canada while his memories are "fresh." He declares that he will be 65 honest and frank, and that his thoughts will emerge "straight from his heart" (viii- ix). This disclaimer implies that a political autobiography for Chretien, and his discernment of the public's perception of political autobiography, is that it is about revenge or self promotion: supposedly crass qualities that he seeks to avoid.

While his memoir does offer perspectives on the political process, it is clear, despite his protestations, that Chretien certainly still has some scores to settle as well as future ambitions to realize. Bothwell aptly describes Chretien's memoir as "a campaign document for struggles dreamt of, but, as yet, unfought" ("Let Us

Now" 129). This discomfort with the self-promoting angle of the term and implications of the genre of political autobiography is echoed by Audrey

McLaughlin, who states, "This book is not a conventional political autobiography, but a statement that is part personal and part political - an attempt to describe some of the events and episodes in my life that have led me here and to explain the foundations of my political philosophy" (xii). While the memoir is not a policy platform, it reveals McLaughlin and the New Democratic Party's policy directions and philosophical foundations: in short, a type of campaign document.

Furthermore, what McLaughlin has in fact described her goal to be [other then a campaign document], is a memoir: a book that is "part personal and part political" rather then an autobiography. Some politicians thus feign shying away from the

"conventional political autobiography," even as they write it, because of its association with artificial image management. It is unclear whether they would be more comfortable with the term memoir, or, how self consciously the terms are being employed. 66 But some politicians appear to employ their book's status as "political memoir," rather than autobiography, as a justification for this self-promotion. As

Kim Campbell states, her book "is not a definitive autobiography: it is a political memoir" (2), as if being associated with this genre would perhaps excuse its

potential deficiencies. This is not to say that all the motives of all politicians

writing memoirs are tainted or only about ,se//"promotion; often politicians note

that, in part, they are seeking to defend the public man and public life in general.

Paul Martin Sr., for example, writes that he was inspired and moved by the

political biographies and autobiographies that he had read, viewing them as public

testimonies of a daring nature, and reverencing the "time, perseverance and

reflection that they embody" (ix). Inspired by their example, he writes his own,

A Very Public Life, as a defence both of the notion of the public man and public

life. As he states, "Despite all that is written and said, I believe that a public life

is an honourable life. This book, for me, is a debt to the fading memories of men

who shared my vocation. I want it to set out as faithfully as I am able what we

hoped to accomplish" (x-xi). But despite these protestations or disclaimers, one

still never knows how much to believe, and the political memoir's self-serving

element and its negative connotations cannot be overlooked. Many political

memoirs, thus, do support Gusdorf s claim that public men write memoirs for

"egotistical reasons" (qtd. in Rak, "Memoirs" 312), even if they are

unintentionally egotistical. This element, however, should not necessarily

discredit the political memoir from critical attention. It is clearly still integral to

the notions of political communication, personal representation and image 67 management, as well as often highlighting the intricate personal motivations and personal relationships involved in the political process.

The public figure's political memoir, in all of its forms, rests heavily on what Goffman calls the arts of "impression management" (208). This is two-fold in that the politician as public figure has already formed his or her identity in the public sphere, but subsequently employs the political memoir to continue this process. The political memoirist then relies on his or her public status and public name recognition as a rationale for the book, as well as to sell books. The current popularity of political memoir, both for publishers to publish and consumers to buy, is furthermore connected to the larger cultural category in contemporary society of the politician as celebrity. Just as the media attempts to uncover the

'real self behind public figures, they help create an identity and persona for particular politicians, whether they be positive or negative, as well as a fascination, which in turn creates a market for their book. The book, in turn, keeps the fascination with the figure alive. As Neuman identifies, "much of the cultural and economic impetus to conventional auto/biography in our time clearly comes from media creation of culture heroes which, in its turn, produces a continuous, exploitable demand for their 'life stories'" ("Life Writing" 341). The relationship between economic impetus and culture heroes is especially important as it relates to the politician and his or her memoir, as the politician has become a cultural celebrity like never before. This can be understood through understanding a shift from politics as a marketing model with politicians as consumer goods, to a "show-business" model with politicians as cultural goods. 68 Joseph Schumpeter, in 1943, established a connection between the world of commodities and the world of politics, proposing political communication to be

a branch of commercial marketing. For Schumpeter, a politician achieved power by selling the public a desirable product (Street, "Celebrity" 87). While this model remains influential, Street argues that too much attention on the marketing model can cause the public to overlook the aesthetics of politics. More recent

studies in political packaging have revealed the crucial element of image presentation in election campaigns to winning popular support. The presentation of policy is, thus, just as significant as the policy itself (Franklin 5). This image, however, of the politician, the party, and the policy, is still clearly marketed through the mass media: to be successful, governments and politicians must become adept at employing the media to their advantage. Both earned (unpaid news coverage) and unearned (paid campaign advertising) media contribute heavily to the definition of the politician and policy to the general public. As

Franklin writes, "it is difficult to overstate the centrality of media to politicians' identity and their perception of what it means to engage with the political world"

(5). The media, for most Canadians, legitimizes and makes politicians real

(Taras 4). This media filter might often be the only method by which the public learns and becomes acquainted with politicians' identities and policies, as well as serving as an opportunity for people to engage in political thought. It thus serves not just as an important election or propaganda tool, but also as a contribution to active citizenship. As David Taras writes, "the mass media are as much a part of the democratic system as are Parliament, the Supreme Court, or provincial 69 governments" (4). The media thus offers important opportunities and benefits to politicians seeking to promote themselves and to define their identities in the public sphere. But as public figures, there are obvious risks to this effort and media strategy becomes crucial as journalists seek to uncover and expose politicians' "real" selves. As Epstein describes, "The working hypothesis almost universally shared among correspondents is that politicians are suspect, their public images probably false, their public statements, disingenuous, their moral pronouncements hypocritical, their motives self-serving, and their promises

ephemeral" (Taras 54).

It should be remembered that this emphasis on the exposing of the politician in the media is not just about unmasking the public figure, but is also a method for the media to use politicians for their own commercial advantage in a

cultural market increasingly dominated by entertainment-hungry consumers.

Taras laments the state of Canadian journalism in stating, "Politics no longer sells.

Politics has taken a back seat to celebrity news, entertainment news, business

news, sports news, and lifestyle news," in short, things that are "lite and less

filling" (33). This is then an impetus for journalists and the media to turn politics

into entertainment in order to heighten public interest in both politics and their

media outlet, thereby increasing or maintaining their consumer market and profitability. As such, Franklin acknowledges that "the emphasis on style and

image [of the politician] is partly a product of changing news values, themselves a product of the competitive and commercial pressure on broadcasters and

newspapers": the age of the soundbite (Street, Politics 57). As media outlets 70 compete between themselves, journalists seek exciting stories that will garner headlines and grab viewers. This means encouraging attention to image and aesthetics, and highlighting scandals, conflicts, and things of entertainment value

(Taras 51). In turn, political leaders must respond to this in attempting to employ the media to their advantage. They must focus on their public image and acquire the skills of political performance (Street, "Celebrity" 95). This conscious manipulation by them and their handlers of specific style and lifestyle symbols are then used to construct an ideal, responsive public (Taras 48). It is thus this reciprocal and mutual relationship between politicians and the media that allows

for, and helps advance, a shifting emphasis on aesthetics within politics.

As a result, Street suggests political communication to be a branch of show business rather than commercial marketing, where "the currency is celebrity and fame, and the products are stars and performances" ("Celebrity" 86). A direct link then exists between the world of entertainment and politics, in that politicians and celebrities both build relationships with their public based on an

embodiment of emotions, or "affective function" (Marshall in Street, "Celebrity"

91). Politicians are still commodities, but they belong to the field of cultural goods rather than consumer goods (Street, "Celebrity" 92). This detracts attention away from the 'real issues' of principle and policy and from the complexity and seriousness of political events and potentially undermines "political literacy"

(Corner, "Mediated" 80). A certain apprehension accompanies this feared demise of political literacy. Franklin, for example, exhibits concern about the implications for democracy in this demise: this process, he suggests, possesses the 71 ability to undermine both politicians and politics (Street, Politics 58; Taras 55).

However, as Street admits, this is now political reality, and both journalists and politicians must move forward from this point. As he states, "Political communication cannot be separated from popular culture.. .it is about capturing the popular imagination, about giving acts and ideas symbolic importance"

{Politics 38). The spotlight is thus focused on the aesthetics, image, dress, and charismatic traits of the politician, frequently called the politics of personality.

More positively, Street argues that the "politics of personal style" can have a democratizing effect, in that it offers popular appeal and emotional identification which can cut through the bureaucracy and institutions of politics (Corner,

"Introduction" 10). This focus on the individual politician as celebrity and on his or her aesthetics and style also serves to downplay traditional party allegiances, as voters tend to identify themselves with public individuals or celebrities who condense themes into character and style (Corner, "Introduction" 7).

Furthermore, in these performances, politicians create political capital within the public and cultural sphere (Street, "Celebrity" 95).

While it might appear almost amusing or ironic to consider the Canadian politician as a "culture hero" or celebrity, aesthetics still play a major role within

Canadian politics, and politicians must adapt to this media-driven and telegraphic market. Pierre Trudeau's popular appeal, especially in the height of

Trudeaumania, is the obvious example. The irony is that for all his public exposure, however, he still attempted to be very private. Peter Newman suggests that Mulroney was only too keenly aware of the public lens, and he wrote that 72 (one of) Mulroney's greatest flaws was that he believed political life to be one big photo-op ("The Real" 26). More recently, Belinda Stronach, as a young, wealthy, attractive woman parliamentarian suffers from near obsessive media interrogation, and yet she is still adept at remaining as private as possible, as well as at taking advantage of this attention to promote her causes when necessary. In this age of political celebrity and international celebrity diplomacy, Paul Martin attempted to use Bono, the lead singer of the popular band U2, as his celebrity factor in increasing his own visibility for a different target audience, and promoting his vision for African relief. Their meetings were highly publicized, and Bono spoke at the 2003 Liberal convention (where Martin was elected leader, and Prime Minister).1 What might appear as a Canadian antithesis to this age of political celebrity is that in 2008 both the current Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Leader of the Opposition Stephane Dion are by all accounts policy-driven and studious, more comfortable with briefing books than in the public eye. But while they themselves might have initially resisted the image-management expected of a media-friendly leader, the press, and therefore the public, did not. For example, when Stephen Harper was in Mexico at a trilateral summit in 2006 with the

Presidents of Mexico and the United States, an inordinate amount of media space was spent on his choice of clothing: a safari-style vest which the press found

19 The relationship soured when Martin refused to endorse Bono's 0.7% target of gross national income figure for Official Development Assistance (Cooper 47).

20 Harper and his government were initially in continual battle with the press over access: Harper preferred his caucus to be tightly controlled in terms of media accessibility.

73 comical. Furthermore, the press has been very interested in the size of his

waistline. In turn, a politician's effective communication strategy must include

finding the right balance between being camera savvy in an age of the politics of personality and still appearing to be a dignified statesman. Harper has since

appeared on the Rick Mercer Report, and his love of hockey, and his young

children have been attempts at promoting human interest stories rather than

policy. Even if then, Harper or Dion are not traditionally celebrity types, they

must adapt to the role. For example, after losing three by-elections in September

2007, Dion pledged to "get personal" with voters. As he stated, "People have to

see what inspires me, because they want to know me. That's normal. You want

to know the prime minister a lot more than you know the ministers, because the

prime minister has responsibilities and an important impact on our daily lives, and

I have not really played that role. Now I am going to play it more often"

(Hamilton, "Dion" Al). This statement confirmed Dion's new-found complicity

in allowing the press and voters to break down previous barriers between his

private and public life, but also emphasized his performance as a politician. He

will attempt to play the role the public now expects.

21 For example, Leah McLaren wrote in The Globe and Mail, "I don't mean to be cranky, but

you're testing my sartorial patience. First there was the hair issue (ongoing), then the series of

mock turtlenecks that mad you look like an assistant golf pro at Club Link, then the Lone ranger

getup at the Stampede, and now this! Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, you show up

for an official visit wearing a fishing vest and clashing bottoms" (A4).

74 If politicians are participating in popular culture both as performers and as

commodities, there are implications in this for contemporary political memoir.

Furthermore, there are parallels between the process of the representation of

identity in politics and in memoir, amplifying the effects and importance of the

constructed identity in political memoir. Political memoirists, who are politicians

first, and writers second, take advantage of the heightened age of political

celebrity and the popularity of the genre of memoir, using the cultural capital that

their names accrue to increase their status and visibility further, to sell books and

to distribute their message. The political memoir thus becomes another form of mediation, political performance, and image construction, with both economic

and cultural benefit for the politician. Chretien's first memoir, Straight From the

Heart, effectively amalgamates these purposes. He admitted the economic

impetus behind the writing of the book as he explained, "One day Anna

Porter...came to me and said, 'Mr. Chretien, there's a market for you, you should

write a book.' I replied, 'Madame, I will never write a book'... She said, 'You

have to write a book.'" This back and forth continued, until finally, Chretien

summarized, "She wrote a cheque. I wrote a book"(xii). Chretien's memoir, however, written in 1984 after losing the Liberal Party leadership race to John

Turner, effectively constructs and circulates the identity he hopes readers (voters)

will eventually buy as he prepares for his next leadership run. This example

demonstrates the direct relationship between the manufacturing and construction

of identity for material as well as cultural gain for politicians. In political

memoir, then, politicians encourage a manufacturing of identity that is directly 75 linked to the packaging of both the politician and the product as a popular, marketable genre, resulting in the commodification of both identity and the memoir. Indeed, Chretien's memoir went on to sell over 150,000 copies in just a few months, and remained atop the Maclean's Bestseller List for months

(Chretien, Straight ix). And, whether related or not, he did go on to win the next

Liberal Leadership Convention.

Political memoir clearly benefits the politician in an age of political

celebrity, but also serves as an economic opportunity for publishers. While certainly not every political memoir will make the best-seller list, often if a publisher can capitalize on the politician's celebrity factor, and time the book's release to take advantage of this, there is a chance of success. As Derek Weiler,

editor of Quill and Quire, states in a Globe and Mail article concerning the popularity of Bill Clinton's memoirs, "Typically, memoirs feature on publishers'

lists as a way to exploit existing brand-name recognition, and to feed the appetites

of a public for whom celebrity voyeurism has become an accepted cultural pastime" (qtd. in Caldwell R14). Here, consumers too are complicit in reifying the notion of politician, his identity, and his memoir as commodity. Lejeune writes that what defines autobiography for the reader is "above all a contract of

identity that is sealed by the proper name" (19). This "proper name" or signature

identifies the author then not as a person, but as "a person who writes and publishes" (11). He is simultaneously a "socially responsible real person" as well

76 as the "producer of a discourse" (11). The reader's reliance on the author's name and hence legally verified status calls attention to the notion of the reader as a consumer and emphasizes the autobiography as a product (Rak,

"Production" 154). With the stress here on autobiography as a product, rather than as a literary art form, Rak writes that the popularity of the memoir form suits mass marketing precisely because it is not dependent on literary merit as a major criterion. Rak writes that memoir can be thought of as "a commodity rather than as a work of art" ("Production" 154), and given this close relationship between popular celebrity culture, and the marketing of the politician as commodity, this is certainly true of political memoir. While The Secret Mulroney Tapes is a blend of political life writing, and not a memoir, in its original and intended form as political biography, Mulroney promised Newman a "gold mine." As he rambled:

Your book is going to be such a bestseller because it's a colourful,

astonishing story.. .It's absolutely unbelievable. The publishers

don't have to worry about whether this thing is going to sell. The

only question they're going to have to wonder about is whether

they've got enough paper in the forest to print the fucking books.

That's all they have to worry about. I'll tell you this, if there ain't

a good book in this, there's not a good book in Canadian history.

(Secret 49)

Lejeune's autobiographical pact will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2.

77 This combination of the identity of the politician and his book being sold as sensationalized product serves as another reason why literary critics dismiss and overlook political memoir. For example, Neuman acknowledges but appears frustrated with the fact that "sensational," "self-serving," and "non-literary" texts have publishers, are marketable and are often more popular than canonized literature. Such life accounts, of which political memoirs are a part, are not just published on literary merits. As Neuman states, "What gets written and published, and the reception - if any - it gets: these are determined by the literary and cultural institutions in which we find ourselves" ("Life Writing" 341). Here we see continued suspicion about Gusdorf s connection of memoir to the marketplace (Rak, "Memoirs" 315), and the previous criticisms noted about the non-literariness, or non-artfulness of political memoir re-emerge. Political memoir would then appear to be the exact opposite of the Romantic ideal of autobiography as a method of avoiding the artificial public sphere, and instead, all about the self-promotion of the public figure in a public and commercial realm.

Memoirs then are not necessarily required to be as artful or literary and these are not necessarily the expectations of the audience. Rak suggests that readers of memoir read "for the specific connection between the private and the public which memoir provides" (Rak, "Production" 151). For political memoir, this is certainly true. Readers seek to unmask or reveal the "true" self behind the

23 Former American President Dwight Eisenhower purportedly responded, when criticized as being "less than eloquent," that if "good writing was necessary for good leading, the country ought to turn to Hemingway" (Gelderman ix).

78 public figure, seeking revelatory personal details that explain, shock, and humanize. Because of this fascination of the consuming public for the political figure's private details, one must be constantly aware of the devices the politician and publisher use to capitalize on this. In political memoir, this functions on multiple levels: there is the personal background or intimate details that also might explain character and humanize politicians; there is the personal interpretation of events and people which explains, justifies, but also gossips and reveals inside information; but there are also the personal attacks and exposures of scandals and secrets, at times injurious, and often meant to be incendiary. I will analyze each case individually later on. Political memoir, like celebrity journalism, often attempts to capture this personal information of whichever variety, using and promoting the excitement associated with a particular individual in order to sell books. There are obviously different degrees of

'celebrity' or even name recognition for politicians. There are many unknown backbenchers or even quiet cabinet ministers, but usually, however, these are not the ones writing memoirs. Weiler states that for a memoir to make the best-seller list, the author has to be just the right combination of household name, but not so well-known that readers think that they have heard it all before. Politicians must capitalize on their public recognition and connect it to a private, revealing, more intimate realm. As Weiler states, "Certainly you want the feeling that there is stuff in here that hasn't been revealed before - which they're really playing up with Sheila Copps, I think.. .If there is one secret, I think that probably it's that this is what you won't have heard before" (qtd. in Caldwell R14). Indeed, the 79 speculation surrounding the contents of Copps' memoir began before it was released in bookstores and publishers marketed it as telling "surprising secrets" about the "real Paul Martin" (back cover). While some readers might have approached this with a certain amount of cynicism, it still served to generate intrigue about the memoir, even if it was to see just how far Copps might go. The cover also informs the reader that her heart will be "laid bare," ultimately blending and connecting the personal and the political, indicating a candor that promised to be "outspoken, uncompromising, [and] controversial": in short, exciting, if not entirely convincing. The memoir reads as such, with Copps sharing intimate details about public political procedures, but also sharing previously somewhat private accounts of her experiences, for example her struggles with breastfeeding while in office.

The strategy for politicians of "going personal" in their memoirs is part of an increasing political trend in the age of political celebrity. As Corner states,

"the private sphere of politicians is now more than ever being used as a resource in the manufacture of political identity and in its repair following misadventure.

Such use attempts to engage 'human' more than 'political' values" ("Mediated"

76). Corner is not speaking specifically about political memoir here, but the co- relation is evident. While there are risks associated with this use of the private, for example, the fact that it might draw attention to other undesirable details or inconsistencies that could thwart the primary objective ("Mediated" 76-80), in political memoir, currently "going personal" appears to be an effective tool in manufacturing a desired identity and gaining commercial success. While Neuman, 80 in previous comments, lamented and attacked the lack of personal information in political memoir, this does not appear to be as valid for contemporary political memoirs that seek to profit from shifting communication strategies and cultural and political norms.

To briefly interject on this point, it is important to note that some political memoirs reveal little about the politician's private life and do construct an impersonal public identity for him or her, such as the memoirs of Sir Robert Laird

Borden or Pierre Trudeau. But introspection within political memoir, or "going personal" (or not), is often an individual decision or communication strategy rather than a feature of the genre. There might be numerous reasons that politicians choose to remain discreet about various aspects of their private lives: not to purposefully mislead the reader, and not because their lives have little depth as Neuman suggests, but because they are choosing to discuss their political lives and seek to respect and protect friends or family who have chosen not to become public figures. Many politicians express this reticence in the introduction to their memoirs. As Audrey McLaughlin writes, "while I have tried to be honest about myself in these pages, I have also tried not to invade the privacy of those closest to me. I feel strongly that, while I may have chosen to enter politics, my friends and family have not" (xii). Kim Campbell repeats this sentiment in her memoirs, stating, "I have also been constrained by my desire to respect the privacy of those who of necessity figure in this story but who have not chosen to be in public life"

(ix). Another reason that politicians might not be too revealing about parliamentary affairs is that they still retain a sense of prudence and diplomacy 81 about their former colleagues, or possibly even their role in past events, and they may not have an axe to grind. Bliss finds it rather disappointing that Mitchell

Sharp, for example, "retained his sense of discretion" in Which Reminds Me: A

Memoir. Despite this, however, in Bliss's opinion, Sharp's memoir is hard to put down (347). In a similar fashion, Roy MacLaren, former federal cabinet minister and diplomat, writes in his memoir rather amusingly that, "Any who seek the sensational in these pages will, alas, be disappointed. The commonplace, the platitudinous, the pedestrian are certainly here, even in abundance, but not the sensational.. .1 suppose that I could have published a tell-all diary, but that seems to me rather bad form..." (9). Jean Chretien adds another rationale for politicians purposefully being discreet about or omitting private details: "Occasionally I chose to omit someone's name or the full details of a private conversation, because I didn't want to humiliate anyone unnecessarily or look vengeful"

(Straight x). He repeats this sentiment in his second memoir. If it is a weakness in the book, he states, it is a strength in life, especially in politics (My Years 6).

What is ironic, however, is that while all of these memoirs might be restrained in particular methods, all of these memoirs are still very revealing historically, ideologically and even personally, and contain a certain amount of gossipy insider information: or at least enough to make them interesting. Chretien, in fact, appears to do the exact opposite of what he claims: while he is indeed very closed about his family life, his memoirs are still vengeful and humiliating to others, at least for his successor, Paul Martin. The most glaring example, I believe, of an impersonal and unrevealing memoir is that of Pierre Trudeau. He explains in 82 Memoirs that "For the most part, I kept a watertight seal between my private life and my public life" (178), which is an appropriate commentary on his book also.

The mystery and glamour surrounding Trudeau means that his private life would probably be a subject of great interest to many readers. This omission did not detract from the sales of the book, however, even if consumers hoped for more.

There are, however, numerous glossy pictures of his sons. This example is a reminder in political memoir that what is revealed, or not, speaks to the persona and image that the politician wants to construct and portray for the reader. While this might detract from the readers' knowledge of politicians, it does not mean that they are incapable of introspection.

The revelation, rather than the concealment, of the personal within political memoir functions in various ways, but always, even if indirectly, capitalizes on the relationship between public and private spheres that memoirs provide as part of the politicians' narrative performance and construction of persona. One way that the personal functions is in revealing private circumstances, knowledge, or details to clarify public actions, for example, in explaining or justifying political decisions and motivations. Certainly this is what one expects of political memoir and it is usually fulfilled. Some political memoirs, however, go much further in sharing not just personal, but intimate details that are not about political motivations, but rather, Neuman's sense of introspection. The political memoir is thus used as a site of very personal statements, and becomes an opportunity to share private experiences in a wide context. These very personal, or non-political subjects in Canadian political 83 memoir appear to be off-limits for criticism. Even if revelatory, they are not considered scandalous, and remain undisputed, and untouched, even if other sections of the memoirs might be up for dispute. Former MP Sean O'Sullivan, for example, in Both My Houses, documents with emotion and introspection his decision to leave politics for the priesthood, as well as his later battle with leukemia. His book includes his dying reflections. Sharon Carstairs, former leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party, in Not One of the Boys, painfully describes her childhood suffering from sexual abuse. Ian Scott, former Ontario cabinet minister, in To Make a Difference, describes his somewhat-secret sexuality, his partner dying of AIDS, and his immense difficulty in recovering from his own stroke. These are human interest stories that make sections of each memoir unique, personal, and even heart-wrenching, as well as nonpartisan.

Another purpose to disclosing personal information in political memoir is less sympathetic, and rather more gossipy and potentially more pejorative. It is in the personal explanations and motives behind decisions, but also in the promise of the revelation of insider or private secrets, information, and perspective to which only a highly exclusive, limited number of people would have access. For example, then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson stated that former federal

Cabinet Minister Pat Carney's memoir Trade Secrets was "honest and revealing."

She continued, "It is rare that someone who is in public life reveals as much of themselves and of the process as you do, and I think your contemporaries and future historians have much to thank you for" (Carney 10). Clarkson's presence in the book, in fact, garnered much media attention: there was "confusion" over 84 reports that Carney had called Clarkson a "washerwoman" in the text, a term deemed derogatory for a Chinese-Canadian (Taber 8). Carney was describing

Clarkson's outfit and physical appearance at a Throne Speech, which, furthermore, Carney notes to be "arguably one of the dullest" and "dreary" throne speeches. Carney describes Clarkson's outfit as "almost as dumpy as the blanket she wore when she met the queen" (Carney 330) and eventually changes the

"washerwoman" reference to "dust mop," but the controversy surrounding the book and her descriptions of her colleagues forced Carney and her staff, at the launch of the book, to wear buttons that read "READ THE BOOK" (Taber A8).

Carney shares behind-the-scene accounts and candid remarks on other colleagues also, as well as policy developments such as the Free Trade Accord in which she gives a very different version from Brian Mulroney's later account in his memoirs. As Trade Secrets did reveal many of Carney's personal opinions about high-profile people, events, and organizations, her memoir had the reputation of

"trashing everybody" (Carney 10). While Carney denies this and is unapologetic for her comments in her memoir, this reputation undoubtedly served to generate excitement and publicity for the memoir. As Carney admits, the Clarkson controversy was "great for book sales. I mean this book has been on the best­ seller list" (Taber A8).24

Reviews were mixed for Carney's memoir: this will be discussed in detail later; however, while many reviewers found the book to be forthcoming and well written, they found the character attacks to be somewhat distasteful.

85 Similarly, former Deputy Prime Minister Erik Nielson in his memoir relies on personal information in order to justify and clarify his actions to the public. As he states, "I now provide [explanations] here in the hope that [supporters] might have a better understanding of the personal problems and motives that I felt compelled to take unto account in arriving at some of the critical decisions which

I had to make from time to time" (vii). Because of Nielsen's resignation from cabinet after the Sinclair Stevens scandal, this personal information functioned to publicly distribute his side of the story to a large market and to seek public revenge against some of his former colleagues, most notably Brian Mulroney.

Nielsen even provided personal "ratings" of potential cabinet ministers before the

1984 election. For the consumer, the memoir provided sensationalized, gossipy entertainment about public figures and events. Using these politicians as examples, it is interesting to follow the trajectory of politicians writing about each other in their memoirs. For example, Nielsen was less than generous towards

Carney in his memoir. Carney, however, resisted attacking him back in Trade

Secrets, but was somewhat insulting towards Mulroney. She recollects Marjorie

LeBreton, then from Mulroney's office, upon the publication of Nielsen's damning memoirs, calling to reassure her that, "The Prime Minister says you are not to worry about Nielsen. The PM says he will write his own book" (Carney

316). Of course, eventually Mulroney did write his own book. But while

Mulroney judiciously points out the good qualities of both Carney and Nielsen

(separately), on the whole, neither fares well in his account, and Carney did not avoid insult. The tactic of "going personal" in political memoir is profitable both 86 politically and commercially for politicians in an age of political celebrity where the unmasking of the politician is of the utmost curiosity to consumers. Here, it is not just the unmasking of the politician writing the memoir, but those whom he or

she is exposing. While public interest may wane for certain politicians or events

as is arguably the case with Carney or Nielsen, if they can capture their historical moment accurately, the memoir can achieve its desired effect. Furthermore, the memoir speaks to and from a particular moment in history and reflects its cultural

context.

If readers read memoirs in part for the connection between private and public spheres, nothing is more exciting in political memoir than when the revelation of the personal is used to expose sensational political scandals. What is rather ironic, or at least telling, in Canadian political memoir, is that although

consumers certainly appear to be attracted to insider accounts of personal and political scandal, Canadian political scandals might be considered not as

sensational as their American counterparts, even rather unimpressive. While

Canadians appear motivated to buy the tell-all secrets that memoir promises, it

appears often to be for a continuation of battle between personalities and parties

and the gossipy revelation of secrets. For example, Chretien's My Years as Prime

Minister gains its readership in being scandalous in itself: not because of the

scandals it reveals. Chretien breezily dismisses the fact that "Shawinigate" might be even mildly shocking or indecent: for him, it was only made news by a

87 scandal-seeking media. He dismisses the Sponsorship scandal just as easily, blaming it quickly on a few corrupt individuals, and then holds Paul Martin responsible for the public outcry in failing at public relations and damage control

(397).26 He also explains that he is only writing about his life within office, which excludes him from writing about the Gomery Inquiry. He would have liked to include his "grave concerns" about "the commission, its findings, and its ramifications," but, as the matter was still before courts at time of the book's publication, he couldn't (7). No doubt this is disappointing for some readers, but what is still important is that when he does even briefly mention the scandals, the focus and blame is on Paul Martin. He is vengeful, attacking, dismissive, and full of contempt for Martin who he accuses, in one example, of causing more

Canadian soldiers to die in Afghanistan because of his inability to make a decision. What is especially surprising about this is that Chretien would attack a fellow Liberal so viciously. Therefore, while the scandals that the book might

25 Shawinigate was the name dubbed for a scandal involving Jean Chretien's 1990s real estate transactions in his home riding of Saint Maurice. In 2001, the opposition parties accused Chretien of unethical behaviour in these transactions, and even called for his resignation until a public inquiry was held.

26 The sponsorship scandal, which Martin inherited as Prime Minister, was caused by the revelations that government funds, meant for federal advertising in Quebec, were being mishandled. Martin called a public inquiry into the affair, the Gomery Commission, a lengthy and politically damaging process for Martin and the Liberal Party. The Conservative Party seized on the sponsorship scandal, and the scandal finally contributed to the Liberal Party's losing government in the 2006 general election.

88 have addressed are not included, the battle of personality rages on, rendering the

77 memoir sensational.

This suggests that it is the scandalous personal relationships of public figures that are most interesting for readers, which in one respect confirms the popular status of memoir as a genre that crosses between the public and the private.28 One of the most exciting political scandals in recent Canadian history is the Karlheinz Schreiber affair. While brewing for years, it emerged in the spotlight like never before in the fall of 2007, implicating many Canadian politicians, most specifically Brian Mulroney. Mulroney, however, like

Chretien, is only concerned in his memoir with his time in office; therefore his battle with Schreiber and his charges occur outside the parameters of the book.

As Mulroney writes, he will address this issue "in another book, at another time"

27

In terms of the sponsorship scandal, it should be noted that Alfonso Gagliano published a memoir, Les Corridors du Pouvoir, explaining his version of events. However, it was only published in French, and is extremely difficult to find.

While clearly it is also because politicians want to disassociate themselves from any wrong doings and shift the responsibility and blame, they and their publishers are also confident that the book will sell on the basis of personalities alone, rather than on just scandalous policy decisions or mistakes.

29 In November 2007, Prime Minister Harper called an investigation into the allegations that

Mulroney had accepted cash payments totaling almost $300,000 from Schreiber, when Mulroney was still an M.P. Both Mulroney and Schreiber were called before the House of Commons Ethics

Committee. To add to the scandal, Schreiber was facing extradition to Germany for his involvement in another bribery case. 89 (1084). Reviewers of Mulroney's Memoirs expressed disappointment that this scandal was not discussed, and subsequent interrogations into the affair played on this omission. For example, the Fifth Estate aired a documentary in October 2007 entitled "The Unauthorized Chapter" about Mulroney's relationships with

Schreiber. Like Chretien then, Mulroney effectively sidesteps the biggest scandal of his career. Mulroney does, however, address personal, high profile conflicts such as the betrayal of Lucien Bouchard. He thus makes the book itself scandalous in its attacks on Bouchard as well as attacks on Mulroney's long time political adversary Pierre Trudeau. Again, as in Chretien's memoir, it is the exposure of the personal relationships between public figures that is exciting for readers. It is telling that in the weeks prior to the publication of both the

Mulroney and Chretien memoirs, in their excerpts in national newspapers, and in the media buzz surrounding each memoir, that it was these relationships that were highlighted and used to sell the books.

Political biography, like political memoir, operates in this same method in attempting to capture and employ the excitement or celebrity status of a politician in order to sell books. Barnes suggests that biography is one of the "black arts" for this reason: it is sufficient that the subject make a vivid impression on readers, not that he is "important" (39). George Woodcock, in speaking of political biographies, suggests that certain historical figures attract more attention than those who were perhaps "historically more important" because of the dramatic or enigmatic quality of their lives. As he writes, "Among twentieth-century politicians there is a similar disproportion, as in earlier generations, between the 90 attention given to the more dramatic figures and that given to the dull and worthy"

(59-60). Although Woodcock was writing before Kim Campbell emerged in

federal politics, she is a good illustration of this point. Beginning in early 1993,

when she was a candidate for leadership of PC Party, there were countless

magazine and newspaper articles devoted to the fact that she was the first woman

Prime Minister as well as the first divorcee to hold this office, as well as five

biographies devoted to unmasking her. Her memoir then, can be seen as an

attempt to respond to these biographies. Don Martin's biography of Belinda

Stronach, Belinda, published in 2006, could be considered another example of the

book being published to capitalize on the at-present market for her name. Even in

the year since it has been published, much more has been added to the Belinda

Stronach story that the book naturally omits.

The approach of a politician or biographer including revealing material or

previously unknown personal information in political memoir is significant not just as a strategy of political communication or attempt to market a product, both

of the politician and of the memoir. It demonstrates an opportunity that political

life writing provides for connecting the public and private spheres in a very public

fashion. This "making [of] the personal political or inserting the personal into the

historical" (Egan and Helms 10) shifts and erodes previous unwritten boundaries

between what is available to the consuming public about politicians as well as

government and party processes. Egan and Helms acknowledge the role of new

and mass media to "disseminat[e] and interpretf] the private voice in a public

context" (10), and political memoir, especially in an increased age of political 91 celebrity, can be seen as working in conjunction with the media in accomplishing this. This shift in what is considered acceptable public knowledge should increase the significance of political memoir both for general readers and for critical consideration in exploring identity and cultural practices. Furthermore, this shift makes the politician even more accessible to the public and promotes his or her status as a commodity for consumption which again renders it somewhat suspicious for academic critics.

The easy dismissal or evasion of political memoir in some critical analysis is multifaceted, but might, in part, be wrapped up in its generic status. While it might be popular among readers, its dismissal as an academic genre is, to some extent, tied up in this very relationship to the mass market and celebrity culture.

Furthermore, because the political memoir defies conventional expectations, stereotypes, and boundaries of genre in its combination of the disciplines of

History, Political Science, English, or Sociology, no field must fully adopt it.

But, as George Egerton states, "It is perhaps this very unconventionality and polymorphous composition which contributes most to memoir's multi-faceted popular appeal while troubling its critics" (222). Egerton proposes the term

"polygenre" to describe the complexities of the political memoir and to avoid the potential criticism or diminishment of value of political memoirs based on the problems of its generic classification. He defends the genre, or polygenre, for its endurance and adaptations throughout time and cultures, and argues that these texts have "contributed immeasurably to our knowledge and understanding of the past." He also argues that most genres are indefinite, and this should hence not 92 detract from the value of the political memoir (223). But while the political memoir continues to appeal to consumers, its consideration as a polygenre has not

appeared to entice academic critics, especially within studies of literature, who

would sooner overlook or dismiss the possibly self-promoting public figure and his or her memoir.

Egerton's new terminology for the genre of political memoir points to a broader discomfort with traditional definitions of auto/biography and memoir.

Traditional definitions of genre often focus on textual regularities and conventions

of form and content (Freedman and Medway 1). Despite the fact that the study of

genre has unfastened some of these principles, these traditional notions still

privilege canonical understandings and readings of auto/biography, as previously

discussed, with potentially damaging effects for political memoir. But the study

of political memoir in terms of how it operates within popular culture as a

construction and performance of public identity is still important. In recent

analyses of genre, as Freedman and Medway argue, the regularities of genre are

acknowledged, but the term 'genre' also connects an acknowledgment of these regularities with a "broader social and cultural understanding of language in use"

(1).

This social and cultural function of genre is helpful to a wider understanding and critical appreciation of political memoir itself, as well as how it

functions with and benefits from more open practices within the broader study of

auto/biography. Marlene Kadar, for example, proposes the term "life writing" as

a method of synthesizing and reconciling different generic conventions which 93 might uphold prescriptive analysis and hierarchical conventions about auto/biographical genres. Kadar posits that "life writing" can thus be read, appreciated, and critiqued both as literature and as historical document. She points out, however, that life writing itself should not be considered a fixed genre, but rather as fluid. Kadar also suggests that "life writing can consequently not just tell a life but also examine an attitude toward autobiographical practices"

("Life Writing" 662). Envisioning life writing as an "attitude toward [... ] practices" opens the genre, and the study of the genre to situate the production of identity and performance of identity within a larger framework. This opening of generic conventions within life writing helps allow the political memoir to escape the previous criticisms from literary and historical disciplines, and lets it be studied as a cultural reflection of the construction and production of identity in a mass-marketed form.

A further example of shifting terminology and understandings within auto/biography studies that is helpful for the analysis of political memoir is the employment of a slash in the term auto/biography. Egan and Helms explain that the slash suggests "the broad continuum of life writing discourses that range from writing about the self (auto) to writing about another (biography)" (6-7). The slash, furthermore, acknowledges creative and original ways of approaching the genres and blending them. As there has been a proliferation of auto/biography in all media, as Egan and Helms discuss, this term can then incorporate non literary forms, for example multi-media or family histories, and it can more aptly describe the process of the representation of self and how the personal narrative acts "as a 94 lens onto history and the contemporary world" (5). As a result of this growing tendency to view the study of auto/biography as a set of discourses about identity and representation, or as a set of cultural practices in Canada, the genres of life writing become far more inclusive of various forms of representations of self. In turn, these non-literary methods through which to study diverse auto/biographical practices change auto/biography studies, making it more receptive to, and helping us critically examine non-literary forms (Rak, Auto/biography 9). This method of analysis is especially important for the political memoir, and helps redeem it for critical analysis. The traditional critiques of political memoir, for example, as displayed by Gusdorf, Neuman, and Misch, whether valid or not, can be considered in conjunction with the political memoir's broader reflections and manifestations of political and popular culture and identity construction within a specific time in Canadian history.

It is for similar reasons that sociologist Patricia Cormack advocates the importance of the political memoir for critical attention as a popular narrative and potential site of sociological thought (356). She expands on sociologist C.

Wright Mills's theory of "The Sociological Imagination" (1959), which according to Mills, "enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society" (Cormack 355). This is because, as Cormack describes, history and biography can't just be grasped (as facts): they are imaginative, narrative practices. This "general imaginative orientation" characterizes contemporary life, therefore constitutes sociological thinking (356). Academics, she believes, should thus promote biographical and historiographical narratives 95 because they enact collective identities. Cormack examines Rosemary Brown's memoir Being Brown in this critical framework: she applies Mills' recommendation, but expands on it by formulating autobiography as narrative; as she sees it, it is the "attempt on the part of an individual to lend order and meaning to experiences and conditions by producing a life-story" (356). As she sees auto/biography as the practice of constructing identity and subjectivity, she writes that it is important for sociologists to accept popular texts because they

"practice an age-old form of social enactment. They are narrative engagements with the already narrative world they study" (367). She admits, however, that memoirs are not frequently used for sociological analysis, and indeed hers remains the sole analysis of political memoir. This approach, however, is valuable to a critical understanding of political memoir.

This is not to say, however, that there is no place for "the typological approach" to genre in understanding how the genre of auto/biography or political memoir functions in culture, for both its creators and its consumers. Duff argues that while there appears to be a rejection of the concept of genre in literary studies, there is an increasing use and validation of genre in popular and contemporary culture. As such, he argues for a "redefined and democratized" notion of genre, seeing it as an enabling rather than disabling device (2). There can be, for example, implicit benefits for politicians using the genre of political memoir, because of the expectations associated with it. As Todorov writes, "it is because genres exist as an institution that they function as 'horizons of expectation' for readers and as 'modes of writing' for authors" (199). Because of 96 these expectations, politicians might use the genre of political memoir as an opportunity for commercial, cultural, and political rather than critical success.

Functioning in an age of political celebrity and political commodity, as well as the popularity of memoir and political memoir, politicians can employ the genre and the expectations of it, tell-all scandal and personal details to sell themselves and their message, and increase their profiles (and bank accounts). The connection of memoir to the marketplace and the production of identity is thus promoted. Even while authors insist on the uniqueness and autonomy of their work, they also want to exploit the resources and the power of the genre (Duff 16). Furthermore, because genres communicate indirectly with the society to which they belong, and

"bring to light the constitutive features of the society" (Todorov 200), this commercial success of the genre of political memoir in turn contributes to and reifies the role of politician as celebrity and commodity.

Despite the often self-serving nature of the genre, political memoir should not be disregarded as a subject for critical analysis. Understanding why it is overlooked contributes to our understanding of auto/biographical and genre studies. From this point, accepting its interdisciplinary benefits, we can study the relationship that it has with popular Canadian political culture, how it operates as a commodity within this culture, as well as what it reveals about public identities.

97 Chapter 2: Prime Ministerial Memoirs

This country desperately needs a self-help group for former prime

ministers - a safe, private, professionally supervised place where

they can work through their anger, make peace with the past and

move on to comfortable retirement, golfing and sitting on

corporate boards. Instead, they rattle across the contemporary

political landscape like ghosts dragging chains, stirring up old

animosities with arsenic-laced autobiographies. (Riley, "Chretien"

A14)

It is Brian Mulroney and Jean Chretien specifically who rattled across the political landscape in the fall of 2007, each politician simultaneously rekindling old animosities with their memoirs. Their respective texts certainly upheld the reputation of contemporary Canadian political memoirs as a site to settle scores, confront old foes, and replay aging partisan rivalries. This potentially scandalous and exciting aspect of the duelling memoirs captured media interest and public attention before and after their publications, making the genre of political memoir an important site of public discussion and debate. The memoirs of former Prime Ministers are important for this reason in that they possess the ability to popularize political history and increase the contemporary and cultural

30 While Mulroney and Chretien never actually ran against each other for Prime Minister in a general election, they, and their respective Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties, were still fierce competitors.

98 •J 1 relevance of Canadian politicians. Furthermore, they help reveal how the politician performs in popular and political culture. Moreover, moving beyond the potentially self-serving and legacy-building element of political memoir, it is ultimately valuable for Canadians when former Prime Ministers do write their memoirs. As Brian Mulroney stated, having been elected to the highest office in the country, he had an "astonishing story" (Newman, Secret 49) to tell with which

Canadians would be fascinated. I would suggest that all Prime Ministers have important and remarkable stories to tell that can also make substantial contributions to our understanding of the political process, governmental

' Not all of the memoirs produced by former Prime Ministers are as acerbic as reputation would suggest, but the animosities that are sometimes revealed in the memoirs may be indicative of a larger trend. Andrew Cohen suggests that Canadians, for the most part, vilify former Prime

Ministers and do not adequately value their public service or expertise (Unfinished 233). Again, as discussed in Chapter 1, the general public's subtle distrust of a self-serving politician constructed for the public sphere lingers, despite the service that each Prime Minister has attempted to provide to the country. Cohen thus writes that "if former prime ministers do not treat each other well, it may be because Canadians don't treat them well, either" (Unfinished 233). The exception would be in Canadians honouring the deaths (if not the legacies) of Prime Ministers: thousands of Canadians paid tribute to Pearson at his state funeral in December 1972, watched

Diefenbaker's funeral train roll across the Prairies in 1979, and arrived in Montreal to honour

Pierre Elliott Trudeau at his funeral in 2000. This appreciation, however, is not as prevalent in their lives. Following this argument, the former prime ministers in their memoirs then may be lashing out against not just their opponents, but also to an unappreciative public even it is constructed in a far more positive light, such as legacy building or self-justification.

99 decisions, and personalities that continue to shape the contemporary country and political landscape.

This chapter will examine the Prime Ministerial memoirs of the late twentieth century in terms of how they operate within the genre of political memoir: it will focus on specific practices of the genre and the political memoirs' function in contemporary Canadian culture. I will examine John Diefenbaker's

One Canada and Lester Pearson's Mike as duelling memoirs, but also specifically in reference to the practice of ghostwriting within political memoir. After a gap of sixteen years in the publication of prime ministerial memoirs, Pierre Elliott

Trudeau's Memoirs were both published and filmed. I will examine each with special attention to the notion of the politician as popular celebrity, as well as how different media employed, specifically photography and film, contribute to the presentation of self and the genre of political memoir. The chapter will conclude by examining Mulroney's Memoirs and Chretien's My Years as Prime Minister as duelling memoirs with unprecedented media attention, which highlights the role of the politician in popular culture but also emphasizes the opportunity for the genre of political memoir to be a rich site for public discussion.33

Before beginning, I want to make a brief note on the Prime Ministerial memoirs not written, or missing from the collection we possess. As previously

321 have discussed in Chapter 1 the positive and negative aspects of this biographical approach to history, as well as the role of political memoir in historiography.

331 am not including Kim Campbell's memoir, Time and Chance, in this analysis as it will be discussed in the next chapter.

100 discussed, Canada has a limited tradition of Prime Ministerial political memoir.

In the twentieth-century, Wilfrid Laurier, Arthur Meighen, Mackenzie King, R.B.

Bennett, and Louis St. Laurent did not write memoirs: the practice only became popularized with Diefenbaker and Pearson. Until this point, only former Prime

Ministers Sir Charles Tupper and Sir Robert Laird Borden had written memoirs.

Sir Charles Tupper's Recollections of Sixty Years in Canada is usually omitted from discussions of political memoir in Canada. The memoir is very issue oriented: the author does not introduce himself as a subject and his focus is on policies and proceedings, to the point where a reader might forget his presence altogether. This quality differentiates it from more contemporary political memoirs, as does the fact that it rarely makes personal remarks.34 Sir Robert

Laird Borden's His Memoirs, published in 1938, while more reflective and personal than Tupper's, are still considered "dry as dust" (Granatstein,

"Political"), and "wooden" in that they reveal "little of Borden himself (English,

"National Politics" 25). Mackenzie King intended to write memoirs based on the extensive diaries that he kept, and even set up a small research enterprise for this purpose; however, he died before this could be accomplished (Bothwell, "Let Us

Now" 122).35 Paul Martin Jr.'s memoirs, Come Hell or High Water: My Life in

Granatstein, in The Canadian Encyclopedia, describes Tupper's memoir as "anodyne".

35 The diaries he kept, however, were praised as being "literally, among the great ones of our time"

(Granatstein, "Political") and "instantly recognized as one of the more remarkable political

101 and Out of Politics, were released in October 2008 , and at this point, we can only speculate as to whether Joe Clark or John Turner will write memoirs.

John Diefenbaker: One Canada and Lester B. Pearson: Mike

"From an historiographical point of view...the tenth decade of Canadian politics [is] unique. Its two protagonists remain its most influential chroniclers.

And it is they who have set the agenda for debate" (Munro 243). The two protagonists to whom Munro was referring were in fact antagonists: John

Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson. They both helped "set the agenda" during their respective years as Prime Minister, as well as when they were opposition politicians. Here, Munro suggests that they continued to do so years later in their memoirs (Munro 243). Their memoirs revive political, partisan, and ideological

documents in the Western world" (Bliss 124) because of their attention to detail and their revealing comments about King's, and his contemporaries, political and personal lives (Bliss 123).

36 Martin's memoirs will be discussed in the conclusion as they were published after the parameters of this thesis.

37 Because Mulroney's political career is naturally entwined with that of Clark, Mulroney discusses Clark frequently in Memoirs, in many different roles: as friend, leadership rival, Prime

Minister, and minister. Mulroney challenges Clark, in a friendly manner, to add to the historical record through memoir: Mulroney wants Clark to explain his strategies in proceeding with the fateful non-confidence vote in the House of Commons in 1980 that forced an election and brought down the Progressive Conservative government, as well as Clark's decision to resign his leadership when receiving a majority 66.9% of his party's vote for him as leader in 1983. As

Mulroney writes, "Perhaps Joe's memoirs will one day offer a rationale for both of these historic and damaging decisions" (212).

102 discussions and debate from their years in office, and attempt to guide a direction

for historiographical interpretation and analysis of those years. This lends historic

importance to their memoirs and highlights the protagonists' roles, in Munro's words, as "influential chroniclers" (243). The memoirs, three volumes each, were published throughout the nineteen-seventies, and competed as their authors did,

for the attention and praise of the Canadian public. Given this, it is especially

fascinating, even ironic, that John Munro was one of the ghostwriters for both sets

of memoirs. While ghostwriting is customary in political memoir, Munro's

involvement in the production of these two competing memoirs was very different

and affected the texts and subjects differently. Ultimately Munro, through his

presence in One Canada, created, shaped, and affirmed the subject and the legacy

of John Diefenbaker, whereas his presence in Mike complicated and destabilized

the subject of Lester Pearson. But ultimately, both sets of memoirs reflected

accurately the persona of their respective politicians and were immediately

successful with the general public. While the presence and intervention of a

ghostwriter is crucial in the shaping and presentation of the politician, the popular

success of the memoirs indicates that this presence is irrelevant to the reading public who accepts and believes in the projected image of the politician.

It is common practice in Canada for politicians to employ ghostwriters to help produce their memoirs. Robert Merton classifies varying degrees of "help"

that authors receive from ghostwriters: he identifies invisible ghostwriting,

institutionalized ghostwriting, and acknowledged pieces of ghostwriting as the primary categories of this "help" (qtd. in Garfield 461). Political memoirs 103 generally fit into the latter category, where the author's text is written in collaboration with a professional, or professionals, whose status as writers is acknowledged. This may occur in varying degrees - from writing, to rewriting, to editing (Garfield 461). On a practical level, Linda Riley and Stuart Brown determined in a study on the ethics of ghostwriting in speeches that audiences were often sophisticated in their recognition of the time constraints that politicians' face, and that audiences also valued the fact that ghostwriters held special qualifications and skills that politicians might not possess (Riley 717).

Ghostwriters thus ideally provide an artful narrative to politicians' life stories and policy initiatives.

Despite an audience's general understanding of the fact that often a ghostwriter exists behind a politician's text, as noted, the genre of political memoir is very popular. In an age of increased political celebrity, political skepticism, and blurring distinctions between the public and private spheres, consumers have created a thriving market for the memoirs of politicians. Political memoirs often sell based on the public's desire to unmask a renowned public figure and an increasing desire to use personal narrative as a method to explain public affairs. In political memoir, politicians capitalize on their public recognition and connect it to a more personal narrative in order to provide readers, and voters, with this desired feigned intimacy, both of themselves and of the political process. A consequence of this, as noted, is that the politician, his identity, and his memoir are advertised as a commodity. Because of this close relationship between popular celebrity culture, and the marketing of the politician 104 as commodity, political memoir can be considered a product rather than a literary art form, and the role of the ghostwriter is crucial not just to render the politician's narrative more artful, but also to render his image more marketable. Even though the ghostwriter is crucial in creating and affirming the subject of the memoir, readers are often ambivalent to the fact that memoirs are ghostwritten because of their expectations of politicians, because of a celebrity-orientated political culture driven by the politics of personality, and furthermore, because of the fact that they are unknowingly participating in an autobiographical pact.

Lejeune identifies the autobiographical pact as "a form of contract between author and reader in which the autobiographer explicitly commits himself or herself not to some impossible historical exactitude but rather to the sincere effort to come to terms with and to understand his or her own life" (Eakin ix). This pact serves to facilitate a confusion and fusion between the author, narrator, and "model" which occurs in the autobiographical signature - the name on the title page of the book (Lejeune 187). But collaborative or ghostwritten autobiography, generally acknowledged in political memoir, introduces a flaw in this contract: it isolates these roles and serves as a reminder that the "true" is itself an artifact and that the "author" is a result of the contract (Lejeune 187). In collaborative autobiography then, the fact that someone has "written" the text, does not grant he or she the status of "author": that place is generally reserved for the subject of the text, who possesses the notoriety necessary to capture the public's attention and ultimately sell the book (Eakin xvii). In this respect, Jane

Ginsburg suggests that the author's name functions like a trademark. As she 105 writes, "The author's name is in fact a term that 'identifies and distinguishes' goods or services, that allows consumers to choose among works of authorship on the basis of past experiences with other works by the same author or on the basis of the author's reputation" (2). As such, it is not the process of the work's actual creation that is important in the relationship between the author and the public, but rather its association with the author. As Ginsburg continues, "from a trademark point of view, the 'author' is the person who presents herself as such, who succeeds in persuading the public that her personality pervades the work, even if someone else wrote it" (3). As witnessed in the popularity of both

Diefenbaker's and Pearson's memoirs, the public was more than willing to accept this autobiographical contract, despite the existence of collaboration. Lejeune writes that the public is in an "ambiguous situation," always ready to suspect the authenticity of the text, but simultaneously willing to "lend itself to the games of illusion and not see through the transparent veils that cover the production of the text" in order to enjoy it (194).

But what happens to the actual subject of the memoir as a result of this collaboration? Can the illusion of authenticity still exist and be supported in the same manner as an autobiography or memoir written by the author? When a text is ghostwritten, Erica Johnson writes that the subject is found neither in the transcription of the model's life, nor in the ghostwriter's script, but in the process of "intimate exchange" between them that becomes "translated into subjectivity through a contract with the reader" ("Auto" 565). Lejeune writes that the division of labour between the collaborators breaks down the unity of the traditional 106 autobiographical subject, and reveals the multiplicities of the subject instead.

Rather than imitating the (hypothetical) unity of authentic autobiography, it emphasizes its "indirect and calculated character" (187). But of course, this is not the purpose of a ghostwritten text, and thereby complicates it even further because of the supposed invisibility of the ghostwriter who is theoretically erasing the disjunction between oral and written texts (Johnson, "Auto" 566). There is a kind of natural relationship then between ghostwriting and memoir because memoir itself also challenges the unity of self that is privileged in autobiography.

Despite the fact that Munro helped to write both Diefenbaker and

Pearson's memoirs, the subjects of each are affected differently in this ghostwriting process based on the nature of the collaboration, as well as based on the personalities of both men. I will begin by examining Diefenbaker and One

Canada. While Munro and Archer praise and defend Diefenbaker and the memoirs in the forewords to all of the volumes, as required by Diefenbaker

(Munro 252),38 Munro is later candid about his problematic working relationship

38 Munro had been briefly fired from the memoir project for refusing to write and sign a laudatory

introduction to Volume 1 which would highlight the achievements of Diefenbaker and his government. Such a document was eventually written and signed by Diefenbaker's "long-time

friends" and advisors Tommy Van Dusen and Gregor Guthrie (1: ix) and was included in the appendix. The foreword that was included, however, that was signed by Murno and Archer, was still highly congratulatory, as are the forewords of the other volumes. Munro calls them

"intellectual fluff' because Diefenbaker demanded the right to approve every word, and therefore they possess no critical edge (252). As Munro states, "when we showed him our draft, he insisted we take out a reference to his 'foibles'. 'I don't have foibles', he said' (252).

107 with Diefenbaker in creating One Canada. As he states, "Mr Diefenbaker had always been difficult and often downright impossible. I cannot count the times I despaired of ever finishing the first volume of his memoirs, never mind the second, third or fourth" (245).39 Munro retells many anecdotes about this process: he claims that he encountered many obstacles in gathering information and pertinent documents, often due to Diefenbaker's disorganization or the fact that, according to Munro, Diefenbaker did not necessarily understand the role of researcher. Above all, Munro found Diefenbaker's version of events to be problematic. Munro describes the continual compromises that had to be made between himself and Diefenbaker, the writer and the credited author, in terms of varying or conflicting accounts of events. For example, Munro recounts that

Diefenbaker claims that in 1960, while he was giving a major address to the

United Nations condemning Soviet imperialism, Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet

Union banged his shoe on his desk to protest. This "tale" is not historically accurate, yet Diefenbaker refused to omit it (Munro 250-1). Munro settled for a compromise; Volume II has Khruschev "waving his clenched fist and taking off his shoe and slamming it on his desk" at a speech where Senator Sumulong of the

Philippines is recapitulating Diefenbaker's arguments (134). While this compromise was made, the story is "still untrue" (Munro 250). As Munro writes,

"John Diefenbaker told some whoppers in his day" (Munro 250), probably, through conviction, even believing these "whoppers" himself. Part of Munro's

39 There had been plans for a fourth volume, entitled The Last Campaign; however, it was never actually produced for reasons Munro documents in "Trials and Tribulations" (245).

108 task then was to reconstruct the event to satisfy both Diefenbaker and preserve historical accuracy.

As such, Johnson writes that when a text is ghostwritten, it is naturally

"contested" ("Auto" 563) and this is true on multiple levels in One Canada.

Reading Munro's account, one identifies a power struggle that is common between collaborators in autobiography as both are competing to find a voice

(Johnson, "Auto" 564), an "authentic" and credible voice, which obviously means different things to both of them. One aspect of this struggle and the difficulties it presents is that vast differences may exist between the conversational voice of the subject and the written voice of the subject (Johnson, "Auto" 563), of which the reader is ultimately unaware.41 This might be especially true of Diefenbaker because of his reputation as an orator and a "presence" (Munro 245). His written words may not possess the same energy or thunder, or stand up to scrutiny in the same manner as his vigorous parliamentary debates or speeches; as Munro writes, he was "surprised to discover how poorly John Diefenbaker's words fared on close examination, being neither funny or profound" (244-5). This reveals itself in the articulation of his political philosophy and convictions. In discussing his maiden speech in the House of Commons, for example, Diefenbaker writes of his

40 Moreover, both feel their reputations are at stake, even if to different extents, and possibly in different circles.

41 "Diefenbaker's" written voice in the memoirs, I would argue, sounds credible to the public's knowledge of the man, meaning that Munro and Archer fulfilled their roles successfully which will be discussed in greater detail shortly.

109 passion for a "united Canada". He articulates, "One Canada, one nation, my

Canada, your Canada, cannot be a hyphenated Canada" (1:218). These were the convictions and ideals that would eventually win Diefenbaker government, but in isolation and on the page they appear hollow and purely political rhetoric.

Similarly, his words on the page appear sentimental and romantic when he tells the delegates of the Conservative leadership convention of 1956 where he was elected Leader, "We will be the next Government. We have an appointment with

Destiny" (1: 282). This discrepancy between the subject's voices, added to the ghostwriter's transmission of these voices, introduces further multiplicity to the text and subject.

Moreover, this inclusion of speeches and other previously written material by the subject is another manner in which the text and the subject's voices are contested in collaborative autobiography. While the inclusion of Diefenbaker's speeches might appear to secure and legitimize the voice of the subject with which the reading public is familiar, it also serves to destabilize it by introducing these multiple layers. Johnson suggests, in the autobiography of Jean Rhys,

Smile, Please, that shadowing the spoken text with written texts centralizes the importance of ghostwriting: she proposes that this written inclusion is Rhys ghostwriting herself ("Auto" 563). She interprets it as Rhys giving clues about her true self that is elusive to the ghostwriter. Such clues, however, for politicians, are further problematized. Especially in Volumes II and III of One

Canada, speeches, television broadcasts, parts of the Bill of Rights, Budget

Speeches, reports, and letters are all included in the text. While these inclusions 110 both legitimize Diefenbaker's "true" voice and give tangible evidence of his political convictions and actions, they also introduce a further level of ghostwriting in that often this written material, for politicians, is ghostwritten itself. Again we return to Lejeune's concept of the public's desire to participate in the illusion of autobiography, as well, in this case, of the norms of political communication in order to accept the authenticity of the text.

While I support the argument that ghostwriting as a practice, as stated, interrupts the supposed unity of the subject and introduces multiplicity to the subject, I would suggest that this functions, in one respect, almost in the reverse in

Diefenbaker's One Canada, although it requires the critical framework in place in order for it to be circumvented. One Canada served to strengthen Diefenbaker as a subject, as he eschewed the layers of himself with which he was uncomfortable and internalized and externalized the persona created in the memoirs. Eakin writes that "in making the text the autobiographer constructs a self that would not otherwise exist" (xxiii). For Diefenbaker, this appears especially relevant: while he did win the largest majority in Canadian history (Bliss 212), his political career was spotted with frustrations. But it is the victorious and proud self that he internalizes and displays in the memoirs. As Denis Smith writes about

Diefenbaker in Rogue Tory, "The legend - which he absorbed and transformed into his own memory of events - became one private means of dealing with his political failures and disappointments. The factual record - as others might recall or rediscover it - lost its substance. The legend became, for him, the Truth" (566).

The memoirs are based on Diefenbaker's own "legend" and "Truth" about 111 himself, and Munro's intervention does not diminish that, even when, as noted, there were moments where Munro tried. In Diefenbaker's discussion of the contentious political issue of the termination of the Arrow aircraft developments, for example, he is appalled that the responsibility for the firing of employees of the A.V. Roe Company would be placed on him, is shocked that he is "excoriated

and condemned.. .even reviled," and places the entire blame on the A.V. Roe

Company (3: 42). Ultimately, he credits himself with superior judgment and responsible political leadership, which "requires knowledge and infinite patience, combined with a firm conviction that an aroused public opinion is not the surest guide to what is right" (3: 42). He then concludes by comparing himself to great world leaders, such as Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham

Lincoln.

As Smith writes in the Introduction to Peter Newman's Renegade in

Power, "Diefenbaker the public figure [...] was not genuine but a work of art.

For such a character the maintenance of the illusion has a high priority, sometimes greater than the commitment of higher truths" (x). The memoirs very actively cultivate this public figure and maintain this illusion, therefore unifying

Diefenbaker in a way that ghostwriting theoretically undermines. He is represented in his memoirs as the apocryphal image whose persona he has cultivated, and, despite Munro and Archer's roles, the reader recognizes instantly the "authentic" voice of John Diefenbaker. In his discussion of the general election of 1962, for example, which saw the Progressive Conservative government reduced from majority to minority status in the House of Commons, 112 Diefenbaker appears genuinely puzzled and surprised at the result. If, he wrote, they had gone to the people earlier, in 1961, "without doubt, we would have

enjoyed an impressive electoral success" (3: 110). He is surprised that their

record as government did not speak for itself (3: 112), and explains that the 1962

Speech from the Throne and the budget were meant to be modest. He resorts, as

always, to partisan attacks as he writes that, "unlike the Liberal Party, it was not

our intention to endeavour to buy the people with their own money" (3:113). He

concludes, that "in retrospect, I can see no possibility of our having lost the 1962

election but for that so-called financial crisis, albeit an amateur thing when

compared to those that have taken place since and are disregarded today" (121).

He then postulates that the advice he was given possessed partisan consideration:

if he had "stood his ground," he could have maintained the desired value of the

Canadian dollar (3:121). In this version of events, no factors that led to the

government's downturn in the 1962 election could be attributed to Diefenbaker himself, and the financial crisis, which he believes he could have solved, was merely amateur and should have been disregarded. Diefenbaker, in all of these

instances, cultivates and sustains his own legend, disregarding any possible alternatives to his own narrative.

As a result, Diefenbaker was so pleased with the memoirs that, according to Munro, he became convinced that he had written them himself (251). While

appearing to be absent from the text is by definition the ghostwriter's role, this

confuses the collaboration further, but is also a common condition in collaborative

autobiography. Lejeune argues that because collaboration blurs the question of 113 responsibility, often both model and writer begin to believe that they are the

"author" of the text, and the more successful the book, the more responsibility each feels. The model ends up acting as if, even believing, that he has written the life, and that he has actually lived the life as written, that it is his life. This, according to Lejeune, makes him believe that he can be "a complete and responsible subject," while in fact, the life belongs to both of them, but neither of them (Lejeune 192). A further layer in the case of Diefenbaker's One Canada, is the fact that, although many years later, Munro speaks and writes about his ghostwriting task and role, highlighting his place within the text rather than erasing it.

Diefenbaker's memoirs received mixed reviews at their time of publication, but they are now referred to as being full of recriminations (English,

"National Politics" 43), paranoia (Bliss 345), and being "petty and vengeful"

(Cohen, "Symposium" 2), even if they are at times enlivened by anecdotes and his storytelling (Bliss 345). While this paranoia, well represented in the memoirs, may be the "dark side" to Diefenbaker's "Truth" about himself (Smith, Rogue

566), he firmly believed that there were continual plots against him, especially by the "Liberal propagandists," the media, and Conservative power-brokers. As he writes about the 1963 general election campaign which would ultimately defeat his minority government, "There was no question that everyone was against me but the people, and that unless I could find a way to get the message across, I would be lost" (3: 182). Here again he compares himself with Abraham Lincoln in being required to fend off unjustified attacks, ultimately possessing conviction 114 in himself and his ideals. While political memoir often highlights protagonists who are convinced that their characters are misunderstood and distorted by the media, who attribute their political problems to partisan attacks and in-party rivalries, and who accuse others of betrayal and treachery, nowhere are these themes more evident than in Diefenbaker's memoirs. Time does not lessen his attacks on Lester Pearson: while Diefenbaker claims he will not discuss the flag issue, he then proceeds to spend several pages on it, portraying Pearson as an autocratic dictator who refused to let Canadians choose a flag, thus taking Canada

"another step down the road to disunity by forcing his flag on Parliament" (3:

222).

Furthermore, Diefenbaker is unrelenting and self-righteous in his version of his last gasps as Conservative Party leader: he considers himself betrayed by the "would-be power brokers" and the "Toronto clique" (3: 212-213) of the

Conservative Party who assiduously worked for his removal from office and were ultimately successful. He likens Dalton Camp to an "assassin" (3: 278), both of himself, and of the Conservative Party. "Never," he states "did I think that I would live to see the day when this great party would be reduced to ashes by such methods!" (3: 278). But, he maintains that the people were always on his side, and as the "great democrat" and "humble servant" that he considered himself (Bliss

213), he is justified. As he wrote,

It was said that I had no 'guiding right' to the Leadership of the

Conservative Party. This was true. But those who took up this cry

missed the point that I had not received my mandate from the 115 party's great and powerful, but from the average Canadian. I knew

to whom I was accountable and it was not to those who, for their

own ends, decided to subvert the institution of democratic free will

and unfettered Canadianism that the Conservative Party had

become during my leadership. (3: 213)

The ending reads pitifully in this respect as Diefenbaker clings to pride and power: Volume III even contains an Appendix with a "Declaration of Loyalty," a list of those MPs who were loyal to him in 1966 in requesting that he continue on as leader, as well as the list of those who were disloyal to him. Ultimately, he chose to run as his own successor in the 1968 Leadership convention, imbued with a sense of his own legend and importance. He did not believe that any of the other candidates possessed a strong enough belief in a strong federal government, and his own vision of "One Canada." He thus believed that it was his responsibility to run, that he carried the weight of history behind him and that the future of Canada rested in this vision. As he wrote, "I realized that I would be clobbered in the voting.. .but as no other candidate was prepared to pit himself against this monstrous course, it was up to me" (3: 281-2). He concludes the set of memoirs by telling readers that he bears "no ill-feeling to those who, in the past, opposed me," but cannot resist declaring, that he stands for principle, the principle of One Canada (3: 286). What makes this appropriate, or authentic, is that all of the supercilious self-importance represented in the memoirs did reflect

Diefenbaker; he believed his own legend. Despite the fact that Diefenbaker as

Prime Minister became less popular as the years went on, and even his own party 116 turned on him, Newman suggests that many still cherished him for his "symbolic value" rather than his capabilities as Prime Minister {Renegade 26). The memoirs served to reinforce his role as public figure, even political celebrity: Munro and

Archer wrote in the Foreword to Volume I that "Canadians have lived their lives in the shadow of his political presence" (xi), and the memoirs serve to keep that presence alive. Clearly, readers devoured this symbolic value and legend of "Dief the Chief," if not the person. Publisher Macmillan of Canada at the time set all- time sales records in Canada for Volume I, selling over 60,000 hard covers

(Munro 248). Despite the collaboration then, readers possessed the faith in the autobiographical subject that Lejeune describes, and the willingness to accept the illusion of authenticity of John Diefenbaker.

If, as Munro wrote, "no boundaries were ever possible between the professional and personal when one dealt with John Diefenbaker" (Munro 245), such boundaries certainly appeared to be possible in Munro's entirely different relationship with Lester Pearson. The relationship was, as Munro describes,

"civilized and professional" (254). Munro's contribution to Mike, with Alex

Inglis, was obviously different than his contribution to One Canada, but once again, the voice of the author, Lester Pearson, especially in the first two volumes, appears authentic to the reader. For the most part, the first two volumes are written by Pearson himself, with Munro and Inglis serving as research associates.

Pearson, the high profile diplomat turned politician was by many accounts

"amiable, charming, and self-deprecating" (Bliss 227), "casual, affable, instantly likeable, anything but austere" (Bliss 240), and his memoirs reflected this warmth 117 and wit. Volume II opens with Pearson's reflections on his entry into political life. He is charitable to his new colleagues, from whom he claims he received

"nothing but "kindness and friendship" after his appointment to the senior position of Minister of External Affairs despite not holding a seat in the House of

Commons (2: 10).42 He is generous in his praise for his adopted riding and the people of Algoma East, a riding which previously he could not even locate on a map. Algoma people were "invariably hospitable and friendly" (2: 17) and it was "enjoyable and heartwarming to talk to the people there even in the midst of political controversy and competition" (2: 16). He is affably humble and self- deprecating in describing his maiden speech and skills as a Parliamentarian: he regrets making a partisan barb in his maiden speech, and he presents himself as a non-politician, for whom "Politics and Parliament were not in [his] blood" (2: 11).

He claims that he was "certainly not a natural or eloquent parliamentary speaker" and found the House of Commons an "intimidating rather than an inviting place in which to speak" (2: ll).44 He apologizes for not possessing "the gifts of the

42 In 1948, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent appointed Lester Pearson Minister of External

Affairs. Pearson, at the time was a renowned Canadian diplomat. He did not, however, hold an elected seat and possessed no party affiliation. He joked, when asked by a journalist how long he had been a Liberal, "Since I was sworn in as a Minister a couple of hours ago" (1: 303).

43 The Liberal Party parachuted Pearson into the winnable Ontario riding of Algoma East where he would proceed to win the by-election and take a seat in the House of Commons.

44 This is in direct contrast to Diefenbaker's comfort debating in the House of Commons, as well as his reverence for great orators and Parliamentarians. In speaking of the Parliament of 1940-45, for example, Diefenbaker is pleased that they were "blessed" with good parliamentarians who

118 demagogue," admitting that he was "no passionate rouser" and did not "ride

easily on waves of popular feeling" (2: 19). Here he appears to be subtly

invoking Diefenbaker's popular appeal and drawing distinctions between him and

his opponent, making it again subtly vindictive in writing that he witnessed the

dangers of the demagogue in Adolf Hitler. But ever conciliatory, he concludes by

stating, "I only wish that I had had more talent as a politician and had been able to

make more of an event or of a situation than I may in truth have felt about it" (2:

19). Instead of the partisan fury and ideological positions constantly revealed in

Diefenbaker's memoirs, Pearson's memoirs reveal modesty and graciousness.45

Pearson's biographer John English writes that the first volume of the

memoirs is memorable for its "wonderful anecdotes and personal charm"

(Worldly 390). Pearson begins Volume I with opens optimism and

lightheartedness, writing that "God was in His heaven and Queen Victoria on her

throne. All was well" (1). This line also appears to be invoking Robert

Browning's "Pippa's Song" which happily concludes "God's in His heaven -

All's right with the world!" (221-228). Clyde Sanger writes, in a New York Times

review, that Pearson "recounts the smaller crises with a twinkle, sometimes with

hilarity" (14), as his public persona would indicate. During World War II in

London, for example, Pearson recounts a failed and confusing evacuation plan. were "dominating individuals" who, while one might disagree with them, "would have shown up well in the Parliament of any country" (1: 196)

45 Bliss writes that Pearson "was never much of an ideologue of any kind, partly because he had an

intellectual's and a diplomat's ability to see both sides of an issue" (222).

119 With humour he writes that, "so secret was all this...that even the official in charge of the advance party didn't know where he was to go". Pearson's response to the confusing situation was to disregard orders, throw "secrecy to the winds," and reveal that the advance party was to go to the Ladies' College at Malvern where Canada House would operate outside of London. "But don't get any wrong ideas" Pearson jokes, "the young ladies have already been evacuated" (1:132).

Again, he recounts with humour some Canadian troops' rescue of "Corky," their dog, from a pound. The rescue mission is made possible through the "best- looking, sex-appealing" soldiers who were discharged from regular duties to make intimate acquaintance with the "young and comely lasses of the Women's

Land Army" who staffed the pound. They succeeded, Corky was rescued, and

Pearson jokes that "it may have been the most perfectly conducted operation of the war" (1: 158). Because of such entertaining anecdotes, and also because of the detail provided, critical and popular reviews of Mike were generally very favourable, more so than Diefenbaker's. Bliss admits that "he wrote good memoirs" (242), and in 1992 English wrote that "his prime ministerial memoirs are the best any Canadian prime minister has produced" {Worldly 390).

P.B. Waite writes that based on the memoirs, "it is hard not to like

Pearson: it is not always easy to admire him. This book illustrates him at every turn, his humour, his charm, his sometimes stodgy verbosity, his naivete. He seemed to expect great men to be great and villains to be villainous" (1070).

Pearson recounts his surprise, for example, in Andrei Vishinsky of the Soviet

Union at the United Nations. Pearson calls him one of the most "unscrupulous of 120 the communist polemicists at the UN" (3: 135) and writes that he possessed a

"bitter oratorical assault" (3: 136). Off duty, however, Pearson considered him to be a "cultivated, amusing, and agreeable person," which is why Waite wrote that

he revealed naivete. Pearson concludes his character analysis of Vishinsky by

feigning a sad bewilderment, writing that "personally, I prefer my 'villains' to be

more easily recognized when off duty" (3: 136).

But as Sanger asks, because of all the charm and anecdotes, is something

more serious being lost? (14). Is Pearson's public persona too well maintained, at

the expense of the exposure of his "real" self? Do readers learn any more about

"the man" than his reputation and public persona already suggested? Morris

Wolfe writes that the most "serious fault" in the memoirs is Pearson's lack of

candour, suggesting that he "glosses" over things so that our impression of him is

"cheerful, informal and relatively uncomplicated" (49).46 I would suggest that

Pearson's generosity in discussing the differences between himself and

Diefenbaker exemplifies this. While Diefenbaker attacks Pearson in his memoirs,

as witnessed in the previously discussed flag issue, Pearson writes that the

differences between them were often distorted "by gossip and legend" (3: 42-3).

He writes that "there was never any problem in our personal relations," and that

their differences were "political and official" which was "bound to be so in a

normal and healthy Parliament" (3: 43). He attributes part of the problem to be a

media that tends to report political debate in terms of "personality and conflict,

46 As Bliss writes about Pearson, "It was hard to work up a passion to rid the world of sin, if you

were not sure most of your fellow men, other than Diefenbaker, really were sinners" (240).

121 often at the price of confusing the real issues" (3: 43). He writes that while he and

Diefenbaker were not cast "from the same political mould," he still treats

Diefenbaker with the utmost respect (3: 44).

Wolfe continues that "it's just that 'Mike' never gets angry enough, or

foolish enough, or depressed enough to bring us really close to him to enable us to

see how things really were" (49). While certainly the memoirs reflect Pearson's generally good natured public persona, these comments do not appear to be a completely fair assessment. Pearson provides far more detail, than, for example

Diefenbaker did in his memoirs. He also appears reflective and genuinely disappointed in discussing the general election of 1965. He repeats the sentiment that he possessed a "strong distaste for elections" and felt uncomfortable calling an election based on the fact that the Liberal Party wanted a majority government in order to allow Parliament to operate more smoothly (3: 212). He is uncomfortable with the weakness of this argument in going to the people; as he writes, "the major source of my unhappiness during the campaign.. .was the fact that...I felt I did not have to do this after all" (3: 223). He is disappointed in the personal attacks the media employed to generate excitement and headlines, he is surprised at Diefenbaker's vigorous campaigning, and ultimately, he is disappointed in himself for not achieving the desired majority government. As he writes, "I had never been so depressed in my political life as that evening.. .when it became clear that the Prairies had no interest in giving us a majority," and his team's immediate reaction was one of "dismay and defeat" (3: 223). While not overly emotional, it is still revealing and heartfelt. Wolfe's comments then, 122 which see Pearson as still remaining somewhat distant from the reader, appear to prioritize complete intimacy and indiscretion from politicians in memoirs. They follow previous arguments that political memoir, in the age of the media-driven image of the politician as personality and even cultural hero, must reveal intimate personal details or shocking revelations in order to unmask the public figure and reveal the private individual. In the case of Lester Pearson, however, this appears to be an almost inappropriate request given his public persona. As English wrote in his biography of Pearson, "[he] has not been easy to know. He had a Victorian reserve that made revelation about one's private life difficult" {Shadow ix). The amount of inside information the reader is given in Mike is actually comparatively generous even while remaining somewhat distant and removed from his personal life. As Shirley Neuman writes,

Neither in style nor in shapeliness will Mike ever stand as great

literature, but in the Sargasso Sea of recent political autobiography,

Pearson and his research associates do let a sense of his personal

aims and ambitions filter through the political account. Mike is the

only autobiography of a politician during these years that manages

to be historically informative, modestly self-revealing, meditative,

and a little urbane at the same time. ("Life Writing" 359)

It is fair to say then, that Pearson's memoirs, always affable, sincere, and humble, if not always deeply intimate, reflect Pearson and uphold his public persona.

However, the presence of Munro and Inglis as research associates, editors, and ghostwriters introduces new complexities to the subject in Mike, most 123 significantly in Volumes II and III. While Munro and Archer's presence in One

Canada help to actually create and solidify the subject and popular image of John

Diefenbaker, in Mike, the presence of ghostwriters works in a contrasting manner: their acknowledged intervention functions to destabilize and even de-legitimate the presented subject. This is in part due to the production of the memoirs. Even though Pearson, in the last month of his life, told Walter Gordon that he was spending all of his time on his memoirs (English, Worldly 390), and only stopped working on them a few days before his death (Pearson, Foreword 2: vi), he was unable to finish the volumes. At the time of Pearson's death in late December of

1972, the first volume had already been published to critical and popular acclaim, but Volume II remained unfinished and Volume III was barely begun (Munro

255). As a result, the writing and production process naturally changed. Munro and Inglis continued with the project, however. In their Introduction to Volume

II, they acknowledge their editorial decisions as well as their collaboration with the Pearson family and estate in deciding how to proceed with the volume. As they explain, "it was determined that the work should remain as a volume of memoirs and not become biography. To that end [the editors] adopted as their first principle the rule that, unless the story could be told in Mr Pearson's own words, it would not be told at all" (viii). Because the editors had worked closely with him in the years preceding his death, "they were left with little doubt as to the form Mr Pearson wanted these memoirs to take. This volume of the Pearson memoirs, then, is the result of the editors' weaving together these various sources." The editors labour the point that they only write "bridging" material 124 and clearly articulate that they have at all times "guarded against writing in their own judgments on people and events" (ix). They proceed to identify in detail the sources of each chapter. The ghostwriters are then intervening in the text, in the subject, and even in the autobiographical pact: identifying for the reader that while they have attempted to faithfully preserve the authenticity of the subject, the subject is not authentic.

Geoffrey Pearson, Lester Pearson's son, also stepped in to edit Volume II

(and III), making it very clear in the Foreword to Volume II that the book "is not the volume L.B. Pearson would have written," and he too explains exactly which chapters are "authentic" Lester Pearson (vi). But he still qualifies the manuscript in writing that, "[Lester Pearson] was an inveterate reviser of manuscripts. The diary and the material would have been shaped and moulded to fit his later perceptions and memories. He would have reflected on experience, as he does in chapters one and two, and of course he would have added new material." Having said this, however, he rationalizes that "very little in this volume, whether written in 1950 or in 1972, is not from his pen" (vi). What appears somewhat odd about these continual explanations is that Geoffrey Pearson, as well as the editors, appear to be simultaneously apologizing for the book, but also validating it.

Moreover, if the ghostwriters had disrupted the text and subject through their explanations, Geoffrey Pearson is disrupting the text even further through the acknowledgement and introduction of the ghostwriters. While he simultaneously apologizes for them, explains them, attempts to redeem them, and ultimately thanks them, he grants them and their roles full visibility. Ghostwriters, while 125 often acknowledged, are usually still meant to be invisible and their intervention

in the formation of the subject erased. Geoffrey Pearson's intervention then becomes another level of ghostwriting, a further disruption to the already

fabricated and multiplicitous subject.

If Volume II of Mike was painstakingly constructed, Volume III was even

more so. It almost appears ironic the lengths to which Munro and Inglis go in

explaining their roles and their contribution to the text, when usually this

participation is an accepted role for research associates or ghostwriters in the

production of political memoir. They are troubling the unity of the text and the

subject further by so candidly acknowledging their presence. But it was not an

easy decision for the family and executors of his estate to agree to have the last

volume published at all (Pearson, Foreword 3: v) given that Lester Pearson wasn't

a part of its assemblage. In the Introduction to Volume III, Munro and Inglis

again reassure the public that Pearson did write much of the manuscript, it is just a

compilation of many sources. Pearson's diary, transcripts of interviews, and an

uncompleted first draft of the manuscript, written by Pearson, were all "weav[ed]

together" for the last volume. "As with Volume II," the editors reassure the

reader, the editors have "exercised every care that contemporary judgment should

not be confused with later reflective judgment in relation to any event, decision,

or personality" (x). They are careful in implying that they understand their role as

editors, and are clear that it is Pearson's text, and not their own. However, they

simultaneously protect themselves by writing that if there are omissions from the

126 text, they make no apology: it is because they lacked the right material necessary to discuss it (x). As they write,

One of the major criticisms of those consulted during the

preparation of this volume has been its areas of omission,

particularly its lack of reference to the high achievements of the

Pearson government and its cursory treatment of some colleagues

and assistants. The editors make no excuses for these omissions.

The subjects they could treat were strictly limited by the

availability of first-person sources, (x)

Again, they break down their chapters into great detail and provide explanations and sources for them. As in One Canada, the inclusion of these various sources is important as these previous writings add further multiplicity to the subject.

They represent varying parts of Pearson's life, are in various formats, (for example speeches, letters, reports, and diary records) but also, again, may be ghostwritten themselves, even if they may appear to represent the most

"authentic" part of the text. Furthermore, Geoffrey Pearson admits that he himself refined the third volume (Foreword 3: v) and took an extra year to accomplish this. It appears that Geoffrey may have valued the act of writing itself as integral to self-portraiture, expression, and "as a means of developing artistic impression" (Johnson, "Auto" 569), and therefore wanted his father's manuscript to be authentic or genuine, so as not to risk his being misrepresented. But as a result, he too is complicit in this disruption of the text and the subject and adds another layer of ghostwriting to it. As a result of these circumstances of 127 production, Munro states that this third volume never "stood very high on my list

of personal achievements." While he maintains that it does contain some very

useful material, he asserts that some of its judgments were "refined," at the

insistence of Geoffrey Pearson, to protect the interests of Canada's Liberal Party

establishment (249). According to Munro, parts were removed that Geoffrey and

advisors thought would make Pearson look "indecisive and bumbling" (249). In

Munro's recollections, which he warns may not be the same as Inglis's, if the

editors refused to make certain changes, then the estate would refuse to publish it.

As he states, "Basically, we are talking about sins of omission" (249).

Probably as a result of the circumstances of its production and the

subsequent results, Volume III received the most negative reception of the three books. It was accused of lacking the warmth and personality of the previous

volumes. Cook describes it as having an "unsatisfactory quality" because of the

origin of material (72) and Newman writes that "unfortunately, the manufacture

of [Mike] involved so many consultants, editors, literary executors, and ghost

writers in the sky that what came out was a thin and curiously tasteless stew

[.. .]Too many cooks have spoiled the wrath" (Distemper xix). Volume III,

however, still did sell well, despite the fact that multi-volume works usually go

down in sales (Munro 247). One cannot help but question, without these explicit

explanations, how aware the reading public would have been of the ghostwriters'

intervention. Would readers and critics, complicit in Lejeune's autobiographical

pact, have responded differently? Ultimately, the memoirs were successful, in

128 both critical and popular opinion, and therefore the ghostwriters' intervention did not detract from their reception even if they complicated the subject. 47

Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Memoirs

If, as Pierre Elliott Trudeau's biographer John English writes, "Pierre

Trudeau is the prime minister who intrigues, enthralls, and outrages Canadians most" (Citizen 1), his Memoirs may then be the most disappointing of our collection of Prime Ministerial life writing. Nowhere in the book does Trudeau analytically engage with the controversial issues of his term in office, or reveal the larger-than-life persona that captivated and infuriated Canadians. Trudeau's

Memoirs, published in 1993, grew out of a televised CBC mini-series on the former Prime Minister, also entitled Memoirs. Despite the fact that the book was both politically and personally unrevealing, based on Trudeau's persona and enduring celebrity factor, it still sold extremely well. Comparatively, the televised Memoirs, television being a medium at which Trudeau excelled, showed

Trudeau more critically engaged with the issues that defined his years in office and allowed viewers a perceived intimacy with the persona that had captured

47 The notion of ghostwriting also introduces further legalities, and attribution rights to the project of political memoir. In Canada, as these legalities are determined beforehand, no public disputes have appeared to arise from this angle. One example, however, of the issues that could arise is in the case of awards. Pearson, posthumously, was awarded the Albert B. Corey Prize, granted jointly by the Canadian and American Historical Associations, for Volumes I and II of Mike. The editors did not receive any of the award money, however, Maryon Pearson, Lester Pearson's wife who accepted the award on his behalf, was generous enough to split the cheque with them in recognition of their work (Munro 255).

129 popular imagination. In this section, because of the thin material of the text of

Memoirs, I will discuss the development of both sets of memoirs, and how this production and the different mediums employed affected the products and the subject they presented. I will specifically analyze the contribution of photography and documentary film to political memoir and their role in re-inscribing Trudeau as public figure and celebrity.

When Trudeau left public office in 1984, publishers, producers, and authors asked and encouraged him to write memoirs for years after, offers which he continually declined. As previously noted, Trudeau appeared suspicious and dismissive of politicians' memoirs, and had little interest in such a project. He explains his position in his Preface, writing that he was not in politics in order to acquire material to write a book: he was too busy living his life and doing his job to spend time keeping such notes, and that he was "unwilling to appoint an official Boswell48 to whom [he] would feed a self-serving version of events" (ix).

49 Nor, he believed, would such memoirs be of general interest (ix). Finally he acquiesced, but the result, a ghostwritten assortment of interviews and material, was unrevealing, a disappointment for many considering Trudeau's acknowledged intellect and his previous writings. As Prime Minister, Trudeau had always vigourously attempted to separate his public and private lives even when receiving intense media scrutiny and public attention, and the Memoirs that

48 James Boswell is the eighteenth-century noted diarist and biographer to Samuel Johnson.

49 This also inadvertently implies that those who do appoint such an official are arrogant and self serving.

130 were published appear to be another example of that. As Stephen Lewis wrote,

"perhaps this is the quintessential Trudeau. He has never been a man who wanted to share much, in a personal way, with Canadians" (C24). As Trudeau himself said, "I do tell a few exciting adventures that I had before politics and maybe one or two while I was in politics.. .you'll maybe have a laugh here and a gasp there but it is not replete with scandals and excitement and brinksmanship. Sorry"

("Value of book" A3).

The book itself was hardcover, glossy, possessed large print, the text was interspersed with Trudeau's infamous roses, and there were almost as many photographs as text. As the jacket proudly states, "253 photographs, 106 in full colour." The writing itself was simple and uncomplicated. Despite the constant promotion of the book and the brand, by both publishers and those in Trudeau- friendly political circles, reviews of Memoirs indicated that ultimately, they did not meet such high expectations. To give just a sample of the reaction to Memoirs,

Bliss called them "ghosted and thin" (246) and Don Macpherson wrote that they are a "microwave rewarmed defence of his political career" ("It's a stinker" C2).

Richard Gwyn wrote damningly that "these memoirs are one prolonged shrug.

Beyond much doubt, they are the sloppiest and laziest literary recollections ever dumped upon the public by any retired politician in Canada, or anywhere in the west that I know of ("McMemoirs" BIO). Conrad Black wrote that Memoirs were "a monument to human vanity that refreshes the reader's memory about all

Trudeau's tendencies to glibness, faddishness, pretension, and the affected posturing of the inherited-money limousine liberal" (S4). He continued, "Finally, 131 this book is terribly cliched.. ..In short, this is a nauseating book. By its superficiality, mythmaking, and self-importance, it grossly insults the poor voters who remained so faithful to him for so long. Their disillusionment must now be complete" (S4). Stephen Lewis aptly summarized the sentiments in writing that

"so much is disappointing, so much more might have been said, and yet, here and there, is the glimpse of that most famous life and intellect" (C24). The book was especially disappointing precisely because of this: readers expected more from

Trudeau because of the public's fascination with the politician as personality. He shared almost nothing about his personal life or his marriage to Margaret which undoubtedly some readers found unsatisfactory,50 and neither did he include enough historical or intellectual detail to satisfy academics.51 Instead, it "reads like a cunning and tightly controlled exercise in image-projection" ("Times

Reviewer" D2). Of course, political memoir as a genre is about image-projection and manufacturing an identity for the politician that he or she actively wants the public to accept and endorse. These objections to the carefully masked public figure in political memoir, however, also reveal readers' hopeful expectations about the genre of political memoir, in that, as discussed, the public hopes that the memoir will be an opportunity to unmask public figures, and discover their "real"

50 Margaret Sinclair, and the relationship between her and Trudeau, also fascinated the Canadian public. She produced two of her own (ghostwritten) memoirs, Beyond Reason (1979) and

Consequences (1982).

51 In contrast to this, the book could be considered an accessible introduction to Trudeau and his years in government.

132 or "hidden" motivations, personalities, and opinions. This appears especially true in the case of Trudeau because, as English writes, he had actively constructed an aura of mystery around him, crucial in the making of a celebrity (Citizen 259) which only increases the public's desire to understand and know him.

Furthermore, he represented a dominating personality in the political and popular

culture of the era and invoked controversial initiatives which increases readers' interest. Realistically, however, as public figures involved in image management, political memoir will only reveal what the politician and his or her editors choose,

and readers, despite the autobiographical pact, remain aware of that. The secrets into a hidden identity that the public seeks then, are perhaps revealed by a political tell-all or biographer written by another individual.

Surprising, however, is John English's disclosure that Trudeau possessed the material to write a probing memoir and that he had in fact kept copious

amounts of notes, letters, and detailed information about both his personal and his public life. Until the 1960s, Trudeau kept every letter he wrote, and English

suggests that Trudeau's only rival in "maintaining a full record of his life" was

Mackenzie King (Citizen 3). While Trudeau thus possessed full documentation for a memoir project (he was his own "official Boswell"), this material was not used for Memoirs. Neither, however, were these papers destroyed (Citizen 4).

There is, furthermore, considerable indication that Trudeau had gone through the papers as there are "notations, question marks, and identification of individuals

133 whose full names are not given in the originals" {Citizen 536). Trudeau allows the later biographer to reveal the complexities, motivations, and personal details on both public and private issues that he "carefully concealed" in his lifetime (and in Memoirs), and apparently, this decision was deliberate (English, Citizen 536).

Ultimately, we can only speculate on Trudeau's motivations for his reluctance to write more comprehensive memoirs.53 One possibility is that, as Trudeau admitted, "I have other things to do than to write very deep autobiographies or exciting memoirs" ("Value of book" A3). In accordance with this, Andrew Cohen suggests that "Memoirs were an apologia [Trudeau] had no need to make.

Memoirs were for the old and the insecure," not him, and "he repeatedly resisted arguments that a former prime minister is obliged to put on record his own version of events" ("Journey" S6). Cohen writes that he was "comfortable with himself and his legacy, and that he was a man "without regrets" ("Journey" S6): in short, he did not feel the need to self-justify.54 It is worth noting that Trudeau had already published Towards a Just Society in 1990, a collection of essays

There is evidence in the Trudeau papers that indicates, as English suggests, that as early as

1939, Trudeau expected to one day have a biographer (Citizen 536).

English observes that Trudeau appreciated and enjoyed life writing and the confessional genre

{Citizen 536).

While he may not have felt the need to self-justify through the form of memoir, he did in other instances, for example, when becoming publicly involved in the constitutional debates surrounding the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord.

134 written by him and his advisors and colleagues about their years in office which serves as a kind of collective memoir of policy issues.55

Despite Trudeau's obvious reluctance to be involved in a memoir project, talks eventually began with Trudeau for a televised memoir, and resulted in over two years of negotiations. He apparently still refused to participate in a print memoir, but according to Michael Levine, entertainment lawyer for the project, his advisors convinced him through appealing to his sense of history and the fact that not producing memoirs would be "inadequate for the record" (Ross CI).56

The authors of Towards a Just Society are very self-conscious of their writing process, and how it is both similar and dissimilar to political life-writing. Thomas Axworthy, Trudeau's advisor, and co-editor of the collection (along with Trudeau), discusses their motivations behind the book and intentions for it, stating that, "Writing memoirs.. .is a tricky business. Recollections become disjointed, imagination coats events with a rosy hue and fiction begins to edge out fact. To prevent this process of romanticism from running too deep, we have decided to publish a book of essays now while our memories are still clear and our pens still have some bite" (1). While the book is from a policy perspective, it is similar to political memoir in its subjectivity and self- serving nature. Furthermore, according to Axworthy, it tries to capture the era: what they tried to do and the values and ideas they tried to enact. In short, it describes "the voyage [they] took together" (2).

56 There is much speculation as to why he finally agreed to the project. Bruce Powe suggests that with the election results of 1988 and Mulroney's re-opening of constitutional negotiations he wanted to defend his own constitutional record (Ross CI). This could then be a method of defending his own record, attacking then Prime Minister Mulroney, as well as a method of keeping himself as a central political figure in Canadian culture. Another possibility, according to

135 This argument demonstrates the role of political memoir in the construction of an historical record and its contribution to Canadian history. Cohen affirms this in writing that "Trudeau eventually learned that, as he had made history, he would have to write it" ("Journey" S6), arguments that appear rather romantic and idealized, even if they are true. Trudeau himself, in the Preface, admits that finally the constant encouragement to participate had its desired effect, but he still sounds rather ambivalent about the project, and, as noted, shrugs off the value of the book (x).

Somewhat unsurprisingly, given Trudeau's profile as well as his initial reluctance, the writing of the memoir project, as Ross details, was fraught with editorial, methodological, and personal troubles. Both memoir projects captured public attention long before their completion or even beginning: in the popular press there were talks of bidding wars for both the television and book versions, which generated further news and excitement for the project.57 Public promotion was extensive and hyperbolic, as Avie Bennett, Chair of McClelland and Stewart boasted, "We're convinced that this will not only be the Canadian book of the year, but the Canadian book of the decade" ("M&S" C2). Long before its

Ross, was the previous success of Chretien's memoirs (CI) although this was many years after their 1984 publication.

57 Rumours and gossip circulated in the mainstream press about McClelland and Stewart's "fight" to win the rights to produce and publish the memoirs ("Tattler," 5 March A2), as well as what they paid for it (rumoured to be at $600,000) ("M&S" C2). The "fight" was described as a "heated auction" against "rivals" ("M&S" C2).

136 publication, the Tattler column in The Globe and Mail speculated that "There is no question that The Trudeau Memoirs will be a bestseller." It continued, that "if a price can be put on prestige, then M&S has enhance its considerable reputation

CO at relatively low cost" ("Tattler," 5 March A2). Here, as discussed in Chapter

1, we clearly see the power of the politician's status as cultural celebrity in generating attention for the product, and attracting prestige and economic benefit for the publishing house. We also see both interest groups' ability to employ the media to generate further excitement. Through this process, the politician, in this instance Trudeau, is furthermore confirming his own status as cultural commodity and political celebrity. When the book was published, the launch was held at the

National Archives of Canada and the ceremony also included Trudeau's bequest

58 Furthermore, the speculation surrounding the project continued through rumours about the publication date of the memoirs and the timing of the 1993 general election ("Tattler", 30 June

A2). While the memoirs and the gossip surrounding them inevitably helped the branding of the

Liberal Party of Canada in the days leading up to an election, there were still questions about whether the memoirs might help or hinder Chretien. As Diane Francis eagerly asked, "are there some incredibly candid and unflattering remarks about his trusted lieutenant Jean Chretien in there as rumored?" ("Speaking" 15). There were not, but all of these speculations emphasize the media's attempt (due to public demand), as described in Chapter 1, to enflame the relationship between politics and entertainment. Furthermore, the general election was finally called for

October 25, 1993 and the memoirs were published on November 9. Originally, the TV miniseries and the book were scheduled to materialize together, but the televised memoirs were running late, and their release was then scheduled for January 1994. As a result, Ross predicted that the book would benefit from two selling seasons (CI).

137 of his Prime Ministerial papers to the National Archives. Trudeau participated in

a five-city promotional tour and there was an "unprecedented first print run" of

over 100,000 copies in English ("Trudeau prepares" C2). It was soon clear that

even this would not be enough, and 50,000 more copies were ordered (Currie Fl).

The book, and the Trudeau brand, did not market or sell as well in Quebec: only

12,000 copies were printed and he made no media appearances there (Currie Fl).

The spin and hype surrounding the re-emergence of one of Canada's most

notorious figures continued in the public sphere, as tour director Jeffrey Goodman

hyperbolized, "there has never been a publishing event quite like this in Canada"

("Trudeau prepares" C2). Trudeau himself, however, minimized the significance

of the book even at the launch and press conference, but in authentic Trudeau

fashion, he still dared journalists to challenge him about his version of events

("Value of book" A3).

In terms of the book itself, while most political memoirs contain

photographs that highlight and complement the narrative and the reader's

understanding of the subject, or at least pique the reader's interest, Trudeau's

Memoirs are remarkable for the quantity of glossy photographs they possess:

253. While Black wrote that "the hundreds of photographs, many with self-

idolatrous captions, add to the book's narcissistic quality" (S4), photographs

appear at home in this type of memoir which highlights Trudeau's public image

rather than policy initiatives. The inclusion of photographs in auto/biography also

adds further layers of interpretation to the presentation of the subject through

employing different mediums and methods of self-presentation. This is especially 138 appropriate in the case of Trudeau who was able to capitalize on his affinity with the camera and photogenic qualities in order to appeal to Canadians. While

Timothy Dow Adams writes that "the commonsense view would be that photography operates as a visual supplement (illustration) and a corroboration

(verification) of the text," he argues that the role of photography in auto/biography is not this simple or one-dimensional (xxi). As he writes, "both media are increasingly self-conscious, and combining them may intensify rather than reduce the complexity and ambiguity of each taken separately" (xxi).

Parallels thus exist between photography and auto/biography, specifically the representation of self through photographic images in auto/biography, and the representation of self through the text. Just as auto/biographies are constructed performances of self, photographs are also manufactured images (Adams 5).

Photography can thus be equally as problematic as auto/biography in terms of referentiality (Adams 3). Despite the fact that readers might believe, or want to believe, that photographs capture a sense of reality that is less mediated and therefore more accurate than the text, Adams writes that both photographs and auto/biography "deliberately blur[] the boundaries between fact and fiction, between representation and creation" (20). Just as the auto/biographical text calculatingly reveals and conceals, so too do the included photographs (Adams

21). In political memoir, these photographs are part of a performance of identity crucial to the politician's image management, and they also function as part of the autobiographical pact. In the case of political memoir, even if readers are aware

139 that often photos are constructed for political advantage or public promotion,

Paul John Eakin identifies, while not specifically discussing political memoir, an

"existential imperative": a will to believe and a presumption of truth-value that exists outside theoretical deconstructions of these possibilities. In accordance with the autobiographical pact, this experience is what makes auto/biography matter to auto/biographers and their readers (qtd. in Adams 242). The inclusion of these photographs highlights this process.

A further method in which the photographs in memoirs are performative and constructed is through the selection and ordering process, which can be just as important or meaningful as the photos themselves. These choices reveal the desirable image and portrayal of the subject. They could be meant to be nostalgic, or, to look forward, where the desired effect is that a viewer endows the subject with his or her future qualities. In Trudeau's case, this could include reading into his photographs qualities that might be indicative of a future statesman (Adams

74). For instance, Part One is entitled: "1919-1968, The Road to 24 Sussex

Drive," which naturally reveals Trudeau's childhood and early years. This title automatically constructs the young Trudeau as being on a trajectory destined for greatness. The photos in this section are mainly of his family, his school days, and his travels. He is depicted as playful, for example, playing with his siblings

(10-11) and having fun at the beach (67). He is depicted as a scholar in that he

59 The book includes a selection of staged and un-staged photographs. Prime Ministers are usually followed by official photographers, as well as the press, even when they are not participating in specific photo opportunities.

140 includes a class photo (13), a graduation portrait (33), and photos of him at the

Ecole libre des sciences politiques in Paris, albeit ones in which he is having fun

(42-3). He is, furthermore, depicted as adventurous as he is shown with his backpack traveling through the Middle East (51) and through India (57). This

adventurous, playful, yet contemplative and intellectual persona is the image of a

younger Trudeau that the authors believe the public would find desirable for a

future Prime Minister, and that they have chosen to convey. Furthermore,

returning to the trajectory, as Liz Stanley discusses, "we can read images and

other biographical information backwards through time, to impose 'real meaning,

with hindsight': an account of 'what it all meant' that eluded us at the time but

was supposedly 'really' always there" (21). Our present knowledge of Trudeau

then provides a sub-text for our examination of these photographs (Stanley 22),

and the pictures are undoubtedly chosen with this in mind. In the midst of these

childhood pictures are photographs from the television version of Memoirs called

"Revisiting my old student haunts" (41) which draws specific attention to the

looking-back process.

I am going to focus on three specific ways that the photos are constructed

to project an image of Trudeau that emphasizes his prime ministerial qualities in

conjunction with the public's conception of a leader. The first is through

athletics, the second through fatherhood, and the third through celebrity culture.

The photos, while often more revealing than the text, are still tightly controlled.

Both in Trudeau's youthful days, and after he has entered politics, there are many photos that emphasize his athletic ability and adventurous spirit. For example, 141 there is a photo of Trudeau doing a backflip into a pool on the campaign trail of

1968 (101), a photo of him in a wetsuit surfing off the coast of Vancouver Island

(129), and also photos of him skiing (187), skin-diving (213), and canoeing (255) to name but a few examples. Through this connection to sport, which has traditionally been considered a male preserve, Trudeau is emphasizing a traditional notion of masculinity deemed appropriate for leadership (Edwards and

Smith 20). While the notion of gendered leadership will be discussed in greater

detail in the next chapter, Duerst-Lahti and Kelly have observed that "masculinity permeates understandings of political leadership" (24) and that "gender's invisibility in the realm of leadership and governance lies in masculine

assumptions" (26). Within this masculine context, in proving himself to be

capable of the task of Prime Minister then, it is beneficial for Trudeau to

emphasize these masculine ideals. Representing himself in terms of hegemonic masculinity serves to reinforce him as an ideal leader and simultaneously reaffirms leadership and politics as a masculine domain. R.W. Connell defines hegemonic masculinity as a social construct, "a culturally idealized form of masculine character (83). Athletics, Parry-Giles and Parry-Giles argue, "work to reproduce and express hegemonic masculinity through their emphasis on physical

strength, power, and control (344). Athletics can be considered a male preserve, as they are associated with the values of nationalism, patriotism, and

authoritarianism: male values that celebrate heroism and physical strength (Parry-

Giles 344). Parry-Giles and Parry-Giles identify a history of stereotypically masculine leaders being linked with athletics. Trudeau then, through selecting 142 photographs that emphasize his athletic prowess, is reflecting, but also reinforcing male-oriented values, ideals, and myths about leadership within society (Parry-

Giles 342).

There are also many family photographs in Memoirs which portray

Trudeau to be an attentive and loving father. Family photographs, Marianne

Hirsch writes, "provoke identification" because "their conventional and predictable poses make them largely interchangeable" (xiii). The photographs of Trudeau and his sons appear personal, warm, and reveal a caring and happy father. In the "family albums" of Trudeau, for example, there are photos of him holding his newborn babies (180), photos of him posing in nature with his sons

(181), and many photos of him playing with them (275). But, as Stanley writes, pictures of family life "act as a standard that everyone knows is false but worries whether and to what extent other people share this knowledge and belief. They also act as a standard that everyone thinks is or should be attractive and desirable and which they should aspire to or at least give the appearance (sometimes literally) of doing so" (29). While these family photos appear ideal, Pierre

There are also many photographs of Trudeau himself as a child. While some of these photos of

Trudeau's childhood, for example, a standard portrait sitting of him and his mother, or of him with a group of children playing do appear somewhat interchangeable, they are also clearly marked by class: the photos are often on the beach, skiing, at the family cottage, family European vacations, studying in Paris or traveling in the Middle East. Trudeau's privileged childhood is also corroborated by the text.

143 Trudeau's divorce from Margaret Trudeau was still highly publicized and even scandalous. These pictures help to solidify Trudeau's position as a family man who could identify with other Canadian families regardless of the drama that his personal life had acquired. For politicians, this self conscious selection of photos and desirability is important: however personal or realistic the photos are, they are part of Trudeau's political tools and reveal that this persona as father is important to him. Positioning himself as a father also reinforces masculine images of protectionism and control (Parry-Giles 345), potentially helpful in a masculine world of politics. As a father, he can position himself as a caring protector, as well as an authority figure who, in traditional conceptions of masculinity and fatherhood, is entitled to respect (Seidler 212). This in turn reifies the notion of leadership as gendered and power as masculine, as Seidler writes, "along with work, fatherhood was another critical way for men to affirm their male identities and to prove that they were 'man enough'" (213). But because many of the pictures with his children are playful, they can still function to show a softer, appealing side to him while he remains an authority figure.

Also revealing about the photographs, as is expected and normal in the memoirs of political figures, are the many photos of Trudeau and national and international celebrities. For example, there are photographs with him and representatives of the monarchy (162, 163, 313, 330, 331), with popular music and film stars such as John Lennon and Yoko Ono (122), Elizabeth Taylor (221),

Barbra Streisand (129), with political figures such as Prime Minister Indira

Gandhi (166), President Gerald Ford (197), and Prime Minister Margaret 144 Thatcher (223), as well as with sport stars and prominent Canadians such as members of the "Crazy Canuck" ski team (286) and Terry Fox (285). There are also many pictures of Trudeau on the foreign stage practicing international diplomacy. The large number of these depictions of Trudeau with celebrities contributes to the notion of the politician himself as celebrity, and lends glamour and star-power to the politician- author. These images reinforce his role as public figure and culture-hero. The combination of all of these various photographs are part of Trudeau's image management: they are carefully constructed to reveal multiple but complimentary aspects of his adventurous yet scholarly personality, governing style, and aptitude for leadership.

Photographs have been considered as capturing a "slice of time," an important concept for political memoir and popular culture. Susan Sontag discusses the elegiac mode of photography, and that photographs capture a privileged moment that one can look at again and again (qtd. in Stanley 39). Liz

Stanley writes that "photographs contain what is most mysterious and unassimilable of all - time itself. What renders a photograph surreal is its irrefutable pathos as a message from time past" (Stanley 39). In this sense, the

"Trudeaumania" visually frozen in the photographs, capturing optimism and excitement, or the adventurous photos of a charismatic and playful Prime Minister and father are romanticized. Photos from the campaign trail of 1968, for example, capture large crowds and energetic supporters (101). It is important to note that not all Canadians, especially those in western Canada and Quebec, possessed this romantic image of him. But as Clarkson and McCall write, the success of 145 Memoirs, in the ratings and on bestseller lists, appeared to show that for many

Canadians, "the Trudeau era had taken on the glow of a golden age: what they were watching or buying was not just a film or a book but a piece of the past"

(433). The photographs are then tangible representations of this past, part of their appeal being, as Stanley writes, although not about Trudeau, "that they provide us with a history made visible (seemingly so), an almost tangible autobiography"

(51). They possess the ability to stir emotions and tug at memory (Stanley 48), and Trudeau's choice to include so many, and so many personal ones is clearly a political move to once again create this affective function and position himself to still be a master of image management and political construction. They also project time forward, however, as photographs of, for example, Trudeau signing the Constitution Act of 1982 (330) are meant to convey not just this accomplishment, but the influence of him and his government on the future of

Canada.

Moving to an analysis of the televised Memoirs, if Trudeau's written

Memoirs were considered rather hollow and unrevealing despite their excellent sales, the accompanying television miniseries allowed the viewer a feigned closeness to him. The televised Memoirs capitalized on Trudeau's personal magnetism and affinity with the camera. While in earlier days Trudeau felt uncomfortable on television and was wary and hesitant of the medium, he tells readers in Memoirs that he always thought of himself as more of a writer than a performer {Pierre), he soon "mastered his presentation" and television became the medium that carried his message (English, Citizen 256). Marshall McLuhan first 146 identified Trudeau as possessing a "cool face for a cool medium" (Nesbitt-

Larking 158).61 He wrote to Trudeau stating that, "you've got the cool image, the mask" and suggested that there was an almost mystical link between Trudeau and television. As he wrote, "the story of Pierre Trudeau is the story of the Man in the

Mask. That is why he came into his own with TV" (English, Citizen 257).

Trudeau himself, in the film, acknowledges and emphasizes the notion of politician as performer and the public mask one must don to be successful in the

House of Commons or speaking to a crowd of people (Pierre). He cultivated and carefully constructed his public image for the camera, and he was successful at it.

As English writes, "the mystical mingled with simple good luck and crafty planning to make Trudeau's television presence so striking. He consciously created an aura of intrigue, adventure, and intellectual brilliance about him...The mystery, so important to the culture of celebrity in the twentieth century, became part of the Trudeau image that he and others created in the fifties" (Citizen 258-9).

Despite the fact that Trudeau carefully guarded his privacy, his ability to perform on television draws in the viewer and creates an intimacy lacking in the book. For these reasons, Bliss calls the television version a "must see" (348) and Gwyn acknowledges that in the film, "Trudeau is a master of television" ("Trite" B3). In

McLuhan identified television as "cool" medium because it demanded "our active, physical engagement to complete it" (Nesbitt-Larking 213). It was "low in information and definition, appealed to more than one sense, and therefore tended to engage our active participation" (Nesbitt

-Larking 213).

147 an age of political celebrity it appears that this is what the public desires from their politicians: a mixture between the maintenance of a superficial aura of mystery and glamour, and yet full disclosure and a desire, potentially even a

feeling of entitlement, to know all about them.

The intimacy of the televised memoirs is in part created by Trudeau's presence, but also in the fact that the film provides far more detail about events

and people, and analyzes their significance to a much greater extent than the book

does. As a result, the passion and intensity that is absent from the book is present in the televised memoirs. For example, in the book, when describing the 1968

leadership race, Trudeau summarizes the process and his victory in a short and

dismissive manner. He writes that, "the party's convention was held in Ottawa.

After a lot of speeches, a lot of hoopla, a lot of cheering, a lot of applause - and

three ballots - the majority of the delegates entrusted me with their confidence. I thus became leader of the Liberal Party and, because the party was in power and

Pearson was resigning, prime minister of Canada" (88). The film grants far more

attention to the leadership race and the subsequent election, which is important as it was through this race that Trudeau captured popular attention and support. It is

also appropriate, for it was often the medium of television which helped create

and support the emotional and optimistic "Trudeaumania" during this time period.

As the film acknowledges, "the idea of politician as rock star was something new

for Canadians" (Pierre), and the film captures this more easily and obviously than the book.

148 This intimacy is furthered by the fact that the film is more revealing about subjects or areas that the book glosses over. While the film is still certainly subjective and sympathetic, especially concerning some contentious decisions such as the implementation of the War Measures Act, it does not shy away from

Trudeau's early flirtation with Quebec nationalism or socialism. The book, in contrast, does not address these issues. Furthermore, when discussing his reaction to World War II, Trudeau claims in the book that the war "really did not command my attention" (34) and that he possessed "continued indifference" towards the news media (37). This account, as English writes, is "disingenuous at best" given the content of his journals and the accounts of his contemporaries which point to his involvement in a secret revolutionary cell (Citizen 75). The closest the book comes to addressing his nationalist leanings is Trudeau's statement that "if you were a French Canadian in Montreal in the early 1940s, you did not automatically believe that this was a just war" (32). The televised memoirs lend more credence to the notion of a young Trudeau involved in

Quebec nationalist causes. The televised memoirs even continually poke a bit of fun at Trudeau for not holding a long-lasting or stable job before becoming a

Member of Parliament or Prime Minister.

Stylistically, the televised memoirs possess layers and layers of black-and- white and colour film clips (in the form of home-movies, press clips, and official government records), and photographs. The narration is mainly through voice- over, but Trudeau is also being interviewed, most often seen responding to

149 questions to which the audience is not privy. There are also clips of the

contemporary Trudeau meeting with pivotal people from his time in office and

discussing important issues of those days. For example, he is filmed talking with

Peter Lougheed, former Premier of Alberta about the National Energy Program.

Both former politicians hold their political ground on this controversial issue, but

in a congenial manner. Like the photographs in the book, the visuals provide

specific readings of the former Prime Minister. For example, the film opens with

Trudeau paddling a voyageur canoe, and it returns to this imagery often. Here, it

is unsubtly connecting Canadian patriotism to nature, and rooting Canadian

nationalism and identity to the land as well as reminding the viewer of Trudeau's

1972 campaign slogan of "The Land is Strong."

The film is also compelling because of what happens to the

auto/biographical subject through this cross-medium representation and the

problems of auto/biographical authorship. William Mooney discusses the

problems inherent in adapting written memoirs for film, based on the fact that the

author of the book is rarely the "author" of the film (285). While in Trudeau's

case, the book grew out of the interviews made for the miniseries, even though the

book emerged in the public sphere before the film, this condition remains.

Despite the fact that, and perhaps especially because of the fact that the book

Memoirs is ghostwritten and collaborative, it still engages in Lejeune's

autobiographical pact where an audience accepts, in good faith, the fusion

62 Jean-Fran9ois Lepine and Ron Graham, and later Terence McKenna were doing the interviews,

but are invisible on film.

150 between author, narrator, and protagonist. When rumours were initially

circulating about the editorial assistance received, Avie Bennett responded to these particular rumours of authorship by making it clear that "The book is being written by Trudeau and it's his book and we're excited by it" ("Tattler," April

A2).63 By titling the film Memoirs, this is the expectation for the film also.

Therefore while Trudeau is still touted, in this respect, as the 'author' of the project, he has contributed only one, out of many perspectives to the film. Thus

the autobiographical pact, and the unity between subjectivity and subject matter,

"the implied identity of author, narrator, and protagonist," appears to be, as

Elizabeth Brass argues, "shattered" by film (297). She writes that the

autobiographical self decomposes and schisms into almost mutually exclusive

elements of the person filmed [...] and the person filming" (297). This is

especially true in Memoirs because of the layers and layers of representations of

Trudeau and different aspects and methods of portrayal of his life and career. The

fact that the relationship between the author, narrator, and protagonist is so clearly

altered in film memoirs, Mooney argues, leads to a generic transformation.

Trudeau's televised Memoirs might then be more accurately described as biography in this sense, especially due to the voice-over narration. But Trudeau

does, however, often offer his personal recollections, and the film seems more personal because of his presence. This first-person narration, however, is still

continually guided, even though the audience does not actually hear the

53 The book, based on the filmed interviews and material was put into "chronological shape" by

Gerard Pelletier and George Radwanski (Trudeau xii).

151 interviewer's questions. Just as these recollections are carefully constructed and

Trudeau plays the role of former Prime Minister, the guiding narrative is also

carefully constructed in order to portray the man for whom Canadians voted.

There still exists the "tension that arises between factual truth and the discovered

or imposed pattern of meaning" and the material has been selected, manipulated,

and reorganized just as in the written memoirs (Mooney 292), but Trudeau's physical presence makes it appear less so. Stella Bruzzi writes that documentaries

are "inevitably the result of the intrusion of the filmmaker onto the situation being

filmed, that they are performative because they acknowledge the construction and

artificiality of even the non-fiction film and propose, as the underpinning truth,

the truth that emerges through the encounter between filmmakers, subjects and

spectators" (11). Viewers, in documentary films, are then "invited to access the

'document' or 'record' through representation or interpretation, to the extent that

a piece of archive material becomes a mutable rather than a fixed point of

reference" (Bruzzi 17). But the trick, for the producers, even while at times

acknowledging Trudeau's critics, is to sell the specific, rather than the mutable,

image of Trudeau that they are constructing.

Egan writes that in thinking about film as auto/biography, the film, because it involves "both technology and significant collaboration of people with

each other," calls "deliberate attention to varieties of interaction and to issues of

medium" (594). In many ways, this is especially appropriate for a politician,

whose life, career and image are continually shaped by interaction with others as

well as the media and various mediums. This interaction, however, distances it 152 from traditional definitions of "memoir," but also points to the elasticity of the genre. Furthermore, when a film or miniseries such as Trudeau's is presented and advertised as "memoirs," it demonstrates the popular appeal for memoir and for personal narratives in contemporary culture. The success of Trudeau's Memoirs reveals that both he, and the genre, possesses cultural capital.

Brian Mulroney: Memoirs and Jean Chretien: My Years as Prime Minister

"It promises to be all Mulroney, all the time for the next few months.

Yes, we said months. So, let the festivities begin" (Best B2). As this journalist alluded to in The Globe and Mail, the excitement and publicity surrounding the publication of Brian Mulroney's Memoirs in September 2007 was enormous, only to be interrupted, but also intensified by the publication of Jean Chretien's My

Years as Prime Minister a month later. While the memoirs themselves could not have been more different, both former politicians actively chose to sell themselves, their terms in office, their political visions and their versions of history through the genre of memoir. They were thus selling themselves both in the cultural market of popular opinion and in the economic market, which highlighted the notion of the politician as commodity. Both former Prime

Ministers capitalized on their political and cultural prominence in an age of political celebrity, and both actively sold themselves through the media buzz and publicity surrounding them. Ultimately, this demonstrated the importance and relevance of political memoir on the Canadian political landscape and in

Canadian culture, and its role as popular method of inspiring political discussion. 153 The memoirs from both politician-authors were highly anticipated: newspaper articles in the spring of 2007 ran large stories with enticing headlines such as "Chretien, Mulroney to debut dueling memoirs this fall" (Greenaway,

"Chretien" A5). Enthusiasm for the books was building months before their releases, eagerly assisted by publishers, party insiders, and the authors themselves. In June, Senator Marjorie Lebreton claimed that Mulroney's

Memoirs would be "revealing and compelling" and dismissed suggestions that they might try to settle old scores (Greenaway, "Chretien" A5). In anticipation of the release of Mulroney's memoirs, one journalist wrote that "the countdown has begun for one of the biggest books of the fall publishing season" (Best B2). Just before the release, the Conservative-friendly National Post, for five consecutive days, featured lengthy articles written by different columnists about various aspects of Mulroney's legacy. It culminated in an excerpt from the memoirs themselves the Saturday before the September 10l release date. The night before the release of Memoirs, CTV aired a two-hour special on Mulroney entitled

Triumph and Treachery where journalist Lloyd Robertson interviewed the former prime minister about his life and political career based on the format of the memoirs.

Because of this high profile media interest in Mulroney's Memoirs, even before their publication journalists started commenting on the book from simply the excerpts. Naturally, the excerpts that were chosen to be published were the ones that would generate excitement, highlight old grudges, and sell books: they were based on old political rivalries and emphasized Mulroney's feud with 154 Trudeau. While these political battles were fought over twenty years ago, they reemerged as exciting and relevant in the memoirs and in the media. Mulroney suggested in the memoirs that Trudeau was morally unfit for leadership because of his background during World War II. As Mulroney writes,

Although much of the free world, including Canada, recognized

the destructive and criminal nature of the Nazi war machine,

Trudeau did not. In fact, as [previous biographers] have shown, he

was indifferent to its ravages and opposed to enlightened policies

designed to wipe out the curse of Nazism. Pierre Trudeau, Captain

Canada? I think not. Trudeau had his own impressive virtues and

significant accomplishments, but none qualified him to moralize

and insist that his vision of Canada - and his alone - deserved to

prevail. (534)

Mulroney continues in this aggressive personal attack: "'Bunglers,' 'cowards,'

'snivellers'" he writes, "Trudeau knew whereof he spoke" (534).64 As a result, the Memoirs, even before their release, were widely seen as an opportunity for

Mulroney to settle old scores and to create his own legacy while diminishing that of others. Rex Murphy editorialized on CBC's The National that Mulroney's goal was to displace Trudeau as Canada's "constitutional icon" and fill this role himself with his own efforts at repatriation. Here, the memoir functions as a site for a politician attempting to achieve in public opinion what he could not achieve

64 Trudeau had used these terms to describe supporters of Mulroney's Meech Lake Accord.

155 in office. Murphy furthermore remarks that "unfortunately for him, I think, this book will only recall the score-settling, ego-serving, perhaps even envious public side of a prime minister - all that have worked with him, and those who do know him personally say, is both false and a diminishment of his real standing."

Chantal Hebert echoes this assessment, writing that "time, it seems, has done little to salve Mulroney's wounds" the excerpts have an "abrasive tone," and based on this, the memoir will be "as polarizing as the former prime minister" (Hebert Al).

A Globe and Mail editorial suggested that Mulroney's attacks on Trudeau, especially the suggestion that he was morally unfit for leadership, went too far, and was unbecoming of a former Prime Minister ("But will it sell books?" A20).

This raises the possibility that Mulroney's attempt to vindicate himself, through attack, in Memoirs could have the opposite effect of undermining both himself and the book. While possible, the high profile attacks still generated attention for the memoir and intrigue towards Canada's elected officials, thus contributing to its marketability. Stephane Dion waded into this debate: he defended Trudeau and accused Mulroney as using these "cheap shots" as a tactic to sell books (Brean,

"Mulroney rebuked" A8). Dion called into question the credibility of the author, saying that "if he is unfair for all the personalities as he has been to Mr. Trudeau, nobody will read his book for very long" (McCarthy A4). Of course, Dion's comments had the effect of serving to generate even more publicity for the memoirs. But while this advertised scandal and sensation may have helped to sell

156 books, the memoir is not as nearly hostile as one imagines from the excerpts or the reviews.

Mulroney's attacks on Lucien Bouchard, however, are also vitriolic, and were given much attention in the press.66 Mulroney stated in Triumph and

Treachery that, "[Bouchard] won't come to my funeral.. .He can do whatever he wants, but he won't come to my funeral" (Laghi, "Mulroney" A4). Later in the book, Mulroney is more reflective about Bouchard's betrayal, and his anger

appears more subdued, giving way to a naivete and sadness that the excerpts and media sensationalism do not reflect. The excerpts also focused on and received

attention for Mulroney's revelations about his personal life, specifically his battles with alcohol and quitting smoking. The attention and these judgments, both

65 Mulroney is often quite generous with many former opponents or colleagues. He describes his

Liberal opponent on the campaign trail of 1984, John Turner, for example, as an "intelligent, thoughtful and principled man" (304), and continues this praise throughout the book.

66 Lucien Bouchard was a long-time personal friend and colleague of Mulroney's. Despite

Bouchard's previous sovereigntist leanings, Mulroney invited him in to the cabinet in 1988 in order to work together for Canadian federalism. Mulroney felt extremely betrayed, both politically and personally, when Bouchard made the "horrendous act" (749) of "abandoning] the government" (750) with no forewarning at a sensitive time in the Meech Lake negotiations (750).

67 As Mulroney writes upon learning greater details about Bouchard's betrayal many years after the fact, "I was overcome with sadness and regret. With the benefit of hindsight, I could clearly see for the first time how foolish I had been in placing such loyalty, trust and friendship in a man incapable of reciprocating such feelings. It was my mistake. I paid heavily for it. Unfortunately - and this is why I will never forgive myself- so did the country" (755).

157 positive and negative, that emerged before the memoirs were even released helped to market both the man and the book, specifically in creating sensationalist gossip.

This highlighted the politician as celebrity figure, and also demonstrated the importance and prominence of the genre of political memoir in Canadian culture.

When Memoirs was finally released, it was marked by enormous launch parties in

Montreal and Toronto, and Mulroney participated in a large publicity tour across the country: all of which was profiled continually in the media. The buzz about

Mulroney and Memoirs was described as reaching "fever pitch" (Gordon A3), and while certainly unintended, Mulroney's involvement in the Schreiber affair also determined that he would remain in the spotlight for months after the release.

While Mulroney stole the spotlight in the weeks directly leading up to the release of Memoirs, Chretien's My Years as Prime Minister was also generating widespread media attention. In June, Senator Jim Munson, Chretien's former communications director, promised that Chretien's book would not be disappointing. As he remarked, "It's vintage Chretien.. .1 think he will be seen by

Canadians as a person who saw Canada through special eyes. He will tell it like it was" (Greenaway, "Chretien" A5). Chretien himself "teased readers" in advance, by giving them sneak peeks of what his memoirs would include, but refused to reveal the "juicy details" ("Chretien mum" 4). As discussed in Chapter 1, he attempted to generate just the right amount of publicity for the book: he wanted to create lots of excitement, but leave enough detail to the imagination for readers to still have a reason to buy the book. As early as June, the National Post boasted large, front page pictures of Conrad Black and Jean Chretien: Black is attacking 158 what he presumes will be Chretien's version of hazy events that include the promise of a Senate seat, and ultimately, Black's renunciation of his Canadian citizenship to become Lord Black of Crossharbour (Tedesco Al). It is hardly surprising that their versions of events differ. But in terms of promoting and generating excitement for the book, this article succeeds, even if it is just based on a promotional summary of the memoir, and on what Chretien is expected to say.

While the National Post was clearly attempting to rile up old feuds and sell its own papers through its controversial and highly-publicized founder, the articles and speculation also serve to build the excitement and anticipation for Chretien's memoir. Furthermore, it also serves to undermine Chretien as a politician, as well as an author or reliable narrator as it casts doubt upon his version of events and highlights these contrasting accounts of history. While, as discussed in Chapter 1, it is widely acknowledged that there can be no definitive account of history and that there will always be multiple constructions of events, the National Post''s focus on the contrasting versions of events still serves to cast doubt on the stability of the subject that one is purporting to present in political memoir.

The release of Chretien's memoirs was, like Mulroney's, preceded by excerpts and much media attention. In contrast to Mulroney, however, at the time of the book's release Chretien was recovering from major heart surgery, and therefore his planned cross-country publicity tour was cancelled. Chretien, however, compensated for that as soon as possible. He appeared healthy and joking on the Rick Mercer Report in November and began speaking and book signing engagements across the country. As in the case of Mulroney, the 159 publicity concentrated on his highly publicized political battles: Chretien's feud was with his successor Paul Martin. On the day of the book's release, October 15, the headline of The Globe and Mail read "Chretien: Martin's dithering led to soldiers' deaths in Afghanistan" (Valpy Al). This charge, and others against Paul

Martin, was certainly prevalent in the memoir, and his book promised to reveal in-party fighting and deep divisions within the Liberal Party of Canada. But while true, these attacks were played up in the media, probably to an unwelcome extent as the timing of the book's release inadvertently coincided with a difficult time

/TO for the Liberal Party. Just when Dion would have wanted his party to be strong and unified, his former mentor and the man who invited him into politics was reviving old animosities and highlighting divisions within the party.

The publicity for both Memoirs and My Years was assisted and accelerated by the fact that the authors were rivals: duelling memoirs from duelling politicians helped generate excitement for both books, and make the politicians themselves more alluring and competitive again. For example, on

September 18, amazon.ca had a "Duelling memoirs: Chretien vs. Mulroney" ticker that was updated hourly based on sales of each book. At this point,

Mulroney's book had already been released, and Chretien's was still a month off.

Not surprisingly then, Mulroney was "winning" the competition 74% to 26%

("Duelling"). The rivalry helped spark enthusiasm, and the books worked together

68 At the time, the Liberals, as the Official Opposition, were facing poor polling numbers and the imminent threat of a general election. The government's Throne Speech was read the day after the release of My Years, and, in an unusual twist, possessed all non-confidence motions. 160 in this method, as well as through promoting the genre of political memoir as a site for public discussion. These rivalries were now being re-publicized and played out through memoir, highlighting the importance and relevance of the genre in Canadian culture. Furthermore, the memoirs, and the attention surrounding them, revived and inspired public dialogues about Canadian politicians, politics, and events. It provided and revived debate that possessed a little "fire and passion" (Murphy).69 As Delacourt writes, "given the rather bleak state of the current Canadian political scene, Mulroney reminds us of a time, not so long ago, when politicians and politics were a lot more interesting" (A4).

Once again, the politics of personality is highlighted, as these were two defining personalities, not just statesmen, who were pivotal in shaping over twenty years of

Canadian political history, and the popularity of the memoirs proved that they still loomed large in public consciousness.

Behind all of this frenzied media attention, however, were the books themselves and the motivations behind them. Each former Prime Minister possessed different goals for his memoirs, and inevitably produced very different results (while of course both asserting that the previous government was in a process of bankrupting the country).

In the case of Mulroney, his motivation on one level was clear: he was appealing to the verdict of history and popular opinion. There was no financial gain

69 In fact, the memoirs generated so much publicity that some of the media analysis even included handwriting analyses of Mulroney's notes on the inside covers of his book.

161 attached to his memoirs as all profits were to go to a scholarship fund set up at

Canadian universities (Mulroney 1089); for him, it was about legacy. As he admitted at an Economic Club of Canada speech, he was attempting to "sway the jury" of historical interpretation (Brean, "Mulroney muses" A4). In his remarks at the Quebec launch of the book, he stated that "at least my version [of history] is now available to students and historians," citing Sir Winston Churchill in joking that he expects history will be kind "because I intend to write it" (Gordon A3).

His contribution to the historical record was a necessary response to the various criticism he has received, because, as he emphasized, "my opponents have been writing [history] long enough. It's time for me to get a couple of licks in"

(Gordon A3). Despite having been elected with two consecutive resounding majorities, Mulroney left office extremely unpopular and the PC Party was all but destroyed in the 1993 general election. In his opinion, however, this could partly be explained by the fact that he was the target of the worst press and the most unflattering books of any prime minister in memory (Mulroney 672). Memoir was therefore a method not just of retaliation, but of self-defence. Chantal Hebert observes that time has been kinder to Mulroney's legacy than many critics expected back in 1993. She cites his international activism in helping to dismantle the apartheid regime in Africa, and his environmental commitments, for example, the Acid Rain Treaty (Hebert Al). William Thorsell also urges readers to remember the decisions and accomplishments of Mulroney's "action-oriented regime" that, while controversial at the time, have grown into accepted and entrenched Canadian policy, and even embraced and upheld by previous 162 opponents and critics, for example, the Free Trade Agreement (A21). But still,

Mulroney himself, and these decisions, remain controversial. It is the background and motivations behind some of these divisive policies that Mulroney wants the reader to understand in order to achieve a more sympathetic reading of him and his government. To achieve this desired narrative, "he will pester us, he will court us, he will guide us on a certain trip through time with a narrative ripe in flavour and detail meant to exorcise the demons, correct the records, instruct the scribes and settle the accounts" (Thorsell A21).

For example, Mulroney explains the "sour" mood in Canada in 1990 as a response, in part, to the recession damaging the economy. He believed that the deep structural changes his government was making would help Canada's economic future, but he recognized that they would not be politically expedient.

He constructs himself here as continually warranted and fueled by historical imperative: he is suggesting that he is offering up his political life for the cause, and therefore deeming personal popularity to be secondary to this. As he writes, he always believed that he and his government would be vindicated by history,

"but there was little comfort in this as 1990 played out day to day" (712).

70 This introduces the question of whether it is better for a party or leader to remain true to ideological principles (even if unpopular) about their vision for Canada and risk losing government, or whether they should alter their policies and be able to achieve even diluted goals through retaining government. Mulroney claims to be choosing the former here, but his disavowal of popularity is interesting because of the reoccurring critical reading of his memoir that concentrates on his need to feel valued and appreciated. This will be discussed in greater detail.

163 Mulroney further attempts to accomplish this vindication by offering the reader his personal version of historical moments: while he recognizes that it is self- referential and subjective, because he was an instrumental player in these events, he insists that no record of history would be complete without his contribution.

He invokes the weight of the historical moment to give legitimacy and seriousness to his text and analysis, and implies that it must be understood in these terms in order to have an accurate reading of history. For example, when writing about trying to salvage the Meech Lake Accord, he writes about Senator Lowell

Murray, "he held the pen that night and took detailed notes through the tumultuous week, excerpts of which are reproduced here. His notes form part of my collection in Library and Archives Canada and have never been revealed until now. I make no apologies for setting them down in detail and at length. This is, as far as it can be reconstructed, history in the raw, and you are at the table" (771).

Here he draws readers in with this promise of raw, undiluted history, yet is aware that it is historical judgment to which he is appealing. The language in which he uses to describe the Meech Lake negotiations invokes the weight of the moment, as he repeats, "History will record that premiers...[...] history will also record... " (782). Now, however, it is he who is recording, implying that readers should carry his notes and observations with the weight of historical truth. This historical truth, however, remains personal and subjective, despite the real documentation. William Johnson, for example, finds Mulroney's Meech Lake arguments to be "misleading" and "subversive" (D4). Johnson in fact viewed the greatest flaw of the book to be the fact that Mulroney personalizes constitutional 164 negotiations, in Johnson's opinion, making them about assailing Trudeau and building his own legacy (D4). As such, Johnson believes that Mulroney

"trivializes the fundamentally opposite visions in contest" (D4). These

contrasting versions of history, however, are part of the purpose and nature of political memoir. Mulroney also provides the reader with many layers of historical record: for example, he includes personal notes, letters, journals, as well

as public speeches and transcripts. His documentation and references, as Peter

Newman describes, are the book's "hidden hand grenade" or his secret weapon

against his opponents ("The Real" 26). Mulroney is aware throughout the text that he is constantly being assessed and appealing to history's verdict, and is providing

the reader with as much information as possible to support his arguments and make it more difficult for refutation of his account. As noted previously, what is

omitted from the book, for example, Mulroney's involvement with Karlheinz

Schreiber is also important. Does Mulroney ultimately succeed at swaying popular opinion or historical interpretation of his time in office through his memoirs? It may be too soon to tell, but he certainly makes a detailed and well- considered contribution.

What is repetitive in the numerous reviews of Memoirs, is that rarely do they concentrate on Mulroney's policies which he has painstakingly recorded and

detailed. They concentrate on Mulroney the man and figure of former prime minister, and often appear that they are attempting to psychoanalyze him. The politician as cultural-celebrity and the politics of personality are prevalent in these

analyses. Lawrence Martin suggests that it is Mulroney's sense of inferiority, of 165 never being quite accepted as part of the establishment that drives his need to self- justify, and that "the ache in his ego still looms large" ("Battle" A15). Robert

Fulford postulates that everything returns to Mulroney's ego-driven and consummate desire to be liked. As Fulford writes, "In Memoirs he comes across as something of a whiner, a politician who loses his poise when dealing with failure or betrayal. His anger is too overt, his neediness too obvious, just as when he was in office" ("Mulroney" A5). Despite the fact that Mulroney is making

"intensely personal reflections," Fulford claims that the book is "emotionally thinner" because he "look[s] everywhere except inside himself ("Mulroney" A5).

It is true that in Memoirs Mulroney often blames his inexperience as Prime

Minister for mistakes (481), or the media for exacerbating situations and portraying him in negative terms. It should be noted, however, that the politician- author, placing blame and responsibility on others, as well as critics' complaints about this potentially self-serving and reflexively self-protective practise, is familiar territory in political memoir. As noted, Diefenbaker and Pearson both blame media sensationalism in contributing to their difficulties in holding office.

One example in the memoirs in which Mulroney participates in this practise is when he writes about the "tuna crisis":71 here he blames both his own inexperience and the media for exacerbating the crisis, a crisis, he writes with

71 In 1985, CBC's the fifth estate alleged that John Fraser, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans,

"had overruled his officials and ordered tuna that was unfit for human consumption be released for sale" from the StarKist tuna-canning plant in New Brunswick (390). Fraser was forced to resign over the issue, and Mulroney and his staff also made communication errors in handling the issue.

166 frustration, "where no one got sickV (393). He writes that he " had not yet learned of the fifth estate's remarkable capacity for distortion and deception"

(390) and continues that "faced with the choice of writing or broadcasting stories about negotiating free trade or dismantling apartheid, or about possible scandal and missteps, the media would opt for the latter every time" (390). He ultimately appears frustrated with the media and even members of his caucus in how they dealt with the affair and how he believes that they blew the story out of proportion, yet he still details every step of the process rather than merely dismissing it as we will later see Chretien do.

Bothwell also makes similar personal comments about the subject of the

Memoirs to Fulford in that he writes, "Mulroney attempts to come across as heroic, but his efforts to carve out an unchallengeable position as Canada's best,

Canada's greatest, prime minister make him seem merely needy" ("Even the longest" AA8). While Mulroney himself admits he misses the adulation of being prime minister (Brean, "Mulroney Muses" A4), this self-serving aspect to the memoirs reads less "needy" than unsurprising given the legacy-building aspect of political memoir and Mulroney's desire to redeem himself in popular opinion.

Furthermore, Mulroney is more forthcoming in his memoirs about his and his government's mistakes than most of the Prime Ministers. For example, when discussing the announcement of a governmental CF-18 contract to Montreal's

Bombardier, rather than Winnipeg's Bristol Aerospace, he writes that "I blew it on communications, making a good decision look bad, and should have known better" (483). The memoir is full of such admissions; however, they are generally 167 concluded with broad, potentially egotistical statements, such as, "To govern is to

choose. Being prime minister requires a capacity to decide and move on" (483).

He is continually appealing to Canadians to sympathize with the difficult

decisions he was required to make as Prime Minister, and seeking understanding

and validation that ultimately he made the right decisions under difficult

circumstances. To make these appeals, however, he is often forthcoming and personal in admitting where he and his government could have done better. For

example, he includes a speech that he wrote for Canadians on the third

anniversary of his election. The speech examined his government's successes, but

also its weaknesses, outlining their failures and how to overcome these. He read the speech to cabinet, who for public relations reasons deemed it "inadvisable" to read; Mulroney, however, still thought that "ordinary Canadians" would

appreciate his candour and honesty (580). Memoir, here, is his opportunity.

He is also often more forthcoming about his personal life than other Prime

Ministers, stripping off layers of the public figure, while still keeping his image tightly controlled. For example, as noted, he discusses his attempts to deal with

alcohol, stating that, "I realized I would have to come to grips with the fact that I had developed what could only be described as a serious drinking problem" (192), and describes his feelings of weakness and shame in dealing with this illness

(193). And while the book is large, detailed, and self-glorifying, and Mulroney does, as Newman once wrote him, portray opportunistic gestures as responses to

"the summons of history" {Secret 42), the book, and its author, appear defensive

and proud, taking the solemnity of the office very personally. As he wrote about 168 the un-ratified Meech Lake Accord, "for me, the end of Meech was like a death in

the family. I carry with me to this very day a throbbing sense of loss of one of the

greatest might-have-beens in Canada's 140-year history. I carry with me as well

the scars from those battles - some self-inflicted, others not - that I wear as a badge of honour secured in an honourable attempt to strengthen our nation" (793).

While this might appear grandiose and inflected with hubris, he demonstrates a

very personal connection to his public role as prime minister. Political memoir is

often criticized for not possessing these introspective qualities, and yet when

Mulroney's memoir is politically and personally revealing, he is then criticized

and almost ridiculed for it. Some reviewers did appreciate this insight into his

character, although perhaps in different ways than expected. As Riley writes, "it is

Brian Mulroney's well-known flaws, rather than his virtues - the persecution

complex, the grandiosity, the transparent insecurity - that make his Memoirs so

readable and, oddly, so fresh. This is a man constitutionally incapable of

discretion..." ("Brian" A10). Riley continues that while it may not have helped

his reputation, it does make for a fascinating book. As Delacourt suggests, it is a

shame that this legacy-building and egocentrism appears to be the main focus of

the reviews of the book, for, as she writes, "Mulroney has in fact written a serious

book. Many of us who lived through those years are finally finding out what he

was thinking during the fascinating and often frustrating times when he was in

power" (A4).72

72 There were, it should be noted, also many positive comments about the Mulroney memoirs.

Many reviewers observe that especially given their length, it was an achievement for Mulroney to

169 While Mulroney was blatantly unapologetic for the fact that he was making his appeal to history through his memoirs, many reviewers found

Chretien, in My Years, to appear secure and self-satisfied about his place in history. He presented himself as feeling justified by his record and his three consecutive majorities, and appeared to take public approval for granted. As

Chretien stated in an interview, "I don't give a damn about legacy" (Interview 7

February). His preparations for his memoirs reflect this, as he is even rather insulting towards those who have participated in recording material throughout their career or worked towards a memoir project. In contrast to Mulroney, he reveals that he had no diary, no dictated memos, and his persona will be that of a storyteller. As he states, "If I had been more preoccupied with my place in history, I might have kept a better record, but I was focused on doing the best job

I could at the moment without worrying too much about how it would look in the future" (My Years 410). As such, Chretien thanks people who helped him

write them himself, rather than having them ghostwritten as is common and accepted in the genre of political memoir. As Stewart wrote: "Peppered with amusing anecdotes and interspersed with numerous detailed diary entries, Brian Mulroney's Memoirs might be the finest and most comprehensive memoir of any prime minister in Canadian history" ("Straight" A15). Francis wrote with praise that: "Memoirs is a must-read for anyone interested in Canadian history and is a revealing glimpse into all the personalities, Mulroney included, who have set this county's political agenda for more than a generation" ("Mulroney" FP2).

170 remember collectively, and also thanks his ghostwriter Ron Graham, as well as

Daniel Poliquin who wrote the French edition.

But there can be no doubt that Chretien, as a consummate career and party politician, is just as concerned as Mulroney about his legacy; he just performs this differently, both in his memoir and beyond. He appeals to the reader's sympathies in writing that the reasons and inspiration for his memoirs are the people, friendships, and warm memories that he possesses from his time as prime minister, and that he would like to share these memories with Canadians {My

Years 7). He did not write his memoirs to "puff up [his] reputation," rather to

"record a moment in the all too brief span of time we human beings are given on earth" {My Years 2). These explanations appear vacuous, and do not coincide with the tough, unrestrained political persona normally associated with Chretien.

He does admit that he wants to tell the story of the remarkable turnaround of

Canada because of his governance, and why certain decisions were made {My

Years 5).74 Again, in direct contrast to Mulroney, his intention is "nof to produce a weighty, comprehensive account of the 'Chretien years,'" but rather to produce,

"an informative and highly personal recollection of my decade as prime minister."

73 Chretien's brief thanks to his ghostwriters are in direct contrast to the arduous and detailed claims of Pearson's editors.

74 Most political memoirs possess this self-congratulatory aspect. As Laurence Martin writes, "To read Mr. Mulroney's account of his nine years in office and Mr. Chretien's account of his 10, is to get the feeling that Canada has been blessed with sterling stewardship for two decades running"

("Fuelling discontent" Al).

171 He will "tell it as [he] saw it," and just wants to "share a few entertaining stories as I do with my friends, to correct the record where necessary, to brag a bit, and to be as candid as possible" (My Years 5). But he instantly qualifies that, as noted, in that he will not discuss his family or share too much personal information. The reader is then drawn in as friend and confidante, but there is no revelation of intimate details, but rather breezy anecdotes about his time as prime minister. It is not too historical, but neither is it very personal. Chapters are not necessarily chronological in order, and they approach potentially serious topics light- heartedly. For example "Security Details" tells lively anecdotes about an intruder at 24 Sussex Drive (My Years 176-9), the "media circus" surrounding his pepper- spray comments at APEC in 1997 (My Years 186), and stories about Chretien and

Bill Clinton trying to escape RCMP detail (My Years 190-191). The narration of these anecdotes contrast with Mulroney's method of story-telling in that they dismiss potentially serious topics with humour and appear to brush off the culpability and the solemnity in which Mulroney sees his role. Another example of this is in Chretien's initial reactions to the attacks of September 11, 2001. As he states, "without taking any chances or dismissing any dangers, I didn't believe in my heart that the terrorists had targeted Canada" (My Years 294). While history would prove the feelings "in his heart" to be correct, the language of the memoir appears to dismiss potentially serious issues. The chapter "Tales from the

Nineteenth Hole" gives anecdotes about Chretien's golfing stories, but presents this ostensibly as lessons in international diplomacy (My Years 192-8). The book's light-hearted manner, however, stops at Paul Martin. The material reads 172 like a taunting tirade against Martin, despite the fact that, as noted, Chretien makes a point of saying that he could never bring himself to writing a damning tell-all and that he accepts people's weaknesses (My Years 6).75 This point too thus proves itself disingenuous, and instead, it appears that Chretien has only written it in order to proactively excuse himself for his comments, as well as to imply that there is much worse that he could have said. While the book might claim intimacy, it employs distance in order to safely attack without substantial detail, or sometimes questionable detail.

Ultimately, while Chretien claims that he is not preoccupied with legacy, he must remind Canadians of why they endorsed him, and redeem and vindicate himself to Liberals who may have wanted him to leave office sooner, as well as to prove them wrong. Ultimately, with the passage of time, and governments, he is in a much stronger position to argue this. As Cohen writes, "the most confident and serene of statesmen in repose have no need to complain, explain, apologize or

antagonize" ("Symposium" D19). Chretien, however, needs to do all of these. As he has always admitted, politics is a sport, and he is just as calculated as

Mulroney. He writes,

To be frank, politics is about wanting power, getting it, exercising

it, and keeping it. Helping people comes with it naturally, because

you'll never be elected if you treat people badly. But no one will

75 This distinguishes it from his first memoir, Straight from the Heart, which was not a tirade against John Turner who had just beaten him in the 1984 Liberal leadership race. Furthermore,

Straight also possessed more historical and political detail.

173 ever convince me, with all the experience I've had, that the

motivations are strictly altruistic. No - we throw ourselves into

politics because we love it. Politics is a sport in which the desire

for victory is everything, because the ultimate reward is the power

that lets you do some good. (My Years 2-3)

He returns to this notion later in the memoir admitting, "To be absolutely honest, I

didn't do what I did only for the glory of the nation. There was the sheer fun of it,

too - the personal thrill of the sport" (My Years 406). His memoir, to continue

with this metaphor, is thus part of this gameplay. It exists as a product and manifestation of this power, as well as a tool in promoting and continually performing and exercising it. Chretien is then excusing, in part, some of his

calculated nature or unkind words and guiding the reader to see all politicians in

this manner and not to trust feigned altruism. Memoir can then be his revenge,

couched in power politics, and excused by the fact that he claims to be

disinterested in his legacy.

While Chretien briefly attacks Mulroney's government's record, it is Paul

Martin for whom he reserves most of his wrath. He accuses him of underhanded

politics in trying to edge out a sitting prime minister, from his own party at that.

His tone changes in his recriminations: his emotions effectively range from a hurt betrayal to a bitter anger. As he writes, "I was hurt by his betrayal. I felt he owed me, at the very least, the decency of letting me retire on my own terms and some respect for the Liberal tradition - one of our greatest strengths - of supporting the

leader" (My Years 257). Later, however, his cutthroat instinct is roused and he 174 taunts Martin with the fact that he would not have led the party into the 2004 election if Martin and his "goons" had not been so aggressive. As he writes, "I was damned if I was going to let myself be shoved out the door by a gang of self- serving goons. By trying to force me to go, they aroused my competitive instinct, ignited my anger, and inadvertently gave me the blessing I needed from Aline to fight for a third term" (My Years 259). Finally, he also appeals to the reader's sense of good government, in that he claims that this feud, for which he claims no responsibility, is not just personal, but also affected parliamentary stability and even the nature of democracy. As he writes in his own defense, "no prime minister could live with this type of situation for long. All the confusion was extremely disruptive and potentially destructive" (My Years 378).

Chretien, furthermore, accuses Martin of exercising poor political judgment at every turn. He blames Martin for not implementing the Kyoto

Accord, and appears almost confused at how unintelligent Martin could be. As he states, "unfortunately, whether for political or ideological reasons, my successors succumbed to the fears and threats of the anti-Kyoto forces and did serious damage to Canada's progress and our reputation in the process" (My Years 389).

He again accuses Martin of inept political judgment to the detriment of the

76 While he blames Martin, he simultaneously, however, appears somewhat naive himself in writing that he remained optimistic until his last day in office that he could establish agreements to allow Canada to meet its Kyoto obligations by 2012. This, however, is the overall tone of the memoirs: Chretien portrays himself as proud, defiant, and as possessing a supposedly untouchable record.

175 Liberal Party in dealing with the sponsorship scandal. Chretien quotes Chantal

Hebert in writing that the sponsorship affair was a " 'mouse of an affair' that

would have soon faded into oblivion if Paul Martin hadn't reacted like 'an

elephant panicking at the sight of a mouse' and 'tried to climb any tree in sight, breaking branches at every turn, and generally creating havoc in all directions'"

(My Years 397). As noted in Chapter 1, Chretien dismisses quickly any trace of

scandal attached to himself, or any questions about his own political judgment.

The most malicious or at least media-worthy accusation was that Martin increased

the risk for Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan when he "took too long to make up

his mind" about Canada's role in Afghanistan. As a result of this indecision,

Chretien claims, Canadian soldiers were moved out of Kabul and into the more

dangerous "killing fields" around Kandahar (My Years 305). As previously

noted, the media was quick to respond and to find soldiers and their families

angry that they were being reduced to political fodder. What makes these attacks

even more provocative than Mulroney's attacks on Trudeau and Bouchard, is that

77

they were against a very high profile member of his own party. Even when

Chretien is not actively attacking Martin, he still undermines him politically and

intellectually throughout the memoir. For example, in the budget-making

process, when Martin was Minister of Finance, Chretien writes that "Martin

would present me with the specific options he had before him and ask me to make

the really tough decisions" (My Years 59). While the Chretien-Martin feud has

77 Mulroney, at times, does criticize members of his own party, for example, Pat Carney, but they

read as criticisms rather than attacks, and involve lower-profile members. 176 always been highly publicized, Chretien still chose personal ego over partisanship in the memoir. Bliss wrote that "the tension between authoritarian individualism and traditions of loyalty in the Conservative Party generally means that

Conservatives write more revealing memoirs than Liberals do, because they dislike one another so heartily" (My Years 346). Here, it is the Liberals who dislike each other and attack each other, whereas Mulroney attacks, as would be expected, members of opposing parties.

But whereas Mulroney was marked as "needy" for his assails and his attempts to boost his own accomplishments, Chretien, because of his attacks is considered an arrogant "thug" (Dimanno A2) and the "eternal street fighter"

(Martin, "Fuelling" Al). Yaffe describes the memoirs as "bitchy" and nakedly self-serving, but also a "maliciously delicious and gossipy read" (Al).79 Most reviews of My Years are negative; there are not enough details to satisfy critics.

Riley suggests that Chretien's book diminishes rather than burnishes his legacy.

As she writes, "Only glimpses of his engaging sense of humour emerge, but the combative, self-justifying and sometimes vindictive streak is fully on display," as is his competitiveness ("Chretien" A14). He cannot, or does not, admit mistakes: he always had to win ("Chretien" A14). He portrays his role in the 1995 Quebec

78 What is ironic, is that although the Chretien government had a reputation for clashing with the

Bush administration on personal and political levels, Chretien's comments towards President Bush are extremely generous. Stephen Harper also emerges unscathed.

79 I would disagree that it was actually that gossipy: Chretien tells interesting anecdotes, but rarely does he share or reveal much more than this.

177 referendum campaign, for example, as being completely restricted by his advisors and the organizers. The co-relation, he implies, is that the Canadian federalists, or the "No" side, were slipping in the polls. Once, however, he decided to "act on

[his] basic instincts and plunge into the campaign" (My Years 143), his television address halted the decline and "pushed the No side back toward 50-50" (My Years

147). His intervention, he suggests, saved Canada, and none of the ministers would have been "in any better position to handle this difficult situation" (My

Years 146). He portrays himself as invulnerable to attack as a result of his self- certainty. Furthermore, he too, like the other previous Prime Ministers, blame the media, in this instance writing that "few reporters paused to reflect what it all meant or whether it had any substance because they were having so much fun with this fresh, dramatic story, and the sudden prospect of the breakup of Canada was selling a lot of newspapers" (My Years 137).

The closest he gets to an admission of making mistakes is to acknowledging that he was too trusting of Martin and his ambitions, and wrong not to fire him sooner; "I was naive," he writes (My Years 372). He identifies how his strategy could have been different to prevent the Martin forces from gaining control of the Liberal Party. But even after surrendering control of his party, for example, he defends and aggrandizes himself: he is quick to point out that had there been a leadership review as his advisors suggested, he

"undoubtedly woud have won by a significant margin" (My Years 371). This is the exception, however: Chretien usually appears impervious to his mistakes, whereas Mulroney is almost too quick to point them out, even if he usually 178 blames either the media, or his government's inexperience. In the reviews then, it appears that each former Prime Minister is doomed by reputation and governmental record as well as the memoir: they cannot be separated in public opinion as both memoirs were criticized, ultimately, for being reflective of their public personas.

Peter C. Newman's review of My Years in The Globe and Mail was so damning that the publisher, Louise Dennys of Knopf, placed a quarter-page ad in the paper dismissing Newman's claims, suggesting that it was a "lazy review," and that Newman had not read the memoir and was biased against Chretien: she unreservedly defends the book and rebukes the review and reviewer (A10).

Ultimately, of course, while Newman's initial review may have dissuaded potential buyers, Dennys's alluring provocation added to the interest in the book, and had the potential to increase readership. There was also an indignant column in that same October 27 paper by Chretien's policy and research director in the early 2000s, repudiating the review. As Paul Genest writes, "It is difficult to imagine a more hostile reviewer for Jean Chretien's memoir.. .than Peter C.

Newman" (D19). Genest proceeds to list Chretien's accomplishments and how

Canadians adored him, as he writes, "reading his memoir will refresh us as to why that was the case" (D19). The unsolicited but probably welcome attention for

Chretien and My Years continued in the aftermath of this, for there were then further news stories about this subplot. Robert Fulford, for example, points to the irony that The Globe, by slamming Dennys' book, earned $15,000 in advertising.

But it was money well spent, as it drew further attention to the book ("Smart 179 politicians" A21). This attention all certainly worked to Chretien's advantage, especially as he was recovering and couldn't promote the book.

Peter C. Newman suggested, in reference to Mulroney's memoirs, that all autobiographies are an exercise in "plea bargaining" ("The Real" 24). Later, he suggested that Chretien could not even be bothered to plea bargain as he was so confident in himself that he needed no explanations or apologies (Newman,

"What scandal?" D6). While Chretien does not overtly plea bargain in the same manner as Mulroney, the exercise of the memoir and the nature of the arrogance and attacks within the memoir proves his need for some of this same vindication.

Ultimately, the popularity of each memoir and the attention they received placed the genre of the political memoir at the forefront of political discussion and debate.

In conclusion, Prime Ministerial memoirs are important tools in revealing historical trends, narratives, and changing political cultures within the twentieth century in Canada. Individually, they provide often provoking details about specific governments and personalities, while together, they form a collection of, albeit partisan and subjective, invaluable information about generations of our political history. Their popularity, however, in the Canadian marketplace, also indicates that there is a contintued interest with the biographical approach to

80 The advertisement had apparently begun as a letter to the editor, but Dennys had wanted to use more than 200 words (Fulford, "Smart politicians" A21).

180 history, and a fascination with personal narratives as a method of complementing and unmasking public figures. I would suggest that the erosion of boundaries between the private and public lives of politicians, by the media, by politicians, and by the electorate, is part of a political culture where the focus is on the individual politician and the cultural value they possess. The memoirs help create, but also reinforce this political culture. In terms of auto/biographical theory, these prime ministerial memoirs follow a traditional pattern: while they are memoirs, and thus by definition more concerned with the external events of their protaganists, they still focus on a self-aggrandizing narrative for this protaganist. In so doing, they also reveal a masculinist political culture which will be explored in the next chapter.

181 Chapter 3: Women's Political Memoir

While the memoirs of former Prime Ministers most often offer self- confident narratives of personal and national accomplishment, the genre of political memoir in Canada includes life writing that is less than certain of its heroic narrative. Women parliamentarians, in their memoirs, often challenge the self-aggrandizing patterns established in men's political memoir and frequently write against this tradition, both in content and in form. Women's political memoirs reveal that women politicians typically feel that their gender affects their experience in elected office, and that masculinist norms adversely affect democratic institutions and participation in Canada. These gender-related issues are rarely addressed in the memoirs of male politicians. The genre of political memoir, specifically the memoirs of women politicians, thus provides an opportunity to examine cultural norms within the parliamentary system and the notion of legislatures as gendered spaces. Canadian women's political memoir provides a window to the challenges that face women parliamentarians as they negotiate this system charged with masculinist practices. These memoirs, however, also reveal the opportunities that women parliamentarians possess to change this system and alter public discourse through their participation and political activity.

Women parliamentarians who write memoirs must continually negotiate the fact that they are gendered practitioners of the auto/biographical genre as well as gendered participants in the parliamentary system. Feminist auto/biographical theory highlights a complexity in women's auto/biographical practices as often, it 182 holds, women struggle with writing their subjectivity into a male dominated and defined genre. Much of feminist auto/biographical theory asserts that women possess a different relationship to the genre of memoir than men: in content, form, access to the genre, and material production, to name but a few examples.

Are these claims reflected in women's political memoir? Is the woman's political memoir distinct from the man 'si As noted, women politician's memoirs are inextricably linked to the fact that women's experiences in Canadian legislatures are often different, and are theorized differently then men's: women often relate different experiences as women within the electoral system and within political organizations. These differences are reflected in their memoirs.

This chapter will argue that while women parliamentarians do not necessarily share political interests or identify with each other based on their gender, as women, they do share Iris Marion Young's notion of social perspective. As a result, they often share common experiences related to their roles as women politicians which then shape and inform their memoirs, regardless of their ideological or partisan differences. I will examine some of these issues as they are revealed in women's political memoir: for example, do women parliamentarians consider themselves to be fulfilling a mandate of difference in terms of legislative approach, leadership style, or policy agendas? I will examine in the memoirs the complexities and challenges that women parliamentarians face, for example, the double standards often present for women in politics, their relationship with each other, and the challenges of combining motherhood and electoral politics. While feminist auto/biographical theory is important to 183 examine these notions, in turn, the experiences and practices documented in

women's political memoirs are constructive for developing the field.

The memoirs that I will consider in this section are, in order of

publication, Nellie McClung's Clearing in the West (1935) and The Stream Runs

Fast (1945), Judy LaMarsh's Memoirs of a Bird in a Gilded Cage (1970), Therese

Casgrain's A Woman in a Man's World (1972), Rosemary Brown's Being Brown:

A Very Public Life (1989), Audrey McLaughlin's A Woman's Place (1992),

Sharon Carstairs's Not One of the Boys (1993), Ellen Fairclough's Saturday's

Child (1995), Kim Campbell's Time and Chance (1996), Pat Carney's Trade

Secrets (2002), Sheila Copps's Nobody's Baby (1986) and Worth Fighting For

(2004), and Deborah Grey's Never Retreat, Never Explain, Never Apologize: My

Life, My Politics (2004). As is the case with all political memoirs, it is important

to consider whether it is legitimate to group a collection of authors together based

on a single issue, in this case, women politicians and their gendered experiences

in the parliamentary system. Indeed, that is the question that propels this chapter.

This is not a group of homogenous women: as with all parliamentarians, they

represent different regions of the country, different political parties, different

ideologies, and they span several generations. While these women and the

experiences they relate in their memoirs could be deconstructed and analyzed

from many other perspectives and grouped together as such, I believe it is the

commonalities among these women in their memoirs that provide the most

productive insight. I am not attempting to essentialize or fix categorical binaries

of masculine and feminine, but rather to demonstrate that in the parliamentary 184 system these historical and cultural constructions are still ever-present, often to damaging effect. I will, furthermore, consider how gender intersects with other

components that comprise identity (Smith and Watson 41).

I will begin this discussion of women's political memoir by

acknowledging a parliamentary system in Canada that is rooted in masculine norms and possesses a gendered democratic deficit. This is further based in the fact that leadership and governance are gendered concepts, and that hegemonic notions of masculinity permeate politics and understandings of political power

and leadership (Duerst-Lahti 19, 24). Since masculine assumptions underpin the

electoral system, both ideologically and practically, they continue to reinforce these notions and legitimize masculine power (Duerst-Lahti 21). Women enter politics within these norms and within these gendered power relations. In Canada

specifically, Janine Brodie wrote in 1985 that legislatures and elite politics were

"virtually an exclusive male domain" (Women 2). As Sheila Copps recounts on

entering Parliament Hill, she was shocked and dismayed by "the lack of any

female presence in the 'halls of power,'" both physically and symbolically (Worth

21). Audrey McLaughlin reinforces this point, writing that "When a woman

enters the House of Commons, she enters what in significant ways is an old-

fashioned men's club. There are all sorts of reminders - some subtle, some not so

subtle - that this is not a woman's place" (26). Lingering notions of traditional public/private gender roles and stereotypes still cast the female politician as

185 Q 1

somewhat of an anomaly. Judy LaMarsh and Flora MacDonald were frequently

asked in the 1970s, "Are you a politician or a woman?" The question suggests

that the two roles were thought to be mutually exclusive and incompatible

(Trimble and Arscott 108). Even in the early twenty-first century, Parliament remains a male-dominated institution in part because of a democratic deficit in terms of women's electoral representation. While overt discrimination against women in terms of suffrage and access to public office has been eliminated,

systemic and structural discrimination remain. Canada's legislatures continue to be "men's legislatures" (Trimble and Arscott 102) in terms of representation and

gendered power relations. As Brodie writes, "many years after their formal

admission into the politics of liberal democracies, women remain outside the

corridors of political power" (Women 1).

In Canada's Fortieth Parliament, which was officially opened on

November 18, 2008, women constitute 22.4 % of the elected members: out of 308

MPs, 69 are women. Women in this Parliament represent 29% of the federal

cabinet: out of 38 cabinet ministers, 11 are women. This is the largest proportion of women ever elected to federal office and appointed to cabinet in Canadian history. Despite these record numbers, however, Francoise Gagnon, National

81 The notion of "The Flora Syndrome" grew out of MacDonald's bid for leader of the PC party in

1976: party members promised MacDonald their support, but the votes did not materialize. "The

Flora Syndrome" is seen as part of a pattern of challenges for women in politics (Trimble and

Arscott 122).

186 Director of Equal Voice, points out that these numbers still fall short of a critical mass (Smith, "PM" A23). Furthermore, these numbers, while improving, indicate that women are still underrepresented in elected office and in positions of political leadership. Moreover, beyond these numbers, women in public life often feel that electoral politics and legislatures' structures are not always conducive to women's equal involvement. This is a multifaceted predicament that will be explored in more detail when analyzing the memoirs, but I will briefly outline it here. Because of cultural gender norms and traditional gender roles, studies indicate that women, particularly when they are mothers, might be disinclined to run for public office because of their family responsibilities (Lawless and Fox

64). When women with families do run, studies show that they tend to wait until they and their children are older, potentially placing them at a disadvantage in terms of promotion relative to politicians who have been in politics for a greater amount of time (Maclvor 243). Also, women potentially face culturally and socially constructed gender-based barriers if they run for public office as outdated

82 Equal Voice is a multi-partisan, non-profit organization devoted to promoting the election of women in Canadian politics.

83 The critical mass hypothesis suggests that women can only make a substantial difference to political discourse and public policy when they are present in substantial numbers. There is not a concensus on what constitutes a critical mass of women, although studies confirm that as the number of women grows, so does women's ability to effect change for women (Trimble and

Arscott 131-2). Gagnon is using the term "critical mass" to mean one-third of representatives, which is what the United Nations defines as adequate representation of any particular group

(Smith, "PM" A23).

187 assumptions can still persist about women's proper sphere (Maclvor 262).

Furthermore, nomination battles are costly, and women in the past have not necessarily possessed the time, or the occupational networks necessary to fundraise and launch a competitive campaign (Maclvor 262).84 If they decide to run, women often feel that they must endure more intense media scrutiny because they are women and cite this as an impediment to their political careers (Everitt and Gidengil 194). This media scrutiny, which often acts to belittle and differentiate women politicians, continues in their legislative careers. When women have overcome these barriers and are elected to public office, they often cite the aggressive style of legislatures and debates, as well as a more general political culture as masculinist and hence sometimes exclusionary towards women. As Pat Carney wrote, "The roll call of women ministers [...] is accompanied by the drums of alienation, isolation, feelings of inadequacy, guilt, depression, anger. It took many of us a long time to understand that our problems were cultural, not personal" (310). While Parliament has evolved since Carney's tenure, she wrote that it was not "family friendly" at the time (329): twenty years later, it still remains difficult for many women to balance parenthood and politics.

These masculine norms and lack of women elected officials point to structural,

84 To help change this, The Conservative Party, The Liberal Party, and The NDP all have established funds to help women financially in running for public office. Some parties also have gender quotas for candidates to help facilitate the entry of women to elected life. Even when this occurs, however, the parties' targets for women candidates are not always met.

188 social, and democratic inequalities within the Canadian parliamentary system, but they are not inevitable.

There is a growing field of analysis on how and why this gendered democratic deficit can and should be ameliorated. Women's political memoirs are an important resource to help analyze these issues. Overwhelmingly, women's political memoirs reveal the significance of gender to their political experiences in a manner that is unnecessary in memoirs written by men, and hence inform our understandings of Canadian political culture, especially in terms of gender. Judith McKenzie writes that women's political memoirs offer a

"different perspective" and "important insights frequently overlooked in more formal academic treatments" (91).85 As she writes, "Women's personal narratives are essential primary documents for feminist research. These narratives present and interpret women's life experiences. They can take many forms [...]

These personal narratives illuminate the course of a life over time and allow for its interpretation in its historical and cultural context" (97). Furthermore,

Marlene Kadar writes that "Life writing.. .is often used to correct Canada's political record" (665). While Kadar is speaking here of life writing that explores immigration and the experiences of ethnic minorities, these political women, while still speaking from a position of relative privilege, often still employ the genre to contest the political record, or at least add another perspective to it. As

Fetherling writes, political autobiography can be a method of "laughing in the

85 To date, only McKenzie and Patricia Cormack have published material based specifically on

Canadian women's political memoirs.

189 face of received history" (x). Many elected women do write memoirs, and while their gender is not necessarily specifically the reason that they write, they employ the memoir as a method of raising the issue of gender inequality and revealing their gendered experiences within the political system.

First, I will examine how women's political memoir relates to the more general field of women's life writing. Some feminist analysis of women's memoir examines the genre and practice of memoir as an opportunity for women, who have been associated with a domestic and private sphere, to share their traditionally devalued experiences. Linda Peterson, in discussing Victorian women's memoirs, suggests that Victorian women turned to memoir as a culturally sanctioned form of life writing because they had lost their place in the public, more privileged mode of autobiography. As she writes,

The memoir - domestic in its focus, relational in its mode of self-

construction - allowed women to write as mothers, daughters, and

wives. It allowed them to represent their lives in terms of "good"

feminine plots. But it did not allow them to develop - or disturb -

the primary masculine traditions of autobiography, the public, res

gestae account of professional life for the more introspective,

developmental form of an intellectual career. (20)

Helen Buss also suggests that memoir is a touchstone (as is diary) for women's

self-inscription {Mapping 18). She writes that because autobiography, as the

account of one's self-development (and as such a masculine genre) was riskier for women, they turned to the safer mode of memoir, which recounted one's place as 190 a member of a group (Mapping 24). Carolyn Heilbrun sees the purpose behind

women's memoirs to tell what has not been told before, or has not been told in the

public sphere by women, to women (37). Furthermore, for Heilbrun, women's

memoir appears to search into a woman's soul for life experiences, for guidance,

and illumination of male domination (37). These analyses all place the female

memoirist firmly as a private individual who shares personal and domestic

information in order to connect to a public sphere from which she has been

excluded. Heilbrun, for example, sees memoir as an opportunity for women to

make a formerly private matter public, which has the ability to redefine public

discourses. Buss argues that memoir, as a form, allows women to access a very

"private self," and to connect that sense of self to the historical and political

conditions of the public world (Repossessing xxi). Writing memoir then allows

individual women to begin to "repossess the public world" and empowers them to

act in both private and public worlds (Repossessing xxii). Here, Buss and

Heilbrun place the primacy on the private self in memoir, but also appear to

accept a totalizing dichotomy between public and private spheres.

This feminist analysis in some ways appears to contradict Gusdorf s

traditional dismissive definition of memoir (as discussed in Chapter 1) in that it is public men who write memoirs for self-aggrandizing public purposes, and that

memoirs are too concerned with the material conditions of production and the

public sphere to possess the introspection or insight of the privileged

86 Women's readership of women's memoir is implicit in this statement also, a point which will be

discussed further in relation to political memoir.

191 autobiography. However, in terms of Gusdorf s implication that the form of memoir was a weaker genre for weaker writers who were easily dismissed and incapable of the more literary mode of autobiography, this feminist analysis of women's memoir appears appropriate. As discussed, Misch also viewed the memoir, as Rak summarizes, to be a "passive form for passive writers"

("Memoirs" 310). fSidonie Smith thus identifies a double bind for female autobiographers: the autobiographer has been constructed as a public figure with access to public discourses, yet cultural and social circumstances has prevented women's access to this public space, and therefore to an autobiographical subjectivity (Neuman 3, Smith 7). When women seek a place in the public arena,

Smith argues, they are adopting the masculine mode of the genre, and are

"enacting the scenarios of male selfhood," opening themselves for public censure

(Smith 8, Neuman 3). But if they remain anonymous, they erase the female signature. How then, as Neuman asks, can the woman autobiographer achieve agency, rather than self-silencing through autobiography?87

All of these critical treatments of the genre of memoir appear to leave the public woman writing political memoir doubly cursed. She is employing a genre considered acceptable for women because of its passive nature, but further dismissed in this genre because of its association with the self-aggrandizing and suspect politician. This is complicated further, however, in that while these memoirs certainly do reveal private and intimate details and do connect private

87 This line of critical inquiry, and this double bind is relevant and applicable for women in public life also which will be examined.

192 and public spheres, these women are not trying, in Buss's words, to "repossess" the public sphere. They already occupy the public sphere, even if, at times, they are not entirely comfortable in this world. While many of the political memoirs do reflect a negotiation for women between their political and private lives, and specifically draw attention to this balancing act, these women are already in a relatively privileged position, as well as self-consciously employing a genre sometimes associated with the public sphere and the aggrandizing of men (one which also highlights the politician as commodity). In comparison with the private woman writing memoir then, for public women, there is potentially more at stake in seeking to publicize themselves and more to gain in terms of their reputations. It is not only public promotion with respect to votes that they seek, but perhaps justification and an opportunity to explain themselves and their actions in a public sphere where they already possess credibility and name recognition. With the personalization of politics and the politician as cultural celebrity in the late twentieth century, the distinction between the private and public spheres, for politicians, as well as women, is not as absolute as these theories of memoir would suggest.

When analysis of women's auto/biographical practices began in the early

1980s, the focus rested on recovering, claiming, and celebrating women's narratives and voices. Until this point, women's auto/biographies were often excluded from auto/biographical analysis, or "the importance of gender in the works by women" was overlooked (Rak, Auto/biography 14). Early feminist auto/biographical theorists such as Mary Mason, Estelle Jelinek, and Susan 193 Friedman countered traditional notions of the auto/biographical subject as a privileged, unencumbered individual striving for coherence in his self and higher truths in his art. Such early feminist auto/biographical theorists argued that because women had been excluded from this self-actualizing notion of subjectivity, both historically and culturally, their representation was problematized, and their auto/biographical practices distinctly gendered.

Therefore, as well as seeking to expand the auto/biographical canon to include women, these theorists suggested that there were marked differences between men and women's auto/biographies. As Mason argued, women had an "essential story" to tell: "essential to each of them as an individual, essential to women in general, and essential to the history of autobiography" (253). This theory of difference, while since problematized, has remained central to the study of women's auto/biography and feminist auto/biographical theory.

One of these differences between men and women's auto/biographical practices rested on the fact that because women had been excluded from the notion of selfhood, a distinguishing feature of their auto/biographies was in fact women's alterity, and the notion that their identities and texts were influenced and formed by their relationships with others (rather than focusing on the singularity of self discussed by Gusdorf and Misch). Many early feminist auto/biographical theorists, such as Mason, Jelinek, Brodski and Schenck, and Friedman, argued for this relational quality of women's narratives, the consciousness of a collective identity, and the importance of interpersonal relations for women in the formation of self (Bree 226). Is this alterity present in women's political memoir, where 194 women are assuming a genre traditionally associated with masculine norms of the public figure? I would suggest that this collective identity is often present in women's political memoir. Sharon Carstairs, for example, acknowledges in her

Foreword that "all of those who have been by my side for the last nine and half years have helped me write my story": her story and her life experiences have not been an individual effort, and she constantly recognizes this throughout the text.

This is initially highlighted through the title of Chapter 1: "The Legacy of Strong

Women," implying that she has been formed by this legacy, and also contributes to it. Here she is consciously identifying this collective subjectivity to be distinctly feminine, even while, as the text shows, her subjectivity, in multiple respects, is also firmly influenced by the men in her life. While she acknowledges these men also, she chooses to place herself within a community of women. In the case of Rosemary Brown, Patricia Cormack argues that Brown constructs an autobiographical subject that deviates from (a masculine) literary tradition because it relies so heavily on collaborative memory and collaborative subjectivity (357). When Brown provides the reader with substantial detail about her family, she feels it necessary to justify and explain this inclusion (perhaps because a man's family is not normally as prominent in their political memoirs as will be discussed) because she is "so much a product of their collective moulding, shaping and crafting" (Brown 12). Again, it is the women whom she acknowledges; they give meaning to her struggle and purpose to her life. As she writes, "they are the strength that I always reach back to..." (18).

195 It is not unusual for politicians to cite others in their development; for example, Brian Mulroney writes in his memoir that he was always inspired by the portrait of John A. MacDonald hanging in the cabinet room, and how he often felt moved and encouraged by the actions and struggles of the public figures who preceded him. But while many politicians write of a keen sense of parliamentary history in their memoirs, for women it is often distinctly gendered. They often write about an appreciation for and gratitude to the female politicians who have gone before them and frequently point to a responsibility on their behalf, as well as noting their own inclusion within this legacy of public women. There appears to be a sense of solidarity for these elected women with the tradition of female legislators that crosses partisan lines and associates them with self-consciously gendered identities, and within a gendered community. McLaughlin, for example, recounts walking up the steps of Parliament thinking of the many women (and

New Democrats) who had gone before her (25). Fairclough relates her involvement in having the bust of Agnes MacPhail installed in the parliament buildings (90), and years later, Copps was instrumental in moving this bust to a more prominent place (Worth 21). Grey, not only as a woman, but as the only

Reform MP in the House, recounts being awed by MacPhail's courage and tenacity, and wonders how MacPhail must have felt sitting in Parliament. Upon seeing her bust in the lobby, Grey writes that she was "thrilled." She continues,

"the first time I saw her I felt a strong connection and gave her a pat on the head to say 'Hello' and 'Thank you for what you have done for Parliament, for women and for me'. I have done that every time I entered the lobby for my entire 196 parliamentary career" (101). Grey also recounts how she was impressed and inspired by the Famous Five (101), and selects for the back cover of the memoir a photo of her and her motorcycle in front of a bust-statue of Nellie McClung. Grey also participated in the project to erect a statue of the Famous Five on Parliament

Hill in October of 2000, together with a group of cross-partisan women parliamentarians. Furthermore, in Grey's Acknowledgements in her memoir, she writes, "I am grateful to my political mentors Agnes MacPhail and Nellie

McClung for blazing the trail for me as an elected woman" (285). I am citing

Grey at length here because she has at times been deemed an "anti-feminist"

(Trimble and Arscott 150), and yet clearly she draws on this sense of women's communal strength.

While these elected women's attachments to a historical community of women parliamentarians exemplifies the relational and collective representation of self in their political memoirs, these attachments are also useful in interrogating public women's relationship with memoir. In some ways, the woman political memoirist then, drawing on this sense of history, is seeking, as Buss writes is a general history of women memoirists, to place her personal story in the context of its communal location (Repossessing 18). What shifts for the public figure, however, is that this personal story is often already a public narrative as mediated through the press. Placing it in a "communal location," through memoir, highlights its prevalence, adds to its value, and grants it further attention and

88 In addition to Grey, Sheila Copps, Elsie Wayne, Suzanne Tremblay, and Alexa McDonough were involved with this project.

197 significance. This sense of history and alterity in memoir can then "seek[] the informing contexts that make the personal story a part of a larger cultural framework" (Buss, Repossessing 18). Even if this story is already somewhat public, this shifts the "larger cultural framework" in terms of political and historical analysis to include more personal accounts, and demonstrates the value of public narratives.

Nancy K. Miller acknowledges that this difference in women's self- representation, "identity through alterity" (9), "has played an essential role in constituting a genealogy of women's life writing" (2), but she expands this theory to include men, and asks if this is in fact a feature of all autobiographical writing

(6). Certainly, it could be argued that political memoir, despite the egotistical auto/biographical subject, is by nature relational as the subjects have only been made relevant in the public sphere through their various associations. Their personal histories revolve around their relationships, for example, to their party, their community, their government, even their voters. But while male politician- authors might acknowledge their gratitude or connection to a community, this alterity appears less pronounced in their political memoirs than in those of women, who appear to feel the necessity of a collective (often of women) and an actual pull towards this reality. For Brown, in some respects, this is to the point of almost self-effacement. When she is writing about her involvement in the 1975

NDP leadership campaign, for instance, she relates that "I am reluctant to write about the convention itself, because I realize that such reporting will be one- dimensional and even egocentric" (179). Cormack argues that this demonstrates

198 Brown's recognition that it is impossible to render herself coherent, and that it is an unrealistic project to render oneself a whole or "complete" subject; in fact, it is a "trap" to even attempt this. Brown thus relies on the speech of the group to justify her feelings of invisibility and incoherence in the face of being discredited politically as a result of this (Cormack 365). This trope is, by definition, more indicative of memoir than of auto/biography. With respect to Brown's vocabulary, however, she identifies being "one-dimensional" or "egocentric," as negative, and therefore she appears (though she does not actually acknowledge this) to be more comfortable working within the genre of memoir in which this is acceptable.

In electoral politics, however, I would suggest that these self-assured qualities are often very acceptable, and deemed helpful or potentially necessary to advancing one's cause or one's career. There are many women politicians who, even if recognizing that it is difficult to articulate a "complete" self, do not self- efface, and in circulating and promoting their own version of events through memoir, do not shy away from self-promotion. This alterity is then somewhat negated in political memoir by the fact that, as Kadar writes, the author's chronological reflections still often conform to the individual subject, often revealing "growth" and "improved vision" for the narrator (664). Kadar identifies this narrator as specifically male, and thus we again see the complexities of the woman politician writing memoir. While the memoirs reveal that all women politicians might demonstrate forms of alterity, some may be self­ consciously reticent in highlighting this in order to dispel potential criticisms of 199 low self-confidence or inability and inadequacy. Often, they have had to work hard to prove themselves and assert themselves as individuals in order to succeed

on in a masculine environment. Furthermore, as Campbell points out, the media and public are only too quick to assign personas and versions of selfhood to female politicians, and reclaiming this identity might often be the reason they write. Campbell explains that because there are limitations to the simplistic explanations that biographers and the media have assigned to her, and she is writing to reclaim her persona (2), she must resist the alterity by which others have explained her identity and promote herself and her strength in her account.90

To summarize, women's alterity and their relationship to a community and history of women are present in women's political memoir, however, in varying methods and to varying degrees.

A further distinction that early feminist auto/biographical theorists made between men and women's auto/biography was in both style and content. For

Estelle Jelinek, women's autobiographies emphasized personal, domestic details and were often discontinuous and fragmented, whereas, men, in their

89 I am not claiming that in their memoirs the women politicians always sound self-confident and strong; they do not. Often their memoirs are in fact a place where they can and do release some of their frustrations and insecurities. However, as will be explored in more detail, often they are heavily criticized for these revelations, or for being too emotional because these frustrations do not conform to the (gendered) expectations of a strong, capable leader.

90 Campbell describes one attempt to define her persona as "astonishing." It claimed that she could be explained by three men in her life: her first husband, her thesis adviser, and Edmund

Burke (2). 200 autobiographies, aggrandized themselves. Men focused on their professional lives, and their texts possessed coherent, linear narratives (17). While in some respects, these distinctions sound like the differences between traditional definitions of memoir and those of autobiography, the style of women's political memoirs are not, by Jelinek's terms, examples of "women's writing." The writing and form of women's political memoirs are not experimental, not lyrical, not discontinuous, and are usually chronological (like men's). In terms of the content, however, it is sometimes true that women's political memoirs emphasize personal or domestic details more than men's. For example, Margaret Conrad notes in her Introduction to Saturday's Child that Fairclough "devotes more space in her memoirs to family life, friendships, and domestic detail than one would expect to find in the reflections of a man with a similar career profile." Conrad suggests that many people might find Fairclough's manuscript "'thin' because it places too little emphasis on political analysis and too much on private matters"

(viii). Conrad justifies this by writing that Fairclough is trying to write the story of her entire life rather than just about her contribution to political life. Indeed,

Fairclough spends time discussing what might be considered trivial details, for example, particular housekeepers whom her family employed (104).

But while some of the women's memoirs do spend more time discussing personal details, others do not. As noted in Chapter 1, there are often very particular reasons for this. Campbell and McLaughlin, for example, both immediately advise the reader that they are not going to share familial details, and sometimes details are revealed or concealed for political purposes. Judy 201 LaMarsh, despite the fact that she gave no caveat, for example, makes a very subtle allusion to the fact that her political life may have cost her a marriage but throughout the text the reader is given no indication of this possibility. However, in terms of content, I would argue that women's political memoirs are emotionally richer than men's: they appear more forthcoming about their personal positions on issues and circumstances and willing to express their feelings and their frustrations, especially when it comes to issues involving gender. As this analysis continues, examples of this will be clear. Furthermore, most of the women in their political memoirs spend more time on their non or pre-political lives than their male counterparts.

It is important to recognize that these notions of binary differences between men and women's auto/biography have been problematized by auto/biographical theorists concerned with women's life writing. Leigh Gilmore, for example, in Autobiographies, suggests that while this focus on difference between men and women has been advantageous, this consolidation risks homogenizing women. There can be no singular female identity or homogenous

experience, and thus this method of criticism can act to reproduce and stabilize the binaries (xiv). Liz Stanley writes that there are "feminisms speaking to the multiple experiences and understandings of women's varied although overlapping conditions and oppressions" (241). Furthermore, as Mary Eagleton argues, in reference to the link between gender and genre:

any attempt to locate the specificity of women's writing is fraught

with difficulties. We may find a group of women authors whose 202 writings seem in many ways similar. But then we will discover a

much larger group of women authors from the same period and

culture whose writings are significantly different from the first, and

a group of male writers who seem to be writing rather like the

women writers... Finally, any attempt to define writing as 'male'

or 'female' ignores the ambiguity of writing, its bisexuality, its

ability to articulate both masculinity and femininity within the

same text. (259)

Smith and Watson provocatively ask whether it is time "to move beyond this preoccupation with woman, women, and women's 'this' or 'that'?" and whether focusing on difference undermines our ability to focus separately on women's texts (41). As mentioned, it is therefore crucial to recognize how gender interacts with other components that comprise identity (Smith and Watson 41), but it is still important to acknowledge the gendered signature. If the female subject is erased,

Miller warned in 1982, this could be considered dangerous to women who have finally gained access to an autobiographical subject, and could spell a return to female anonymity (Stanton 18). While this appears unlikely, it should be noted that in women's political memoirs, nowhere is gender erased. For example, as even the sometimes considered "anti-feminist" Grey recounts, "I have often been asked over the years, 'How is it being a woman parliamentarian?' I always answer, 'I don't know, because I have never been anything else'" (101). Many of the women politicians imply a hope in their memoirs that one day gender will not be an issue in women's political lives, or that women are not devalued as a result 203 of their gender, in Stanton's words, that the female signature could have a liberating rather than constraining effect (19).

These discussions surrounding the notion of gender differences in auto/biography relate to the theorization of difference in terms of the representation of women in the electoral system. As such, female politicians writing memoirs are engaged (whether actively or passively) in both debates simultaneously. Is there a difference between men and women legislators, and is this grounds to argue for decreasing the gendered democratic deficit and increasing descriptive and substantive representation for women? And does this affect the practice of political memoir? Anne Phillips asks, "Why should it matter who our representatives are?" (224). In "Democracy and Representation," she raises four justifications for increasing the proportion of women parliamentarians.

Her first reason is that through highly visible and public roles as elected officials, women possess the ability to be role models in the community and dislodge assumptions on what is appropriate to women and men (228). The second reason she cites is a justice argument based on the fact that it is unfair for men to monopolize representation, and women are hence being denied the opportunities available to men (229). Her third argument is based on women's interests being represented in the public sphere, parliamentary politics, and legislative decisions, and her fourth reason for women's greater representation is to revitalize democracy. While all of these arguments are important in terms of reasons for women's greater representation, I will concentrate on the women's interest

204 argument and its relationship to the revitalized democracy argument to show the parallels in terms of the auto/biographical debates about difference.

The justification for the greater representation of women in Canadian legislatures based on "women's interests" assumes that women, when elected, will represent particular and specific interests in a manner distinguishable from men. This assumes that there can be particular needs, interests, and concerns that arise from women's distinct experiences that would not be addressed in a politics dominated by men (Phillips 233). This assumes that women, if elected, will act as women, speak for women and thus fulfill a mandate of difference. As Lisa Young states, "there is an expectation that women, once elected, will act in the interests of women, including working within the political system to open the political process to other women, serving as points of access for women's groups, introducing 'private' issues onto the public agenda, and bringing the multiplicity of women's perspectives into the political debate" ("Fulfilling" 90). Susan

Carroll defines women's issues as those matters "where policy consequences are likely to have a more immediate and direct impact on significantly larger numbers of women than on men" (Trimble and Arscott 127). In terms of traditional, gendered policy stereotypes, women are expected to be more interested in "soft" social issues such as education and social policy, whereas men are expected to be interested in "hard" issues such as the economy and foreign policy.91 Heather

91 While this is the traditional stereotype, Gidengil, Blais, Nadeau, and Nevitte observed, in analyzing CES numbers from the Canadian general election of 2000, that the gender gaps on moral traditionalism and gender-related issues were small or inconsistent, and that the differences

205 Maclvor writes that these "women's issues," traditionally more identified with the domestic sphere, are often marginalized in the political system, and deemed less important and less serious than other policy issues (318-319). However, all issues, whether social or economic, do relate, either directly or indirectly, to women and to the feminist cause of women's autonomy.

But bringing "women's interests" on issues to the forefront of Canadian politics is fraught with difficulties, as legislators, like women in Canada, are not a homogenous group, encompass diversity on multiple levels, and have very different practical and ideological beliefs. As Trimble asks, "Can we realistically expect the few women who win political office to represent the realities, needs, and goals of all women?" (257). Furthermore, as Phillips asks, "how do the women elected know what the women who elected them want? By what right do they claim responsibility to represent women's concerns?" (235). There are contrasting examples of how women can speak or act on behalf of women in between women exceeded those with men (154). However, women were noticeably more reserved about free enterprise and more supportive of the welfare system. In short, Gidengil,

Blais, Nadeau and Nevitte argued that "Gender... is a source of cleavage that must be taken seriously in any analysis of Canadian politics" (155). In the British Westminster system,

Lovenduski and Norris, in their 2001 study, found that while there were no significant differences among their surveyed women and men politicians on ideological issues such as the economy,

Europe, and moral traditionalism, there were significant differences among the women and men on issues most directly related to women's autonomy such as affirmative action and the gender equality scales (84). Therefore, while partisanship trumped gender in ideological beliefs, it did not on women's issues (Lovenduski 95).

206 legislatures, which points to the variables involved in simply electing more women to speak for women. Some of these variables include the current political culture, political party ideology and competition, whether women are represented in cabinet, government or in opposition, and the personal beliefs (especially in relationship to feminism) of the female representatives (Arscott and Trimble

12).92

Regardless, however, of the partisan or ideological beliefs of the female representatives, it is still crucial to the democratic process and project of social equality to elect more women as women and not just feminist men. Because of

2 The scholarship on the ability of women legislators to effect change for women within the

Parliamentary system is varying. I will provide just a few examples. Trimble's study of women in

Alberta legislatures from 1972-1995 found that even when more women were elected (from 1993 to 1995), because of the government's neo-conservative agenda, government remained unreceptive to feminist analyses and demands (Trimble 260). In this case, ideology trumped gender. However, in analyzing the effect of committee work in the 34th Parliament, specifically the policy issues of violence against women and breast cancer, Lisa Young concluded that "while profound structural changes are unlikely to result from the election of women, the efforts of the women.. .suggest that the treatment of women in public policy can be improved only by increased numbers of women entering political life" ("Fulfilling" 85). Burt and Lorenzin conclude, in their study of Bob Rae's NDP government in Ontario that while there was a feminist-friendly government in place, other factors led the government away from their pre-election economic commitments to women, and their relationship with feminist groups. Furthermore, these women legislators, while committed to reforming the structures of government, were "much less clear about how they should use their voices with respect to women's interests" (225).

207 the variability and potential inconsistency of women representing women as an under-represented and disaffected group, especially on policy issues, Lisa Young argues that in the mid 1980s, the National Action Committee's "measures to promote women became not necessarily about potential policy impact but about expanding public discourses about 'representativeness' to include gendered dimensions" (Feminists 69). While electing women as women to influence policy decisions is potentially effective, because it is debasing and artificial to portray women as a monolith, the representational claim for women must transcend the argument based on women's specific interests (Vickers 27).

As Phillips argues, however, "the variety of women's interests does not refute the claim that interests are gendered" (Lovenduski 87). In recognizing the benefits, but potential problems of women representing specifically women's interests, it is perhaps more helpful to argue for women's equal representation as a diverse group of women in terms of perspective. Iris Young discusses social group differentiation in terms of perspective, writing that "differently positioned people have different experience, history, and social knowledge derived from that positioning" (136). She defines perspective as "a way of looking at social processes without determining what one sees." It "gives each an affinity with the other's way of describing what he experiences, an affinity that those differently situated do not experience." It is not necessarily that non-members of this group cannot understand the issues or experience involved, just that it is more difficult

(137). Trimble and Arscott write that women have different experiences from

208 men because of physiological factors (for example, reproduction) and the social

construction of gender in Canada (for example, socialization) (126).

Suggesting that women parliamentarians possess social perspective then

allows them not necessarily to uphold or represent specific interests on behalf of

all Canadian women, but rather to hold an affinity with women's positions in

social processes, while still experiencing their positionality differently, and with

differing levels of self-consciousness (Young, Inclusion 137). Indeed, Phillips

argues that the difficulty of defining women's interests even strengthens the case

for more women as representatives (235). Gendered perspective can therefore

begin to reflect the diversity and multiplicities of Canadian women and legislators

and possibly bridge the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation for women.

In Canadian women's political memoirs, I believe that all of the politician-

authors, to a certain extent, exhibit and share women's perspectives, regardless of

their other differences. While these women all negotiate their gendered identity

differently ideologically, and in their legislative, leadership, and governing styles

and practices, this gendered perspective, and often similar experiences, does mark

a distinction between men and women's political memoir.93 While some

auto/biographical theorists have troubled the concept of experience as a category

of analysis, I still believe it is helpful in analyzing women in the parliamentary

system. Joan Scott, for example, challenges the notion of experience as evidence

93 Furthermore, this could be viewed as a strong argument for a critical mass of women in

Parliament and descriptive representation for women.

209 in that it fails to recognize the constructed nature of experience and how subjects are initially constituted as different (82). My discussion of the patriarchal and masculinist nature of Canadian legislators has provided this background for this construction of experience. Liz Stanley, furthermore, suggests that "feminist experience is of different and disagreeing interpretations of the world, founded upon the often profoundly different material and experiential positions of differently socially located groups of women. Feminism is actually feminisms, internally highly differentiated in experiential and analytical terms, and encompassing both unities and multiple divisions" (243). I believe that women's perspective allows for these feminisms in the memoirs in that the differences between the women politicians are not disregarded, but rather embraced in order to gain multiple viewpoints and interpretations. I will analyze the memoirs and how they encompass this notion of difference between men and women legislators through employing the methods that Tremblay and Trimble identify of how women can potentially make a substantive difference for women in politics, even if they do not identify themselves as feminists. Tremblay and Trimble note that women can bring women's experiences, previously considered private within traditional gender roles, to the public, political arena, they can be in contact with the feminist movement and bring back these messages to legislators, they can consider gender when discussing legislation, they can deliberately make policies to affect the living conditions of the female population, and they can promote a

210 different parliamentary style (18). These categories provide a framework for examining multiple issues for women parliamentarians within the memoirs:

examining them reveals the complexity for women within the parliamentary system as well as often the gendered norms and double standards intrinsic in this

system. Furthermore, examination of these categories reveals a gendered perspective amongst women parliamentarians, even if these women do not share

common interests or relationships to feminism. Ultimately, these women politicians must exist and perform in this culturally shaped environment that

shapes how they practice their gender in their lives and in their memoirs.

One of the areas in which Tremblay and Trimble suggest that women can make a substantive difference to politics is parliamentary style. Trimble and

Arscott write that women politicians agree that it is often "unpleasant" to work within a masculine and adversarial environment of legislatures (113). They argue that one method in which women can make a difference in legislatures and begin to alter this masculine, even hostile domain is through challenging this aggressive

style of legislative politics, and the "traditional, adversarial and conflict-ridden

style of legislative debate" (128). Female politicians, in their memoirs, recount numerous instances where they felt undermined as parliamentarians when fellow parliamentarians hurled sexist or emotionally abusive comments at them in

Question Period. Copps, for example, in her first memoir, recounts the now infamous exchange in the House of Commons where John Crosbie tells her to

94 This is not to say that feminist men cannot contribute to these causes also, but rarely is it mentioned in their memoirs.

211 "just quieten down, baby" and she retorts that she was "nobody's baby" (Baby

169). She also writes about other less well known cases of sexist comments and

chauvinism in the legislature. For instance, she recounts the story of a note being

delivered to her in the Ontario legislature that read "We are running bets on how

much you weigh. Please advise. B.B.R. (Boys in the Back Row)" (Baby 26).

Deborah Grey provides another example of this lack of parliamentary

decorum and disrespect. She shares that the worst personal insult she received in

the House was being referred to as a "slab of bacon" by a government member.

She does not relate this insult to her gender (although it is possible to read it that

way), but admits that she was "incensed" and also "deeply hurt" (150).

Rosemary Brown, in Being Brown, attributed this disrespectful behaviour in

legislatures to the fact that many male politicians still view the entry of women

into politics as an "unwelcome intrusion and invasion of their privacy." Brown

believed that many of these politicians are "annoyed at the prospect of being

expected to clean up their language and their jokes in the presence of female

colleagues; they are threatened by having their prejudice and distorted beliefs

about women challenged by female colleagues, and dislike having to defend or justify the bizarre or sexist positions they take on matters affecting women" (143).

Some female politicians, in their memoirs, then advocate for women's

roles in changing this adversarial and aggressive political culture as a method of

making women feel more comfortable in electoral politics, and possibly

encouraging more women to run. This begins with changing the style of

legislative debate and morphs into gendered approaches to political leadership and 212 political power. Kathy Brock concludes, in her analysis of women in Manitoba provincial politics, that the presence of women did affect political life in the legislature. She argues that women succeeded in introducing new standards of behaviour into the legislature and tempered the "excesses of debate." They were not, however, Brock asserts, able to fundamentally alter the conflictual, adversarial, or aggressive nature of the House (197). In Nobody's Baby, Copps relates a changing political culture directly to women's representation and women's role as women. As she asks, "What does it say about the House of

Commons when it's a breach of privilege to call anyone a scoundrel or liar, but acceptable to call a woman member titmouse or baby? I think we have some rule changing to do and I suspect it won't happen until we get greater numbers of women in the House" (170). Ellen Fairclough also connects a more conciliatory form of politics to more women in politics. She chooses to include, in her memoir, an excerpt from a speech in which she stated that "women's place in the building of a great nation is increasingly important....Why in these days of cooperation, are there no women in the legislature? Are women so insignificant that they have no desire to be heard? If women were in the legislature a lot of things that are dirty would be cleaned up, they wouldn't stand for them..." (61).

This notion, that women can bring a different style of politics to the political arena, in some respects appears to be rooted in the early Canadian maternal feminists' battle for citizenship and suffrage. Maternal feminists worked for the vote, and received it, with the understanding that they would "clean up politics," (as well as society), and reinforce the family during a period of social 213 change (Brodie, "Meso-Discourses" 231). As Brodie writes, "It was by virtue of their womanhood, their morality and their nurturing, that Canadian women were recommended for citizenship rights" ("Meso-Discourses" 231). Despite the fact that this might appear idealistic, essentialist, or problematic, some female politicians do employ this basic argument in their memoirs to advocate for increasing the number of women in electoral politics. As witnessed, they suggest that more women in politics could help achieve a more conciliatory and non- aggressive political environment. Therese Casgrain suspects noticing a difference in the style of politics when more women became active. She writes,

"As the general public became more receptive to the idea of women voting, election campaigns, which were rather rough in those days, became less violent.

One reason for this, I suspect, was the number of women at election meetings where their presence seemed to have a calming effect" (76).

But this "calming effect" has still not progressed to a point of comfort for many women politicians. Audrey McLaughlin, for example, writes about

"terrible" behaviour in the House of Commons: to her, Question Period was often sexist, silly, childish, and almost abusive. She warns readers of "the slings and arrows facing women who crash the men's club of parliament" (29). She writes that she did her best not to participate in this aggressive, masculine style of debate and governance, and as a result, she writes that "neither Brian Mulroney nor his

95 This is potentially problematic in that must it be a woman's place to take up this metaphorically domestic role of "cleaning up" politics? Furthermore, would all women parliamentarians find it necessary? These are questions not answered by the memoirs.

214 ministers seemed quite sure how to handle a woman leader in the House" (94).

She felt that male government members deemed it inappropriate to heckle her when she failed to respond in a similar or aggressive manner, so instead they are

dismissive of her (94), another oft-cited problem for women parliamentarians.

This dilemma runs through women's political memoirs, and is similar to the

double bind that Sidonie Smith identified for women writing autobiography. How

does the female politician prevent being co-opted into what she might see as a masculine system while still maintaining agency and receiving acceptance?

McLaughlin instead advocates in her memoir a more conciliatory and harmonious

approach to electoral politics in the House of Commons, and beyond. Sheila

Copps contributes to this discussion by writing that:

Maybe we've been led too long by 'masculine' ideals of conquest

and aggression rather than by 'feminine' urges to nurture and

protect. Each of us, man and women, has aspects of both. But in

the political process as in society at large, we have allowed those

aggressive, overpowering instincts to supersede the attributes of

harmony and growth. Those masculine qualities are needed. But

they must be balanced by benevolence and cooperation, traditional

female characteristics which have been so absent from political

life. (Baby 192)

What the appropriate intersection is between Copps's binary view of masculine

and feminine traits in parliamentary life would be difficult to measure. These

statements are further complicated by the fact that this contemplative idealism 215 might be at odds with Copps's political practices, which will be discussed in greater detail shortly. She is advocating, here, however, this different, more conciliatory legislative style, that she believes women can bring to electoral politics.

Before continuing with some women politicians' desires and attempts to change an antagonistic political culture, I want to briefly comment on the aggression that these women all name, and the gendered double-standards implicit in it. Joanna Everitt and Elisabeth Gidengil observed, in a media analysis of women leaders, that media attention is a double-edged sword for women politicians. They argue that "media coverage tends to marginalize women when they fail to conform to traditional masculine norms of combative political conduct and yet overemphasized the counter-stereotypical behaviour when they do behave assertively" (198).96 Women politicians are then in a difficult position. As Judy

LaMarsh wrote in her memoir,

I am publicity prone.. .Wherever and whenever I say something,

my words, coming from the mouth of a woman, suddenly look

96 Everitt and Gidengil studied the gendered media treatment of leaders in the 1993 general election campaign. They observed that gender bias was inherent in this coverage and that

Campbell and McLaughlin were treated differently than their male counterparts. They noted that masculine metaphors dominated the political commentary, that news coverage of women leaders focused disproportionately on behaviours that were considered to counter feminine stereotypes, and that statements made by the female leaders were more likely to be mediated through the press whereas the comments made by male leaders were allowed to stand alone (198).

216 larger than life, sound harsher and less reasonable, too colourful,

too partisan. Maybe the trouble is that the reports of me filter

through male reporters with their layers of unacknowledged

prejudice that a woman doesn't talk like that, she doesn't fight like

that, she doesn't act like that! (38)

In terms of this media focus on women's counter-stereotypical behaviour,

Carstairs writes that she was called an "aggressive, loud-mouthed bitch" when running for leader. She pointedly asks whether these words would ever be used

against a man, the answer obviously being no (67). She must endure this judgment, but simultaneously, is constantly judged on her "shrill" voice as well as her wardrobe. She wrote that "It was all so irrelevant, and it had a way of belittling and trivializing whatever I had to say" (68-9). She was judged for

stepping outside the bounds of appropriate feminine behaviour and yet trivialized

for more stereotypical female behaviour.

Even Deb Grey admits to feeling fortunate to possess a deep voice so that

she has never been mocked for being "shrill," which she says "unfortunately

seems to decrease one's credibility" (101). Changing the style of legislative debate and parliamentary conduct is then more than just an issue of comfort for many of these women; it potentially helps in changing the nature of the political

culture which privileges stereotypical masculine behaviour. McLaughlin again

summarizes this dilemma succinctly when she cites her anxiety at participating in her first Press Club Dinner. As she writes, "It was also a classic woman's conundrum: to play along would be to accept the rules of a very male game and 217 then score points for showing I could 'take it like a man.' To opt out would be to seem life a 'poor sport' and add to my outsider status by spurning the only game in town for reasons that would be impossible to explain. Damned if you do, damned if you don't" (96). Women politicians thus participate in a paradox, for, as Trimble and Arscott argue about the masculine portrayal of political news, "if women choose to 'join the fray,' they are criticized for being too aggressive (thus unwomanly), and their actions are even exaggerated and misrepresented" (92). If, however, they don't, they are trivialized or dismissed.

It is Sheila Copps, appropriately, who spends the most time in her memoir coming to terms with these double standards for female parliamentarians, but also making sure to complicate them. Copps writes in Nobody's Baby that women who show they can hold their own are considered oddities. She writes that "their toughness was seen as an anomaly in some way; a denial of their proper femininity." She confirms that aggression in a man is considered a positive quality, but that if a female is deemed aggressive she is considered "shrill, a snarler, insecure with [her] femininity." Such women must not "enjoy [their] womanhood and are somehow bent on castrating all men so [they] can finally be their equal." In terms of a woman's voice, she continues, "I don't know how many sarcastic comments I've heard from all sides about women's shrillness - comments relating not to the substance of the question or answer, but rather to its pitch.. .to mock female members for their high voices is just plain childish." She argues that "we" (one assumes this encompasses fellow parliamentarians, the media, and all Canadians), "must move away from the double standards applied to 218 the quality of aggression" (Baby 84). This perfectly exemplifies the dilemma women in politics face, as previously mentioned. But just as Copps argues in both her memoirs that women are systemically discriminated against within

electoral politics in Canada, she herself uses traditionally masculine stereotypes, imagery and vocabulary to describe the political system. In Worth Fighting For,

she admires Paul Martin's (initial!) ambition (3) and the fact that John Nunziata is

"aggressive, and unrelenting" (6). She, furthermore, states that, "covetousness in politics is part of the package, just as drive and ambition are necessary prerequisites to survive in the political world" (2). These are all qualities that

Copps deems admirable, appropriate, and necessary to being a successful politician; however, they all fit into traditionally masculine stereotypes. She appears to enjoy the combative nature of the House of Commons, as she recounts with pride her "Rat-Pack" days, describing in masculinist imagery her desire to mount a "spirited attack" on government {Worth 7) and "go in for the kill" (Worth

9) (emphasis added). As she admits, "I dish it out and I should certainly be prepared to take it" (Baby 84), but what she is not prepared to accept are the patriarchal and masculinist undertones of the criticism aimed against her. Still, however, this behaviour does seem at odds with the more "feminine" behaviour and style that women could bring to electoral politics for which she appeared to be advocating in previous comments. In transgressing gender roles, she is hence an anomaly and challenge to her fellow Parliamentarians and the media as they attempt to fit women politicians into the "usual masculine stereotypes" (Worth

93). Copps could thus be considered desirous of gaining access to this masculine 219 world, however, on her own terms, and not in a way that de-legitimizes her

gender or discriminates against her because she is a woman. As she writes,

If you are a woman, the road to the House is not an easy one. You

will have to fight like a man - to be forceful, aggressive, and to the

point. You can't afford to pull your punches. You are breaking

into a man's game at a time when many men are struggling to

maintain their hold on the country's power structures. But you

should not enter into this man's world just for the sake of gaining

power. After all, if you replace one power-hungry politician with

another, what have you achieved? You are bringing a unique

perspective, a woman's perspective, and this can add much to the

political landscape. (Baby 191)

While Copps's argument is somewhat convoluted (especially in terms of her

actions), she ultimately concludes that women parliamentarians are different and

have the ability to bring a different style and vision of electoral politics to the

fray. But she appears to justify her own aggressive behaviour through deeming it

necessary for political success, in order to even bring this women's perspective to

the table. The paradox, then, is still present. As Blema Steinberg observes in her

study of women leaders, "it may well be that 'to survive [women political

leaders] must on the one hand make themselves like the stereotyped male -

aggressive, competitive, ruthless, authoritarian - and on the other, continue to play the good woman role'" (10).

220 This condemnation of the supposedly power-hungry politician exercising political authority that Copps introduces is a common thread amongst many of the women memoirists, who prefer to see power as an opportunity to effect social change. This is related to the style argument, as leadership style and notions of power are tied together in gendered notions of each. As such, it is important for women to access political power (and leadership) and challenge its gendered nature. Duerst-Lahti and Kelly write that "The perception of power grants an individual an advantage in being accepted as a leader, and if one is a leader, one is more likely to be seen as powerful. Because men have more social power and hold more political leadership posts, they benefit more in the relationship between leadership and power" (30). Certainly, accessing this political power for women is of central importance, and is often why they initially became involved in electoral politics. Brown and Copps in their memoirs both specifically identify power as an opportunity to effect social change (Brown 225; Baby Preface). This coincides with the liberal feminist view that Lisa Young identifies as the belief that "women can reform political institutions and that integration of women into these institutions is an essential component of a campaign for political and social change" ("Can Feminists Transform" 76). While other effective avenues to achieve social change for women exist, such as women's movements and women's policy agencies (Weldon 1153), political power, as Chantal Maille argues, is the "nerve centre of social change" (qtd. in Young, "Fulfilling" 89).

And while some feminists (for example, political activist Judy Rebick) fear that women, when elected merely get "co-opted" into the already patriarchal system 221 (Young, Feminists 69), a diverse group of feminists still believe that the state can be a potential ally and a suitable vehicle for realizing their goals and aspirations

(Vickers 25, 29).

Gaining access to power is one step, but gendered power and leadership operate on practical levels within government also. As noted in the previous paragraph, gender can have a significant impact on leadership in terms of the behaviour of others and how both allies and adversaries relate to a woman politician (Steinberg 9). Furthermore, female leaders often need to "develop a set of strategies and a repertoire of behaviours for dealing with both challenges and opportunities. It has been suggested that the dominant, assertive, competitive approach is a male style of leadership, whereas the female style is relationship- oriented" (Steinberg 10). When Audrey McLaughlin was leader of the NDP, for example, cooperation and teamwork were important features of her style of leadership. For her, the distinguishing differences between "typical female leadership" and "typical male leadership" were that "women tend to listen, men tend to talk" (196). This, she believes, extends into the realm of decision making, where women might appear to be indecisive because they would rather build a concensus (197). This notion of a distinctly woman's style extends into what

McLaughlin believes are fundamental differences between the way men and

97 Steinberg, in discussing the leadership styles of Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, and Golda

Meir actually challenges these ideas. She argues that these three women leaders were dominant and assertive in their exercise of power and does not believe that they were "particularly concerned with exhibiting cooperative or empathic styles of leadership behaviour" (Steinberg 10).

222 women think about power (and hence how they govern). Women, she argues, think about power in terms of responsibility and see power in "positive, activist terms. Power is a chance to accomplish something, to advance a case, to help the people we represent" (198). As such, "women in politics can begin to change the image of what it means to have power, by exercising the characteristics I've described and insisting on respect for doing so...Perhaps women can begin to change the accepted concept of leadership. And maybe we can modify the cynicism about politicians that threatens to undermine the democratic process"

(201). As she writes, she is interested in a different kind of politics: "I want to lead in a different way: by listening carefully and helping pull open the doors to power" (23). McLaughlin clearly sees this approach as gendered.98 Brown articulates these same points, but is less optimistic about the outcome. Her belief in the electoral project stems from the fact that she believed there were qualitative differences between the way men and women wielded power (150). But while she believes in the power of governments, she expresses her frustration at the fact that "political power is often more imagined than real" (135), and agrees with

Christina McCall's assessment that perhaps she possessed more "influence" than power (226). Often, she writes, her failures resulted in feelings of powerlessness

98 It should be noted that some might view this as having the potential to artificially heighten gender differentiation, and hence perpetuate gender roles and even reinforce masculine norms of leadership (Duerst-Lahti 31). Alternatively, it helps challenge the norms of gendered politics.

223 (226). Brown remained, however, "totally dedicated" to the cause of increasing the number of women entering political life (142), as she believed that this was the best method to effect change. If, as McLaughlin and Brown amongst others articulate, this feminine power is a better alternative, then what are some of the ways that they can execute this notion of power for tangible results?

In terms of this electoral project, another area in which women politicians possess the opportunity to effect change and bring Young's notion of women's perspective to the political agenda is through introducing or supporting policies that can change or improve the living conditions of women. They can, furthermore, consider the criterion of gender when speaking out on legislation

(Tremblay and Trimble 18). Tremblay and Trimble also identify that they can bring women's experiences that were previously considered private under traditional gender roles into the political arena (18). I have grouped these separate categories together, as often, in practice, these notions mesh together. While women possess the ability to make such contributions to the political environment, their self-conscious participation as women is often revealed in various methods, or incremental steps. Furthermore, a female politician need not identify as a feminist in order to bring women's experience and perspective to the

99 Brown was excluded from cabinet which was frustrating both for her and for feminist groups.

She was concerned that even the NDP was proving itself to be no better for women. She calls the caucus paternalistic, and wrote that they would "disregard the demands articulated by women, substituting their solutions based on their particular beliefs of what was best for women." Brown found this condescending and "extremely difficult" to deal with (130).

224 political arena. Most of the women memoirists feel that they have a contribution to make and explore these ideas as well as experiences in their memoirs. Here I will explore how women uphold and express this perspective in Parliament through different methods, beginning with how they self-identify as women and hence connect to other women in this respect. I will examine how sometimes it is women's causes that inspire them to run for politics, how women's support is important to them, how, as women parliamentarians they see themselves as role models, and in short, how gender informs their political lives. I will examine how the small steps of cross-party cooperation (also potentially seen as an example of the more conciliatory style in action) can make a difference, and demonstrate how women parliamentarians believe they can affect public policy and legislative decisions.

Gender, at times, informs women politicians' decision (or not) to participate in electoral politics. In their memoirs, some of these parliamentarians cite the cause of women's equality as the reason for their initial involvement, especially the women who were involved in suffrage and the more left-leaning

Brown. Therese Casgrain writes that her reasons for becoming politically active were that, "in spite of numerous reforms, Canadian women are still considered second-class citizens and they are too often deprived of the treatment and consideration they deserve as human beings. To try to rectify these wrongs became my goal" (17). She attempted to fulfill this goal through numerous avenues: through activist associations, suffrage for women in Quebec, and through her participation in electoral politics (although she was leader of the Parti 225 social democratique du Quebec, she was never elected). She believed that she did act for women, and believed in the power of women to make a difference in the living conditions of other women. Nellie McClung, as noted, also became involved in politics to advance women's rights. Brown too became involved in electoral politics for reasons of social justice and to advocate for women. She writes in her memoirs, "I have never lost sight of the fact that I was the women's candidate, that they [women] nominated me, worked for me and elected me.

Occasionally this brought me into conflict with the leader and the caucus, but I never compromised my commitment to women, and wouldn't, unless it came into conflict with my commitment to peace and social justice" (223). Brown acknowledges that more right-wing women were quick to remind her that she, as a woman, did not speak for them. But she responds, in her memoir, by saying that while maybe she did not possess the authority to speak for all women, she certainly did work for them (whether they acknowledged it or not). As she writes,

"When I fought for fair family law legislation, pension reform and childcare, I was fighting as hard for women on the right as I was for other women" (224).

While some women parliamentarians might feel compelled to work on behalf of other women, however, their ability to actually represent other women, both in auto/biography and electoral politics is more problematic. While I suggest that women parliamentarians can share a gendered perspective, it is still important to note that these women do not mirror the population of women in Canada.

Trimble and Tremblay, in a socio-demographic profile of women politicians in

Canada, found that women in Canadian legislatures have more in common with 226 their male colleagues than with women in Canada, and therefore women politicians do not accurately reflect the concerns of Canadian women (56).

Elected women, generally, tend to be older, are more likely to be married, are less likely to be first-generation Canadian, and have a higher education and a higher occupational status than most women in Canada (Trimble and Tremblay 56).

This is not to say, however, that women parliamentarians cannot represent other

Canadian women or work on their behalf, or that their memoirs cannot resonate with readers (or voters) and help effect the change they desire. As Nancy K.

Miller asks, "to what extent does representing oneself entail or require a relation of resemblance to others, to other readers? And whom do the readers resemble?"

(16).100 Miller argues that readers read through the history of the "proper name," or the fame of an exceptional public life. Here, gender difference is of course important, "since historically, biography, as the story of public vocation, has been overwhelmingly a male province; and differences are always constructed through hierarchies of power" (Miller 16). An exceptional man, therefore, is like other men: other men can become exceptional men. But exceptional women are

100 In terms of readership, political memoir is a popular genre at the turn of the twenty-first century. But is there a different market for specifically women's political memoirs? As discussed, this is a difficult question to answer with precision. As noted, Heilbrun sees women's memoirs as speaking directly to women (37). McKenzie also writes that "because the audiences for women's memoirs have predominantly been other women, they have been largely viewed as ones in which

'the obscure read the obscure" (92). Whether this is true or not, I would suggest that through employing gender in their memoirs, women are hoping to send their message to a large audience, although perhaps with different effects for male and female readers.

227 "different" from other women, "hence the fragility of a claim to representativity"

(Miller 16). But what political memoir by women is often attempting to do is erode these public and private boundaries and prove that while these women have worked hard to achieve success in the public sphere, they are not exceptional women, that all women have access to this narrative and this empowerment.

Sharon Carstairs, for example, bemoans the fact that she initially lacked the self- confidence necessary to recognize the talent and ability of other women to run her campaign for leader. She later realizes, however, that this was "foolish," and that women must recognize their own strengths and talents (65). Women's political memoirs are thus attempting to perform (or capitalize on) both functions. They are selling themselves through their public name recognition and fame, but also attempting to humanize the politician-author and connect with readers to sell their message, specifically here, a gendered message. This issue of representation returns us to methods in which women parliamentarians can make a difference for other women, even if their socio-demographic profiles do not mirror that of most

Canadian women.

One such method is through involving more women in the process of electoral politics. Women parliamentarians reveal, in their memoirs, that support from other women was often important to them personally, and to their campaigns. Bringing women together with different experiences, yet a shared perspective was important to them as politicians. Carstairs wrote that "Women have been the true heroines of my nine years of leadership. They gave me their devotion, loyalty and effort. It is because of them that I avoided becoming 'one 228 of the boys'" (65). Carstairs even chooses her Manitoba riding (River Heights) based on the high percentage of professional women who she imagined would be predisposed to vote for a woman, if she were the best candidate (89). Campbell writes that she was dismayed that more women weren't involved in her leadership campaign, and that in the general election of 1993 she wanted to rectify this, and make more of an effort in this regard. As she writes, "I wanted so much to reach out and bring together women from all perspectives. I naively thought that what we hadn't done during the leadership campaign, we would begin to do before the election" (289). LaMarsh, in another example of solidarity with women as voters, writes that the turning point in her first campaign was when she decided that she must "prove that a woman candidate was perfectly acceptable to her sisters" (296). Her campaign held an enormous reception for women: over four- hundred women attended to publicly show their support for LaMarsh, many of whom had no previous affiliation with any political party. As LaMarsh states,

"Although I have never sought to be a candidate of women only, I have had the strongest and least wavering support from the women of Niagara Falls riding. I shall never be able to accept the canard 'women won't support women'" (296).

When she first ran for the nomination, she writes that "I never tagged myself as a

'Women's Candidate,' nor asked support as a woman, but I called on women to help me, just as I called upon men. And they responded" (5).101

In terms of voter response to women candidates, Black and Erickson, in a 1993 Canadian study, conclude that women are not disadvantaged at the polls due to their gender. Furthermore,

229 Just as Canadian political women who write memoirs describe a

connection with and appreciation for the women parliamentarians who have gone before them, and just as they appear willing to work on behalf of women in the present, they also appear imbued with a sense of responsibility to the future.

While many male politicians might possess this to some degree, for women,

again, this is often distinctly gendered. Female politicians often see their role as

women parliamentarians as an instrumental part in effecting change within the

parliamentary system. Male hegemony, as witnessed in the Canadian

Parliamentary system, creates and normalizes patriarchal assumptions and gives

men artificial natural claims to power and leadership. However, as Lerner states,

"the system of patriarchy can function only with the cooperation of women"

(217). The election of a critical mass of women as women into political office

thus assists in "transforming the consciousness of women about [themjselves"

which Lerner identifies to be a precondition for the change of this patriarchal

consciousness (221). When women are normalized into the parliamentary system,

ideally, it increases the acceptability of women in power and in government

(Sapiro 183). This in turn helps to dislodge socialized gender roles and norms.

As Lerner states, "where there is no precedent, one cannot imagine alternatives to

existing conditions" (223). While Phillips considers the argument that elected

woman offer successful role models to other women to be the "least interesting"

case for women's representation (228), I believe that the role model argument is

there is no evidence to suggest that a voter bias against women is offset by the greater

qualifications that they bring to public office (96).

230 still very valuable in contributing to the normalizing process of women in public

life. Copps argues for instance that "the absence of the voices and faces of women speaks volumes about how we encourage our children to shape a future"

(Worth 21). And as Phillips admits, more women candidates being elected does

"dislodge deep-rooted assumptions on what is appropriate to women and men"

(228). Carstairs confirms this in writing that, "Often I have done nothing other than be a woman politician, but women were able to take strength from that, and

surely that must be considered on the scale of success" (218).

Kim Campbell also corrorobates this. When she recounts winning the

leadership of the PC Party, she reflects that "women of all ages were jubilant, many of them crying at this historic moment. A woman was going to be prime minister of Canada" (301). An organizer cries out that "this is for my daughter"

(301). McLaughlin writes that sometimes it is easy to forget that women actually

are making a difference in elected office because the political system is so male-

dominated. But she is encouraged when she remembers that through her

participation, she is helping to change gendered norms of political life and

political leaderhip (195) for future generations. To summarize, the memoirs reveal multiple examples where women politicians believe that their presence as

women in elected office makes a difference not just for issues of substantive and

description representation in legislatures, but also helps change societal norms

and previously held notions of appropriate narratives for women.

231 Even while women legislators are bound to party discipline, possess varying ideologies, and hail from different regions of the country,102 women's perspective in Parliament is still upheld in a variety of ways that is revealed in their memoirs and are often overlooked in the media. In terms of encompassing women from all parties, cross-party cooperation can sometimes reveal a transcending gendered consciousness in women. This practice is not recent;

Nellie McClung writes about the opportunities and the potential of this practice in the early 1930s. She writes that:

Mrs. Irene Parlby, of Alix, was a member of the cabinet and I was

in the Opposition, but we united our forces when questions relating

to women were under discussion. One member in the House was

determined to have all married women dismissed from their

positions to make way for the single, unemployed women, but

Mrs. Parlby and I were able to head off this piece of sex-prejudice.

We contended that whether or not a woman was married was her

own business, and that no woman should be penalized because of

marriage. (441)

Lisa Young writes that women in the 34th Parliament (1988-1993) created the

Association of Women Parliamentarians to create a forum for women politicians to respond to the negative aspects of parliamentary life experienced by women, to discuss common experiences, and to discuss barriers that women face in entering

102 Lisa Young argues that the two most significant forces governing the behaviour of Canadian

MPs are regionalism and partisanship ("Fulfilling" 90).

232 public life ("Fulfilling" 93). This association did not deal with policy issues for women parliamentarians, but rather, quality of life issues. A further example in this Parliament was the Sub-committee on the Status of Women which released two reports, on Violence Against Women, and on Breast Cancer. Another example of cross-party cooperation, as I mentioned, was in October 2000 when the "Famous Five" statue was erected on Parliament Hill, thanks to the efforts of a group of female politicians representing every party in the House. Sheila Copps writes about this mission that "even though we were all from different political parties, we shared a common bond of parliamentary sisterhood" (Worth 24).

Copps appears to confirm the benefits of this interaction when she writes that

"Notwithstanding their party colours, when women members of Parliament work together, they can certainly be trailblazers." Here she is referring to the equality committee looking into changes to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which affected women (Baby 170).

Cross-party cooperation and the notion of a trans-party women's perspective, however, does not erase partisan or ideological differences on some

fundamental issues. Campbell and Carstairs, for example, discuss in their memoirs a Charlottetown Accord debate in 1992 in which they both participated, as did Copps. As Campbell writes, politics makes "strange bedfellows" as she and Copps were arguing the Yes side, and Carstairs (and journalist Robert

Jackson) were arguing the No side; as a result, there was more tension between the two opposing Liberals than between Campbell and Copps. But while

Campbell writes that she found Carstairs to be unsympathetic in debate, after, she 233 found her pleasant as a person, and Carstairs warned her about being the PC

Party's sacrificial lamb if Mulroney resigned. This advice would turn out to be accurate (222). Moreover, Campbell regrets the fact that she didn't have more opportunities for this kind of cross-party or female interaction. As she writes,

"One of the downsides of going into cabinet right away was that I didn't often have an opportunity to interact with the women in the opposition. Private members meet regularly across party lines in the work of parliamentary committees. I didn't sit on these committees, and my schedule as a minister limited my time for casual socializing" (122).

In another example of cross-party collaboration amongst women parliamentarians, Ellen Fairclough recounts that in 1954, as a senior female MP she hosted a social luncheon for all women in Parliament. She writes that they

"had a great time sharing our experiences as women in the political world" (90).

Years later, she had a high-profile eightieth- birthday celebration which was hosted by "The Committee for '94," a cross-party organization designed to increase the number of women in the House of Commons because of a disappointing showing of women in the 1984 election (Fairclough 146). But Lisa

Young suggests that cross-party co-operation is only a temporary strategy that women can use in order to compensate for their lack of presence in parliament

("Fulfilling" 91). Furthermore, the memoirs reveal that while cross-party cooperation can be successful, there is not a great deal of it practiced, even if there is more cited in the memoirs than in the media. While Copps, for instance,

234 was idealistic about women's "trailblazing" potential in this area, and there is certainly potential, the practical results are not as widespread as this optimism.

Women parliamentarians can also fulfill a mandate of difference and affect circumstances for other women through bringing a woman's perspective to legislation, or even introducing women-friendly legislation. Again, this is not to say that feminist men are incapable of this, but concerns about gender inequality are a central part of many of these women's memoirs that is simply not revealed in men's political memoirs.103 Kim Campbell reflects that as a gendered space,

Parliament has improved from earlier days. For example, more women's washrooms had been created (many earlier women parliamentarians, for example,

Fairclough, LaMarsh, and Brown all struggled with a lack of women's facilities), a daycare centre had been created, and more regular sitting hours were being enforced. However, Campbell suggests that the ability of women MPs to fulfill a mandate of difference is still their biggest challenge and that they must bring "the reality of women's lives into policy-making" (122). She writes that, for her, fulfilling this mandate of difference was of the utmost importance. As she states,

"I was determined to be an advocate for women when I could. I believe that if we

103 Furthermore, it is sometimes difficult for even feminist men to share this women's perspective.

In their memoirs, some women parliamentarians, for example Brown, specifically address the fact that she believed that "the full responsibility for the political representation of women's agenda should be assumed by women themselves." Consequently, she "rejected as self-defeating the task of grooming a man, no matter how willing he might be, to assume the job of making a political party more accountable to women" (152).

235 are to create understanding between women and men, women have to be able to speak in their own voices, to articulate what life as a woman is like" (122).

Campbell does this, in one instance, in 1989 during a cabinet discussion about abortion legislation. During the discussion, Campbell informs the cabinet about her own experiences with contraception and delivers her personal perspective on the complications between relating birth control to unwanted pregnancies and to abortion. As she writes, "There was a moment of stunned silence; then the prime minister thanked me and we moved on" (123). Many of her colleagues thanked her later for sharing such a personal example that perhaps only a woman could have brought to the table. Campbell acknowledges, also, that sharing this perspective was made more comfortable by the fact that there were six women around the table (123). Here, Campbell brings public attention to women's experiences that are sometimes considered private and inappropriate for the public sphere (Tremblay and Trimble 18).

This abortion bill proved to be contentious for Campbell, however, and shows how varying and multiple interests and ideologies are encompassed within women's perspective. As Minister of Justice, Campbell "made no secret of the fact that [she] regarded [herjself as a feminist" even though some people in her party thought this was "risky" (163). She declares that she was "prepared and eager to be proactive in working for women's equality," but that the politics of feminism could sometimes impede her ability to make progress, particularly in terms of the abortion debate (163). Tremblay and Trimble suggest that women can fulfill the mandate of difference in politics, in one way, through being in 236 touch with the feminist movement and placing their demands in the public arena

(18). For Campbell, however, as a Progressive Conservative dealing with

feminist groups on a proposed abortion law (despite the fact that she herself was

"unabashedly" pro-choice [168]) was difficult. Judy Rebick, president at that time

of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) was a declared

member of the NDP, and in Campbell's opinion, believed that any law that didn't make abortion completely pro-choice would be regressive for women's groups.

Feminist groups, however, were not Campbell's only obstacle in attempting to

pass the bill. Campbell also alludes to her problematic relationship with a

member of her own party, Senator Pat Carney, over this issue, which Carney also

makes reference to in her own memoir (332): both with obviously different

recollections and perspectives. Because of the fact that abortion might be

considered a moral or ethical issue, opinions about the bill were not necessarily

divided down partisan lines. While there were multiple perspectives on the bill

from all parties, it was with women and feminist groups that Campbell expressed

her frustration at her lack of progress.

Campbell claims that she attempted to rectify her problematic relationship

with women's groups, however, in her (and her department's) approach to the

1991 National Symposium on Women, Law and the Administration of Justice.

The meeting would focus on women's relationship to poverty and violence and

would be inclusive and consultative with women's groups from across the

country. But because of the presence of Gwen Landolt of R.E.A.L. Women,

many other groups threatened to boycott the conference. In Campbell's opinion, 237 she and her team did everything possible to include and consult all women, but

this certainly did not mean that everyone was happy. She subtly suggests that

sometimes the feminist groups were being uncooperative and unwilling to work

with her in order to make a political statement and that this prevented them from

moving foreword in a constructive manner. As she writes, "Some people are so

accustomed to banging on a closed door that they are at a loss when the door is

opened. Their whole mode of communicating has been developed to be heard

through a closed door" (171). Campbell purports to work on behalf of women, as

do Landolt and Rebick, but clearly each woman sees this work differently, and

ideology here trumps gender. While Campbell believes she is attempting to fulfill

a mandate of difference, clearly, she comes in to conflict with others, even within her own party over this.

When Campbell runs for leader of the PC Party, she explains her position

on feminism. She states that:

My goal has been not to define one single view of the world as it

relates to women, but simply to open the door to women, to say,

'Come on in, be a part of the cut and thrust of resolving issues and

contending values in Canadian society. You don't have to agree

with me. Come on in the door and fight with me. Tell me what

you don't think I'm doing right. But be there as a first-class

citizen.' And that is my vision of citizenship in this country. (266)

While Campbell's difficulties with women's groups show the challenges involved

with the representation of women's perspective, these difficulties also show the 238 breadth of women's interests and opinions. There is room, in the electoral project, for multiple points of view: all of these women believe, in their own ways, that they are working for women (and men), but they fulfill their goals differently, and in this way they contribute to a vibrant and healthy democracy.

As Carstairs says, "our country needs all of us" (220).

Sharon Carstairs firmly believes, and articulates in her memoir that women can, and must fulfill a mandate of difference. As she writes,

I have no regrets about my political experiences. However, they

will only be of true value if others can learn from them. There is

now a woman prime minister, and the first woman premier has

been elected in Prince Edward Island. It is my fondest wish that

they will be able to reach out to other women and change political

life as we know it in this country. They will only succeed if they

dare to be different. Otherwise it will be politics as usual the Old

Boys' way. (Foreword)

In Carstairs' opinion, Catherine Callbeck (who was then Premier of Prince

Edward Island) risks falling into the "Old Boys Club" trap: Carstairs discloses that she was dismayed at the comments made by Callbeck disassociating herself from the women's liberation movement (65). For Carstairs, electing a woman premier was not enough: that premier would have to act for women in order to be effective. Carstairs repeats these sentiments throughout her memoir: later, she recounts a story of Paul Martin speaking to the British Columbia Liberal

Women's Commission in 1986. She writes that: 239 He told his audience that when women enter politics they have to

learn to think like a man. I challenged that view from the floor. I

said that if women in politics had to think like men then there was

absolutely no point in our participating. It is in bringing our own

life experiences, experiences that are much different from a man's,

experiences that represent 52 percent of the adult population of this

country, that we make our true contribution. (147)

While Carstairs, as the leader of a small caucus, may not have had the ability to always affect government legislation, she was able to carry this willingness to work and speak on behalf of women into her political practices and attempted to bring women's experiences into the public sphere. For her, the trauma of sexual abuse was one such issue. She recounts that she shocked members of the legislature by bringing such a personal issue into the public sphere, but used it as an opportunity for political action in that she was a consistent advocate and defender of the rights of children and women who suffered from abuse (10-11).

Sheila Copps is another politician who articulates in her memoir that she believes that women parliamentarians can and should fulfill a mandate of difference. As she writes, "Not every woman in politics is going to follow the same blueprint for social change. But her understanding of issues is

104 In a review of Carstairs's memoir, however, Michael Jenkinson criticizes her for possessing contradictory positions. He writes that while Carstairs criticizes the "Old Boy's Network," she simultaneously relies on them to succeed in her political career. Jenkinson thus accuses her of using her sex to her advantage when it is beneficial (50).

240 fundamentally different from a man's, and she can bring a unique insight either to government or to opposition" (Baby 56). Anecdotally, she claims that she noticed distinctions in cabinet between men and women on social issues such as same-sex marriage and decriminalizing marijuana (Worth 196). She herself states strongly,

"I am not ashamed of saying I am a feminist, that I fight for women.. .Women make up an absolute majority in this country. Why should our interests be considered trivial? Why should we leave it to others to represent us, and to fight our battles" (Baby 56). Here, she was discussing the importance of women being involved in politics in order to have a public voice about issues such as healthcare which can affect women differently than men. She believes, for example, that women should have an active role in making decisions about contraception and pregnancy. As she writes, "A man, no matter how good a father he may be, can't carry and bear children. It's up to us, the women of Canada, to look out for ourselves and our own" (Baby 56). Copps sees women's presence around the decision-making tables, whether it be in committees or in Cabinet, as crucial to policy decisions and believes that it is imperative for women's experiences to be represented in the legislation process. One example that Copps cites of women's importance to the decision making process is from when she was Health Critic in the Ontario legislature. Copps proposed an amendment to the Public Health Act that would have obliged public health units to provide contraception information in all communities. The vote was lost, and she attributes this to the gender composition of the committee. She writes that, "If the Conservative membership on the committee had included women, the vote might have been quite different. 241 It's easy for a man, who could never be pregnant, to deny others any access to information on contraception. That vote would be much more difficult for a woman, who can understand in a direct way the issues about which men can only hypothesize" (Baby 56). Copps reiterates this point in discussing the Liberal campaign promise of pay equity in 1993. Not surprisingly, she believed, most women in the Liberal caucus wanted to move forward quickly on this issue; they worked diligently and spoke out strongly in favour of a settlement. And yet when the decision was made not to proceed, the media attacked Copps and other women in caucus for being too weak and ineffectual to accomplish this goal (rather than attacking the Minister of Finance or President of the Treasury Board who ultimately hold financial power) (Worth 55).105 This shows the ability for women parliamentarians to work together in a common effort, but also exemplifies the problems that they sometimes encounter when being representated through the media.

This point also raises the possibility of women's caucuses playing a role in women politicians fulfilling a mandate of difference. The existence of women's caucuses within a party or government depends on the structure and organization of the political party. When women's caucuses do exist, they give women from the same party an opportunity to meet, discuss, and potentially take action on issues of interest Furthermore, women's involvement in party politics is another opportunity for women to support each other and share women's perspective. Many parties do have women's associations within the broader party, as well as funds to support female candidates.

242 Women legislators then, as they represent themselves in their memoirs, can and do share Young's notion of social perspective and often believe in the potential of a mandate of difference. The memoirs reveal many more categories of analysis in terms of individual or shared experiences as female legislators. Such categories include: women's reception as female candidates, the potential barriers to entering public life as a woman, media treatment and image management of women parliamentarians, the reasons that women leave public life, and constructive ideas that could encourage more women to enter politics.

I am going to critically examine one such issue present in the memoirs, that of women parliamentarians' experiences with motherhood and family. Many of these politician-authors see women's roles as mothers and women's notions of family responsibilities as marking a distinction between men and women parliamentarians. While family concerns affect both men and women in politics, women face greater scrutiny about their role as spouses and mothers and are often obliged to reconcile and defend their roles as parents and politicians in a manner not required by men (Lawless and Fox 52). The legacy of a male-dominated parliamentary system and the realistic demands of motherhood contribute to this supposed incongruity, but, as Brodie suggests, it is also the idealization of motherhood in popular culture that supports this (Trimble and Arscott 109). As

Copps writes somewhat facetiously, "Everyone knows that babies and politics don't mix" {Baby 85). In 1987, Copps was the first woman in Canada to give birth while serving as a Member of Parliament. She struggled throughout her political career to demonstrate a woman's ability to successfully combine 243 motherhood and electoral politics. Her public accounts of her experiences, however, and those of other female politicians, reveal that the notion of motherhood still occupies a troubled position in Canada's political culture.

Beginning with the practical demands of combining motherhood and politics, I will interrogate the cultural background of this assumed incompatibility and its consequences for mothers in elected office. Furthermore, I will examine the complexities of the representation of politicians as mothers in the public sphere and how mothers in elected office must continually negotiate their roles and identities against this normative discourse in their memoirs.

On an institutional level, the demands of electoral office present realistic challenges to blending parenthood, specifically motherhood, with politics

(Trimble and Arscott 111). As I have mentioned, Pat Carney thought of

Parliament as "not family friendly," citing long sessions, separation from loved ones, and geographic hurdles as contributing to the difficulties of maintaining family life for politicians (329; 192). As Carney observed, long distances between one's constituency and Ottawa can make weekend travel difficult and exhausting. Unpredictable election calls or night sittings further contribute to the demands of combining parenthood and politics, even if one's family is near either the federal or provincial capitol. Carney, who was a single mother when she represented a constituency in British Columbia, struggled publicly to alleviate some of these pressures: she was successful in extending travel benefits to children even though, as she was "the only mother elected west of the Lakehead," she felt that she faced "indifference" on the part of some of her colleagues (191). 244 But as Kim Campbell has noted, Parliament has become more family friendly since Carney's tenure: an on-site day care centre on Parliament Hill has been created, and fixed Parliamentary schedules make the demands of work more predictable for parents who are serving as MPs (Trimble and Arscott 112).

While these structural provisions to Parliament can help alleviate some of the struggle for families, blending parenthood, specifically motherhood, and electoral office, is not without other challenges. Copps recounts the difficulties, for example, of trying to juggle her parliamentary schedule with her baby's feeding schedule and the challenges of breast feeding while in public office (Worth 54).

Parental leaves of absence, furthermore, are potentially politically undesirable as politicians are constantly accountable to their electorate, and are typically seeking re-election.

Despite the changing work atmosphere of Parliament and provincial legislatures to better accommodate family responsibilities, the strain for politician mothers, especially those with young children, is heightened because of lingering traditional gender roles that often assume women to be the primary caregivers of children. Janine Brodie, in an extensive 1984 study on marriage, motherhood, and political candidacy in Canada, wrote that "Because of their 'breadwinning role' males generally benefit from unambiguous norms that divide their time between public and private roles. Except in very unusual circumstances, the demands of work come first. The female, however, often has to resolve her private role demands before she can consider adopting a public role." Otherwise,

Brodie suggests, she is likely to suffer from "private-versus-public role strain" 245 (Women 91-92). On a practical level, constant time constraints, child care concerns, or finances, to name but a few examples, cause some women politicians to acknowledge experiencing this role-strain when attempting to balance their professional and family responsibilities. Ellen Fairclough admits to often finding her "tight-rope act difficult" when she was the first mother on Hamilton City

Council, as well occupying a role which was at the time that of "a rare woman in the business world" (63). Rosemary Brown also refers to the strain and difficulties she faced attempting to fulfill all of her expected roles. As she writes,

"For the three years that we were the government I existed as a multi-personality.

I endeavoured to be a full-time mother and wife, an active feminist and outspoken advocate, a public figure and the fun-loving member of a small clique in the caucus. Needless to say, my immune system was thrown into turmoil" (137). A practical concern for politicians who are mothers, however, sometimes derives from, and is accompanied by cultural challenges to the compatibility of motherhood and politics.

It should be noted that politics can place immense strain on a family regardless of whether or not one has children, especially for women politicians.

Despite this, male politicians, for example, discuss their families and spouses in their memoirs, in fairly consistent ways. Chretien and Mulroney both give their wives high praise for being perfect political spouses: neither spouse, as each of them is portrayed in their husbands' memoirs, could have been more supportive.

It is more difficult for the spouse of a female politician to be the recipient of this acknowledgement, because male spouses of political women are usually not 246 regarded as helpers, or as political appendages in quite the same way by Canadian

society. Most of the female memoirists acknowledge, as Audrey McLaughlin

writes, that "politics puts an enormous stress on families" and that the "strain can be just too much" (201), leading to the deterioration of marriages and family life.

Even when women politicians prove that there are exceptions to this, and that

some political husbands are supportive of their wives' careers and are helpful

political assets, the memoirs reveal a reasoning and rationalizing behind this

which is not present in male politicians' memoirs. For example, Sharon Carstairs

credits her husband with unwavering support throughout her political career. He

fundraised and door-knocked for her and provided her with the encourgement she

needed to run in the first place. Partly the reason why he is supportive is that they

share the same public commitments: they met through Liberal party politics and

they share a passion for electoral politics. Carstairs recognizes, however, that as a

political woman, her happy marriage is rare and that she is fortunate (49).

Like Carstairs, Therese Casgrain does not reveal in her memoir much

stress on her marriage because of her political activities, perhaps because her husband was a federal politician himself and was serving as the Speaker of the

House. As she writes, "My husband was very liberal in his opinions and always

encouraged my social and political activities. Every time I had to go to Quebec

City he always sent me flowers or a telegram" (105). While she feels fortunate

for this support, the marriage is already somewhat unconventional because of his

career as a federal politician. Furthermore, she appears to be rationalizing his

support; it is because he is very liberal, and because he is a politician, that he is 247 understanding. Deborah Grey's account of her marriage appears to provide

somewhat of an exception to the pressures that political life make on a relationship. She recounts that her husband Lou "understood that my life was very public and full of accolades, but didn't see why that should possibly bother his male ego. I felt so comfortable with him because of that" (124). This passage

appears almost defensive about the fact that a strong, public woman would have to accommodate herself, or her husband's ego, to suit traditional notions of gender roles within a marriage or relationship. But as a public person, she admits that they have to find a good working arrangement and that "we were careful about

where we went and what we did together" (125). Furthermore, Grey found that

one of the most frustrating aspects of holding electoral office was "living the

intersection of personal and political life" : "It is always a toss-up, trying to balance personal and political responsibilities" (248).

Not all women politicians, however, relate such positive experiences with relationships in political life. While this stress on family and marriage is true for male politicians also, because of lingering traditional gender roles, as noted, it is

more difficult for a woman parliamentarian to balance her public and private

lives, expectations, and commitments. Ellen Fairclough, for example, admits that her husband Gordon "took a great deal of'ribbing' because his wife was in public

office." She takes this in stride, noting that "Women were rare in all levels of

government, and for many men even one woman in public life was too many"

(66). She recounts that he was a good sport about this, and that he always had a

witty comeback to make to this kind of charge, but he still had to face some 248 public ridicule for being a man and yet the lower profile spouse. In a more serious manner, Rosemary Brown offers a full analysis in her memoir on the difficulty of mixing politics and marriage. She discusses the number of women she had spoken with over the years who would not run for politics because they believed it would be threatening to their husbands and introduce tension, jealousy, and unconscious resentment to the relationship which would result in the deterioration of the marriage (232). She believed that society, on the whole, was still uncomfortable with any variation on the nuclear family. It is distressing, for

Brown, that as a result, a large number of women deny themselves the opportunity to pursue their career goals. Meanwhile, it is still a painful decision if they choose that their career should take precedence over their marriage (234).

Brown herself admits to "the erosion" of her family life (138). As she states,

"when a crisis directly or indirectly created as a result of my political career, and certainly exacerbated by it, threatened our marriage, both Bill and I were forced to make some major compromises in order to ensure the marriage's survival.

Whether we succeed, only time will tell" (234). She does conclude, however, that regardless of gender, marriage to a politician can be very stressful (235).

In the same vein, Kim Campbell writes about the breakdown of her marriage from the strain of politics. In a conversation with fellow cabinet colleague Shirley Martin about Cabinet Ministerial life, Campbell says that she and Martin clearly agreed on the personal strains they experienced. They both

"felt guilty about abandoning our spouses so frequently. Free evenings were first and foremost for family. We both loved our work, which increased the guilt when 249 it took us away from our husbands. My promotion to Justice could not have come at a worse time from the perspective of my marriage, although I didn't realize it at the time" (139). When Campbell's marriage did end, her husband left her a note saying he did not want to be a political spouse anymore (157). Sheila Copps also reinforces the stress of political life on marriage in her memoirs. She highlights the pressures for the politician,as well as for the family, saying:

It [political life] can be a very lonely life all around.. .in spite of its

superficial glamour, a political life can be an unhappy, even a

dangerous, one...Since those outlets can include alcohol and

infidelity, it's no wonder that politics ranks very high on the scale

of professions vulnerable to marriage breakdown. The politician

isn't the only one who suffers. If the spouse does not enjoy

politics, she can feel trapped in a lifestyle not of her choosing.

{Baby 187)

This theme of loneliness recurs throughout the women's memoirs. Campbell mentions it frequently, as does Carney. This subject of loneliness epitomizes some of the challenges women politicians face in living busy, high profile lives.

As Campbell mentioned, it is difficult to find time to cultivate relationships, whether they be with other politicians or not, and the fact that these women are constantly scrutinized by the media and the public further complicates the matter.

Furthermore, although the number of women politicians is constantly growing, a woman politician, still, is performing in a role to which few others can relate. It is

Judy LaMarsh who expresses the most acute loneliness: I would suggest that this 250 is probably because of the time period and lack of female understanding or companionship on the Hill.

Returning to mothering as a topic, the question that haunted LaMarsh and

MacDonald, "are you a politician or a woman?" (Trimble and Arscott 108), is also conceivable as "are you a politician or a mother?" This question exemplifies the perceived challenges for women politicians fulfilling their roles as both politicians and parents. LaMarsh summarizes her perceptions of the incompatibility of motherhood and politics in commenting in a 1964 interview, "I often thought about adopting a child. I'd like to have done that. But while you're in politics you can't do it" (Sharpe 82). Popular concepts of the idealization of motherhood and lingering notions of private and public roles still have the ability to encumber women in elected office: they can be subject to criticism for their achievements in both spheres at the expense of the other. For example, as

Lawless and Fox write, if a woman achieves professional success, then she is accused of neglecting her "womanly" duties; if she doesn't achieve this success, then she is accused of not being able to properly balance her professional and private responsibilities (Lawless and Fox 60). These are burdensome expectations, and the fact that women are judged on their professional success and on their roles as wives and mothers simultaneously (Lawless and Fox 60) can lead to increased pressure for them.

Women are quick to point out that this is often a double standard: for male politicians to have "adoring, dutiful families" (McDonough qtd. in Sharpe

156) lends them stability and credibility, but for women, their other role as 251 mothers can work to cast doubt upon both their career and their parenting skills.

Copps says, for instance, that a male politician must have a wife and family, but that "If you are a woman in politics, there is almost a sense of betrayal if your life includes anything or anyone else, including a husband or family." Furthermore, she continues, "If a young man ascends the political ladder and successfully combines that effort with a happy family life, he becomes complete. If you are a woman, there is always the question, "How can you look after your children?"

(Baby 84-5). As Shari Thurer states, "motherhood and ambition are still largely seen as opposing forces. More strongly expressed, a lack of ambition - or a professed lack of ambition, a sacrificial willingness to set personal ambition aside

- is still the virtuous proof of good mothering. For many women, perhaps most, motherhood versus personal ambition represents the heart of the feminine dilemma" (Thurer 287). Judith McKenzie infers, however, in her Canadian study, that all women legislators, as represented in their auto/biographies and biographies, appear to be conclusively ambitious, even if this ambition appears in different ways and for different reasons (110). But this does not detract from the dilemma; indeed, it only intensifies it as these supposedly incongruous roles are disclosed and interrogated in the public sphere.

This public interrogation ranges from curiosity and interest, to borderline cruelty. McLaughlin relates in her memoir comments made by Iona Campagnolo, former federal cabinet minister in the 1970s. Campagnolo stated that "Political life is so very cruel. It seems to me.. .that the children of women politicians are more seriously discriminated against than the children of male 252 politicians...There's an inordinate curiosity about women politicians"

(McLaughlin 204). Ellen Fairclough affirms this inordinate curiousity: she recounts how the media were extremely interested in her personal life, and that she had to "make it clear to anyone who asked" that her husband and son were supportive of her political career and were working tirelessly on her behalf during campaigns. Furthermore, she wrote dryly, they should be able to take care of themselves because "they were, after all, adults" (85). With considerably more pain, Rosemary Brown discusses her internal struggle with the media's interrogation of her ability to combine the roles of public figure and mother. She writes of the open hostility she received from the media on this subject when running for leader of the federal NDP, but also her own guilt and anguish at attempting to reconcile these roles on a personal level. As she wrote in her memoir: "The only hostile question directed at me concerned the hypocritical fear that my children would suffer as a result of my political activities, and accusations of impending neglect" (126). While she publicly dismissed these suggestions, and realized that journalists were probing because they had found her "Achilles heel" (126), on a personal level, she admits that "I was no equal to the demons that whispered to me that I was placing my selfish ambition ahead of my children" (127). This burdensome guilt, in one respect, appears to arise from her internalisation of traditional societal expectations of a woman's role as a mother and primary caregiver. Her disappointment also lay in the fact that she believed that this scrutiny was gender based and "unfair": she believed that if it were her

253 husband running, as a man he would not have been asked the same questions or probed to the same extent (127).

As Brown's example indicates, the convergence of practical concerns, public scrutiny, and societal norms about idealized notions of motherhood can cause, or intensify a psychological role strain. Many mothers who hold elected office discuss the emotional pressures of the role and its consequences of internal guilt. Thurer suggests that it is grudgingly accepted for women to have to work for economic reasons, but when a woman chooses to pursue a career, "a shadow is cast over her motherliness" (xviii). Media images of happy, fulfilled mothers add to mothers' feelings of "inadequacy, guilt, and anxiety." Such cultural constructions can cause mothers to cling to an idealized notion of motherhood that can never be reached, but neither can be discarded (Thurer xxiv).106 Copps writes in Worth Fighting For, that "dual responsibility tugs at the heartstrings of women when they pursue the dual tracks of parenthood and career.. .there is a heavy dose of guilt involved with the thousands of hours spent away from home and family to pursue the good of the country" (53). While affirming that love, altruism and

106 While this is not from a memoir, it still reflects this problem. Christy Clark, former Deputy

Premier of British Columbia (and the second woman in Canadian history to give birth while serving as a cabinet minister in 2001), discusses her anguish at public judgment of her mothering skills. As she writes, "The worst thing I got called was a bad mother...I once did a live radio interview with my crying infant in my arms...I was devastated at the time when CBC aired a call from an angry listener who said the crying was proof I was neglectful." She later assuaged her guilt through recognizing that "even happy babies cry a lot" (Clark A20), but her public humiliation at attempting to combine her roles was painful for her.

254 responsibility inform mothers' thoughts and actions (O'Reilly and Porter 6),

Andrea O'Reilly argues that normative discourses of natural-intensive mothering

"polices" women's mothering, and results in "pathologizing" those who do not, or

who cannot practice it (O'Reilly 7).

This is not to say that all maternal guilt or love is a cultural construction: many politicians write with despondency about missing important events in their

children's lives. Carstairs, for example, writes in a chapter entitled "The Worst

Week of My Life" that the week of the Meech Lake negotiations were tough

enough, but on top of that, her daughter was graduating from university. Carstairs

was "depressed" at missing this event, and desperately wanted to be with her

daughter, but could not leave her public responsibilities (155-6). Carney also

discusses how her role as "part-time parent" was painful for everyone. As she writes, "I missed most school concerts, sports events, exam pressures - my son

explained he was majoring in Hanging Out in the Parking Lot," but, in a moment

of proud resistance, she writes that she defied a Three-Line Whip in order to

attend his graduation (328).

To help alleviate some of the cultural or societal pressure however, Thurer postulates that freeing mothers from the fantasy of maternal perfection would

allow them to stop worrying about culturally imposed restraints, and questions of

adequacy would dissipate when "decent people are encouraged to mother in their

own decent way" (xii). As such, Thurer describes politicians who combine

107 A Three-Line Whip indicates that the Party Whip has expressed that a parliamentarian's

attendance is essential at a parliamentary debate and vote.

255 motherhood and personal ambition as cultural icons who are "freeing women to embrace formerly devalued ways of mothering" (Thurer 297). While these politicians possess the public profile to serve as role models for other women and help change cultural constructions of mothering, they are still battling this idealization of motherhood themselves; in the public sphere, and internally. They have thus been required to develop individual strategies to best combine their roles and, when necessary, protect themselves and their children from this public scrutiny. Of course, there are no prescriptive methods to achieve this, which reflects the complexities of lived motherhood (Hardy and Wiedmer 9) and further complicates and increases the cultural constructions of mothering. Sheila Copps, for example, describes the advantages of being raised in a political family herself, and her active decision to raise her child as such: for her, the benefits outweighed the cost (Baby 190). When she herself gave birth, she held a press conference from the hospital, and was, as a result, on the front page of every national newspaper. She appeared to embrace this role of public mother, returning to the

House of Commons shortly after birth, and describing in detail in her memoir the fact that her breasts were "engorged with milk" during a speech by a visiting president (Worth 54). These public statements help to erode the gendered stereotypes of politicians as they publicly dislodge "deep-rooted assumptions

[about] what is appropriate[for] women and men" (Phillips 228). The example of such mothering promotes a range of possibilities and narratives, and could encourage other mothers to participate in politics: possibly then raising the proportion of women elected and broadening the spectrum of political 256 representation. Phillips identifies this as the "role-model" argument for women's greater representation in electoral politics (228). Copps writes of the example she became for other women, as she states:

they [other women] would come up and ask about my daughter

because they remember the day she was born, the fact that I breast­

fed her at the office, the fact that my struggles represented their

struggles and my victories represented their victories. The birth

and raising of Danelle spoke volumes to them about their own

lives. The fact that I would dare to seek the leadership of my party

gave them hope to pursue their dreams. (Worth 51)

Despite these optimistic notions of empowered mothering, however, choosing to embrace, or being thrust into the role of very public mother can still be uncomfortable or even, in Campagnolo's words, cruel (McLaughlin 204).

Judy Tyabji, former British Columbia MLA, for example, in 1991 brought her newborn into the legislature after four days, and received much criticism from all sides for doing this. She ultimately lost custody of her three children after her ambition was seen to be incompatible with her motherhood (Sharpe 152).108

Sharpe details how her case shows the "grave personal and political dangers of

108 Tyabji was a controversial figure in the legislature, having an open affair with then Liberal party leader Gordon Wilson. Despite the scandal associated with Tyabji, however, the custody decision, as Campagnolo states, "smacked of the old world." The ruling stated that: "The mother's attention as a custodial parent would be, to a degree, sidetracked by her career agenda"

(Sharpe 152).

257 ignoring - or being ignorant of- the long tradition that steers women away from the public arena" (153). As Sharpe writes: "women can cross the divide with

some impunity in the 1990s, but only if they are scrupulously careful about their private lives" (153).

Mindful of this sometimes harsh public scrutiny and the effects of public

life on one's private life, some politicians very actively work to keep their children out of the public eye. Audrey McLaughlin, for example, chooses not to discuss her children in her memoir. She explains that while she has chosen to

enter public life and become public property, her children have not, and therefore

she believes that this decision should not complicate their lives (204). Similarly,

McLaughlin recounts in her memoir Iona Campagnolo's statement, "I have been very reluctant to make anything known about my children.. .1 keep them well out

of the light. Now that one has children of her own, I'm equally careful about my

grandchildren [...] Every way that you can buttress your own personal life,

quietly, in the background, is better for your children" (McLaughlin 204). Former

MP Belinda Stronach agreed to cooperate on Don Martin's biography of her on the condition that, "You can't talk to my children. Otherwise, I'm in" (Martin

12). While this strategy of converging political life with family life is foremost

about protecting children, it also serves to detract attention from a politician's role

as mother and emphasizes her professional role as a politician.

Adding to the multiple constructions of motherhood in the public sphere,

and thus cultural discourses of motherhood, is the strategy of female politicians

inscribing motherhood as a site of agency in their political practices. For 258 example, in Carstairs' first election campaign (the Alberta provincial election of

1974 where she was unsuccessful as a Liberal candidate) she had pamphlets entitled "Fathers Don't Always know Best, Why Not Try A Mother For A

Change" (53). Rosemary Brown also would occasionally respond to media questions about her role as a mother and a politician by referring to her experience as a mother and a wife. She believed that these roles gave an "added dimension" to her perception of the world, and emphasized this as "one more asset that I would bring to the political sphere" (127). Sheila Copps also encourages mothers to run for elected office by describing a relationship between politics and mothering. As she writes:

A special comment to mothers: the experience of motherhood is a

particularly good preparation for politics. After all, supermum is

expected to hold down a job, to be a chauffeur, negotiator,

psychologist and nurse to her kids, to be a Jill of all trades and

mistress of several. What better background for politics, where

one is called on to digest an incredible array of information and

take action based as much on gut instinct as on real answers?

(Baby 133) 109

109 While this is not from a memoir, it is worth noting that Belinda Stronach launched her 2004 leadership campaign for the PC Party by listing her self-acknowledged "motherhood issues" of

"honesty, compassion, fairness, respect and integrity." She asked rhetorically, "Who better than a mother to ensure these values are always reflected in the actions of government?" ("Stronach jumps" n.p.)

259 While none of these women ran (or are running on) a gender-specific or motherhood platform, positioning themselves distinctly as mothers is fraught with complications. In one respect, it is a bold and empowering strategy for women to assert and promote themselves specifically as women, and to insert this gendered identity into the traditionally masculine world of politics. It places traditionally domestic and private values within the masculine public sphere, at once disrupting and violating it. It validates motherhood as possessing public worth and demonstrates its compatibility with personal ambition and power. It suggests that women politicians indeed can have both, and be successful at both. Furthermore, many women describe motherhood as being central to their identity, and not something that can, or should be overlooked or downplayed just because they are elected officials. For example, Carstairs writes that: "My image as a politician is one of a tough competitor. The public rarely sees me as a wife and a mother, and yet these are the roles in which I take the greatest pride, and I believe if you fail to understand these roles, you do not have a true picture of me" (50). As Shaunti

Feldhahn asks, "What is so wrong about female politicians.. .being proud that they undertook one of the most intense, important roles in the world and did it well?" (n.p.).

Regardless of whether it is "wrong" or "right" for a politician to promote her status as mother, the fact remains that as a politician, she must be very deliberate and careful in crafting her public image and political niche. Impression management for any contemporary politican is crucial to political success: positioning oneself as mother might be part of a larger strategy and an attempt to 260 appeal to a specific demographic. It relies on the affective function of creating emotional connections and identification with the electorate: more than half of whom are female. Mothers, as a demographic, are much sought-after by political parties and pollsters as they are often considered moderate swing voters, and therefore potentially accessible to all parties.

For example, in the previously mentioned Charlottetown Accord debate which involved Campbell, Copps, and Carstairs, Carstairs writes that she told journalist Robert Jackson that "at some time over the course of the two debates

Copps would speak about her daughter... She had done it throughout the leadership debates in order to soften her image" (206). To counteract this,

Carstairs decides that she too would speak about her daughters. As she recounts,

"Sure enough.. .Sheila told the audience she was supporting the ... Accord for her daughter, who was too young to vote for herself. I immediately replied that I didn't have to speak for my daughters, they were both old enough to speak for themselves and they could not support a document that eroded their rights in this country" (206-7). For a politician to portray herself as a mother is potentially humanizing: it depicts her approachability and emphasizes common experiences with voters. According to a pollster, it softens them, but still shows them to be tough in a non-threatening way (Reynolds A9). This strategy makes assumptions about the public, in that voters will respond to positioning oneself as a mother, and thus a gendered political identity.

This strategy, however, of politicians imbuing their politics with maternal imagery is problematic. While it might be read as empowering, it can also be 261 read as promoting and reinforcing an idealization of conventional restrictive notions of motherhood, and hence the female politician. Since "achievements and pleasures gained outside motherhood are condemned within patriarchy as

substitutes for 'normal' femininity" (Nicolson 376), this portrayal simultaneously relies on, and serves to uphold, traditional stereotypes in order to make women's

intrusion into the public sphere acceptable again. It is potentially reassuring to voters who may feel uncomfortable with women in power (Reynolds A9) that

these women have not transgressed too far beyond their domestic roles. It can potentially reinforce traditional notions and stereotypes of women's "natural"

roles of nurturers and caregivers and suggest that it is only mothers who can possess these values: not women without children, and not men. This, in turn, returns to a sentimentalized and idealized notion of mothers and motherhood in

contemporary culture. This aspect of motherhood recalls its position in the

suffrage movement, as I have mentioned briefly, where women relied on their

distinct private sphere roles as mothers and caretakers to justify their entry into politics (Lawless and Fox 58). Nellie McClung, for example, became active in

the suffrage movement and electoral politics precisely in order to bring a

woman's moral influence to politics. As she writes initially on her reasons for

participating in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), "Women must be made to feel their responsibility. All this protective love, this instinctive mother love, must be organized some way, and made effective. There was

enough of it in the world to do away with all the evils which war upon childhood:

262 undernourishment, slum conditions, child labour, drunkenness. Women could abolish these if they wanted to" (333).

And while the "motherhood" qualities when they are raised might be useful for a politician to possess, critics of the strategy have asserted that

"parenting isn't a seamlessly transferable skill to the running of a country" (Glass

n.p.). Furthermore, employing maternal politics raises further questions about

specific gendered identities, and representation in electoral politics. Do mothers possess inherently different political identities than men, fathers, or women

without children, or share Young's notion of "social perspective" that transcends

their differences (Inclusion 136)? Do they govern differently? Critics of the maternal strategy would argue that the notion of traditional gender roles in politics needs to be "upended" in order to move toward parity in politics. As Dana

Goldstein writes, "women don't deserve to be in politics because [they] are more

compassionate or nurturing than men. [They] deserve to be there because [they]

are human beings" (n.p.). Reinforcing this idealization of motherhood in the

popular media thus complicates the efforts some female politicians make to

reconcile their roles as mothers and women and dismantle the traditional

distinctions between public and private spheres.

The interrogation of female politicians as mothers constructs motherhood

as central to a woman's identity, and therefore is also problematic for politicians

without children. Robinson and Saint Jean write facetiously that "Comments can

label the woman MP. If she is a widow, she is suspected of having killed her husband. If she is divorced, she is unstable. If married, she neglects her husband, 263 and if single, she is abnormal" (181). While this might appear amusing, it demonstrates the double bind for women politicians: while their role of mother is certainly complicated in the public sphere, if they are single or do not have

children, their femininity is challenged. They might still fall prey to criticism in not upholding traditional, stereotypical assumptions about women's "natural" role

as mothers (Trimble and Arscott 110). Campbell writes in Time and Chance, for

example, that when she was running for leader of the Progressive Conservative

Party in 1993, she had her "stability" publicly attacked, and was accused of not having "a sufficient stake in the future" because she did not have children

(Campbell 295). Other politicians publicly suggested that Canadians would

identify more with her competitor, Jean Charest, because he had a spouse and

children. While one expects public and partisan attacks when running for such positions, these went too far. Campbell found these comments "a slap in the face"

to all women who could not bear children, as well as blatantly sexist and

ahistorical. Canada, Campbell reminded readers, has a "long tradition of being

governed by childless men." John Diefenbaker, she was sure, did not endure the

same objections (295). Judy LaMarsh, in her memoirs, describes the extra tasks

and appearances (especially over holidays) that she was assigned due to the fact,

she believed, that she was single and therefore was assumed not to possess family responsibilities or commitments (64).

Motherhood, as portrayed through the memoirs, continues to occupy an uncomfortable position in Canadian political culture. While it is portrayed as

only marginally accepted, it is still represented as central to a woman's identity. 264 The logistical problems of geography, combined with these cultural constructions of motherhood in the public sphere can possibly have the detrimental effect of dissuading women from running for public office. But just as some women actively seek strategies to successfully combine their public and private lives, other politicians at times in their memoirs attempt to deter mothers with young children from running for public office. Even while these are legitimate concerns, such comments potentially reinforce the incompatibility of mothering and politics.

Pat Carney writes after she combined senior cabinet portfolios with single parenting that motherhood is not an advantage in political life: "I strongly believe that women with young and teenage children should think twice before being coaxed to run for federal office, unless they live in the National capital region close to both home and work" (28). She writes about her personal role struggles, reflecting that "as President of Treasury Board, and a member of the inner

Cabinet, I was one of the most powerful women in Canada, but I would trade it all for the opportunity to just be Mom again" (328). Deborah Grey reiterates this point, writing that while she certainly does not criticize women parliamentarians who have young children, she believes that women are still the primary caregivers of our children, and the sacrifice of a mother missing important events in a child's life is somehow "sadder." "I can't explain it," she writes, "and I know I get criticized for my view, but it just sits deep in my heart.. .1 would not have chosen this field if I had children at home.. .Sadly, we do not get a replay of our children's growing-up years" (188).

265 While certainly there are politicians who run for elected office as mothers, for others, this can still be a deterring factor in them seeking elected office. As for many politicians, one of Brown's biggest deliberations in deciding to run for the leadership of the federal NDP was her family. As she writes, "Family and personal considerations remained as barriers, however, and I was not prepared to allow the committee to decide on those matters for me" (157). Ultimately, she obviously decided to do it, but it was not without strain. Casgrain recounts that when she had young children, she had neither the time "nor the inclination" to run for office as her home "was of first importance to me" (106). When her children were grown, however, she did. While these concerns are extremely legitimate and explicable, they are also problematic in trying to erode a democratic deficit of women in electoral politics. While there are numerous reasons for this democratic deficit, recent American studies suggest evidence that traditional family role orientations "continue to hinder women's emergence in the political sphere" (Lawless and Fox 53). While family roles and responsibilities do not preclude women from considering a candidacy, it is more common for women to consider running after their child care duties are minimized. Delaying their entry into politics means it is less likely that they will be able to "climb very high on the political career ladder," thus making it less likely to have women in senior positions (Lawless and Fox 69).

Many politicians, both male and female, furthermore, refer to their families or children when explaining their career decision to leave politics. While this explanation, at times may not always be credible, family responsibilities do 266 play an important role in one's desire to remain (or not) in the public sphere

(Lawless and Fox 51-52). But when women employ this explanation, once again, the message is further, and even automatically troubled. Is it an assertion that the realities of combining (successful) politics and (good) mothering are too difficult?

Even if this is not the intended message, is this the effect of the message? Does it reinforce a mother's role as caregiver rather than as successful politician? Don

Martin, in his biography of Belinda Stronach, expresses an almost embarrassed apology on behalf of columnists (himself included) who highlighted her children as a reason for her declining to enter the 2006 Liberal leadership race. The assumption was that family responsibilities would have been an appropriate or acceptable reason for her not to run, whereas her actual concerns about the democratic process were less legitimate. Meanwhile, Martin informs readers that

Stronach's children are the one aspect of her life that "politics does not touch," to spare them from becoming a political prop (256). Here the implication is that she would never need to use them as an excuse not to run for leader, or to exit politics, as she was capable of handling both roles.

A year later, however, Stronach does cite her children as one of the reasons that she chose to depart from federal politics. As her press release stated,

"The heavy demands of public life on family time are real, and as a mother I want to spend some more time with my kids" (Stronach n.p.). In a Maclean's interview, she responds that while she is still "very interested in the issues," especially in a minority government, being a politician is a big sacrifice for one's family. Returning to the corporate world, she would be able to work closer to 267 home (Whyte 15). Given the demands placed on all politicians and public figures these explanations are more than understandable - but they still remain problematic in their suggestion that mothering and politics are incompatible.

The accounts of women's practical and cultural challenges with combining their roles as politicians and mothers reveal that motherhood still occupies a troubled site in Canada's political culture. It is considered central to a woman's identity, yet a hindrance to her role as a serious politician. While the cultural assumption remains that parenting and politics are incompatible (Trimble and Arscott 112), to return to Copps's statement, babies and politics can and do mix, but not yet as easily as they should.

Despite all of the time that women politicians spend in their memoirs discussing gender issues, it is rare for male politicians, in their memoirs, to discuss gender issues, even while the texts are often infused with masculinist leadership norms and assumptions. It is worth noting, however, that when they do, they appear to raise their record on "women's issues" as a source of accomplishment and pride, and an example of how they and their government are progressive and exemplary on this "special interest," Chretien, in My Years, for example, lists some of the women who held high positions in the public service and in his government, and makes a distinct point of writing that he personally would always receive regular reports on how appointments were being broken down into special interest groups such as, for example, women, francophones, and visible minorities to ensure that the government was being "fair and proactive"

(249). He claims that he brought the same attention to the appointment of women 268 in Cabinet and the nomination of women Liberal candidates (250).no He touts the

Liberal party's somewhat controversial rule, introduced in 1992, that the leader possesses the right to select a riding's candidate (and overrule the riding association's nomination process) as a mechanism to increase the number of women candidates and hopefully members of Parliament. While this is certainly possible, clearly, this has other benefits for the party and Chretien's reasoning (or sincerity) might come across as somewhat suspect in this instance. In this same argument about women's issues, he mentions that he would always jokingly refer to the fact that a woman really was in charge: his wife Aline (250). While this is

Chretien's typical humour, it might also appear somewhat patronizing.

Mulroney acknowledges gender issues in a similar fashion in his Memoirs.

As a young Conservative activist at St. Francis Xavier, he writes that he was inspired by Diefenbaker's recent appointment of Ellen Fairclough to cabinet.

This "progressiveness" inspired him to make a special appeal to the women voters at StFX during campus elections. He includes the text from the pamphlet he wrote in his memoir, which touts equality for women and Diefenbaker's support of women in partisan terms, chastising the Liberal party for not being progressive

enough. As a result, it could read like partisan opportunism rather than actual

concern for women's equality. Later in his career, he includes a speech he made on election night in 1984 promising that "From now on, the advancement of women's rights will be one of the major concerns of the Government of Canada,";

110 During his terms as Prime Minister, Chretien appointed 16 women to cabinet ("Women" 4), the highest number to date.

269 they will rectify injustices towards women, through, for example, top level appointments, among other things (40). Again, Mulroney affirms that his government made a point of highlighting women's issues in planning the platform for the 1988 election. He includes a speech he made to caucus about celebrating the achievements that Flora Macdonald had made towards gender equality and affirming the government's commitment to women's equality (285).

In contrast to these boasts of government accomplishments, John Crosbie, who held various cabinet portfolios in Mulroney's government, is the man who, ironically or not, spends the most time in his memoir on women, devoting an entire chapter entitled "Pass the Tequila, Sheila" to his ruminations on feminism.

111 In his usual blunt and colourful language, he attacks the "constipating doctrine" of political correctness (332), defends his sexist remarks throughout his parliamentary career, and attributes most of the attacks on him to the fact that women possess no sense of humour (333). It is clearly problematic for him that women should only be treated with respect because of political correctness, but that aside, Crosbie disregards this in his memoir anyway, and writes that he finds

1" At a Progressive Conservative Party fundraiser in Victoria in 1990, Crosbie pokes fun at all the

Liberal leadership candidates seeking to replace John Turner. For Copps, he recited the chorus of a Johnny Cash song, "Pass me the tequila, Sheila, and lie down and love me again" (Crosbie 334).

The comments were considered inappropriate by the media, and especially women. Mulroney said they were "unacceptable" but would not fire Crosbie over the incident (Crosbie 337). Crosbie admitted the remarks may have been in bad taste, but that the press reaction was "moralistic nonsense" (337).

270 many women parliamentarians to be manipulative and scheming. As he writes,

"Even though they are just as aggressive, ruthless, and insensitive as men, they trade on the fact that they are women, and seek public sympathy by levelling the allegation of sexism against any man who dares to ridicule them or poke fun at them" (337). In terms of feminist groups, he writes that "I had no use for militant feminists and I thought NAC and their friends were uncivilized fanatics. I wouldn't raise a finger to help the feminist movement. If I was leading the government, I would cut off every cent of assistance that goes to these associations" (344). He proceeds to identify the Mulroney government's financial

support of such organizations ("special interest groups") as "the worst kind of

foolishness" (344). What is ironic, however, in these remarks, is that Crosbie saw

attacks from feminists, women, and special interest groups as a paradox of his career, as he believed that his record was "among the most progressive, if not the most progressive, of any member of the Mulroney cabinet," citing reforming

Canada's divorce laws, human rights amendments, his appointment record, as just

some of the examples. Crosbie attempts to give himself legitimacy through his record, yet simultaneously publicly patronizes women (whether intentional or not) and feminist groups.

The information analysed in this chapter points to a general conclusion that women parliamentarians, regardless of their differences, share a gendered perspective that is reflected in their memoirs. With this being the case, it is worthwhile to remember that one of the major ways in which feminist criticism approaches the relationship between gender and genre is to relate genre to the 271 subversive potential of women's writing (Eagleton 253). Women can, as Mary

Eagleton notes, "transform the male-dominated forms and in so doing expose their gender bias" (253). Women politicians writing the traditionally male- dominated form of political memoir shift traditional assumptions about the genre of political life writing, as well as women's auto/biographical practices. Kadar writes, for example, that LaMarsh's memoirs are conventional in structure, but that they nevertheless upset the "conventional romance of the hero by documenting the devoted but also mocked life of a woman in political office"

(664). This is true, to varying degrees, of many of the women's political memoirs. These women are employing a genre in which historically, the politician-culture-hero has been male, and narrating a public life again associated with a masculine domain. The woman politician's insertion of a gendered identity that possesses a different relationship to this public domain then changes the content and structure of the genre. Because there are fundamental differences, anchored in historical and cultural circumstances (Neuman, "Autobiography" 3) between men and women's gendered experiences in legislatures across Canada, these differences are thus articulated through their political memoirs. But sometimes, of course, the memoir form has also been associated with women authors, who, as Buss writes, increasingly use it to "interrogate the private individual's relationship to a history and/or a culture from which she finds her experience of her self and her life excluded." They "take up the memoir form for the specific purpose of revising cultural contexts so that their experience is not excluded. In doing so, these women are changing the ways in which we tell our 272 stories as human beings; they are bringing female gendering to bear on our previously male-gendered narratives of the self and culture" {Repossessing 3).

This is true for women's political memoir, even if the authors are not private but already public women, and don't appear to be excluded from the public sphere.

They are at times positioned as both outsiders and insiders (Cormack 361) in this public sphere, and bringing women's experiences in the parliamentary system to the forefront of public discourse. As such, they are part of a project, both as parliamentarians and as authors in revising cultural contexts to include their full acceptance in the system.

273 Conclusion

"Suddenly," Leigh Gilmore writes, "memoir has become the genre in the skittish period around the turn of the millennium" {Limits 1). Certainly, the popularity of political memoir confirms this fascination, and demonstrates the possibilities and opportunities of employing personal narratives to contextualize public figures and public life in Canada. The popularity of political memoir in

Canada in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century is, furthermore, indicative of larger trends in political culture and communication. Politicians writing memoirs take advantage of a political culture that thrives on the politics of personality, a culture that has shifted from understanding politics as a marketing model to understanding politics as a celebrity culture. While there exists a long tradition of the public seeking to unmask public figures and employ personal, even private information to inform these figures, it is most pronounced in this politics of personality. The personal life stories of politicians are employed and emphasized by the media and the public in order to prove politicians' competence, to explain their behaviour, or to tear down their career. The consequences of such personal information being employed in the public sphere can be construed as both positive and negative for Canadian politics in that it often prioritizes politicians over their policies. In terms of political memoir, it brings the genre to the forefront of public discussion and relevance. It creates a fascination with public figures that in turn creates a larger market for their life stories and memoirs. In turn, politicians are more likely to employ political memoir as a communication tool in publicizing desired messages. Politicians' 274 participation in this market, in selling both their books and themselves, confirms the commoditization of the politician in contemporary political culture. Moving

forward, as political culture continues to prioritize the politics of personality, I believe that the popularity of political memoir will continue to flourish.

Both nationally and internationally, political memoir is relevant and

thriving in various incarnations. Internationally, tell-all memoirs are becoming

increasingly popular.

In the United States, Scott McLennan, former White House Press Secretary recently published a scandalous and damaging insider's account of his time working for President George W. Bush entitled, What Happened: Inside the Bush

White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. McLennan takes

advantage of a widespread anti-Bush sentiment in America to capitalize on making his personal experiences public. In Great Britain, Cherie Blair, wife of

former Prime Minister Tony Blair recently published a very revealing and

intimate memoir entitled Speaking for Myself The memoir reveals "highly personal and embarrassing details about the couple's private life, leaving little to

the imagination" (Winnett A2). Blair is indiscreet in discussing her first period, her sexual attraction to her husband, the conception of her fourth child, and her miscarriage of a fifth child, to name but a few examples. As a result, especially

for a prime minister's wife, she appears, according to one reviewer, as

112 This is in contrast to a very different memoir also recently published by another former White

House aide, Ted Sorensen. Sorensen's Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History recounts with

dignity his time working with John F. Kennedy.

275 "extravagantly conceited," "sexually flamboyant," and obsessed with

"gynecological matters and, money" (Bennett 31). While the purpose of the memoir appears to be an attempt to vindicate herself from, in her opinion, the press's campaign to paint her as a "grasping, scheming embarrassment" (Bennett

31), the intimate details that she shares are less redemptive, and rather, in terms of

critical review, more damaging to her and her husband's reputations.

In the United States, personal narratives and memoirs have garnered popular attention and found very public forums in the 2008 Republican and

Democratic primaries and caucuses, as well as in the lead-up to the November

presidential election. All three leading presidential hopefuls produced memoirs.

Senator John McCain, then the Republican nominee, published a family memoir

entitled Faith of My Fathers in 1999, when he was originally running for the

Republican nomination for the 2000 Presidential election. Democratic nominee hopeful, Senator Hillary Clinton published Living History in 2003 after being

elected Senator of New York. Senator Barack Obama, now President published

his memoir, Dreams from My Father, in 1995 and it was republished in 2004 in

the lead-up to his candidacy as Democratic nominee for the Presidency. Obama's

running-mate, Senator Joe Biden, also released a memoir, Promises to Keep: On

Life and Politics, in 2007, and the paperback version was released in late August

2008, just after the Democratic National Convention, and just in time for the

November election. Such memoirs could also be considered campaign books,

sometimes called "candidate lit" (Bosman n.p.) and can serve to introduce the

candidate to the public. In 2008, it seemed that such books appeared to be almost 276 a requirement for a candidate: as Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC news stated, "You're not a real candidate.. .if you haven't written your own book.. .If you know everybody else is doing a book you've got to do a book"

(Bosnian n.p.). These memoirs, however, are to be distinguished from other books the candidates have written about politics, or which encapsulate their political vision.

Despite the popularity of campaign books and memoirs, and the fact that there is a long tradition of presidential candidates writing books, Maxwell

Hamilton writes that ultimately, such books are unhelpful for success as either a candidate or president. His reasons include the fact that candidates "don't have time for book writing"; they should be spending their time fundraising and gaining visibility (213). This, of course, is where ghostwriters step in.

Furthermore, Hamilton asserts that "a sturdy book is a lethal weapon in the hands of a political opponent," and in the hands of the press (215), as a candidate or politician can become a target either on the campaign trail or in office because of what he or she has written: a book might hold positions or statements which candidates later regret (217). Finally, Hamilton argues, "the traits of great writers are not the traits of visionary presidents" (223): book writing is not indicative of outstanding presidential leadership, administrative prowess, or historical greatness

(220). As Ray Price, speechwriter to Richard Nixon stated, "we don't hire presidents for their literary skills" (Hamilton, Casanova 196). Furthermore, critical success of a book does not necessarily relate to electoral success, nor the other way around. While McCain's Faith of My Fathers, for example, was a 277 bestseller and critical success, McCain still lost the nomination to George W.

Bush in 2000 (Bosman n.p.). Despite all of these pitfalls, however, memoirs or books written by candidates still offer an invaluable method of promoting one's

name and message in an age of political image. Such books function to broadcast

the politicians and their political ideologies to a wide market, gaining media and

momentum simultaneously.

Beyond these promotional opportunities, however, Obama's memoir,

Dreams from My Father, demonstrates the significance and potential of political

memoir in the twenty-first century. Obama's memoir reveals the importance of

his personal experiences and life story to his political campaign for President. His

memoir articulates the development of his ideological positioning and shows the

relevance of personal narrative and its transition into a public narrative. Obama,

in Dreams, articulates his quest, but also his "fitful interior struggle" to come to

terms with being a black man in America (76), and the development of his

struggle with his personal as well as communal identity. He chooses to reach out

to a black community (115), and ultimately attempts to create one, in part through

his organizational work. He realizes that he "wasn't alone in [his] particular

struggles, and that communities had never been a given in this country, at least

not for blacks. Communities had to be created, fought for, tended like gardens"

(134-5). He continues, "because this community I imagined was still in the

making, built on the promise that the larger American community, black, white,

and brown, could somehow redefine itself- I believed that it might, over time,

admit the uniqueness of my own life" (135). Here, his memoir connects his 278 personal experiences to communal and public struggles, which ultimately create the basis of his Presidential campaign. He asks, in Dreams, how to go about

"stitching a culture back together once it [is] torn?" (229) and what is involved in

"Real Change" (229) and the "audacity of hope" (294). These themes are continually acknowledged and reinforced on his campaign trail. Ultimately, in

Dreams, he concludes by asking

what is our community, and how might that community be

reconciled with our freedom? How far do our obligations reach?

How do we transform mere power into justice, mere sentiment into

love? The answers I find in law books don't always satisfy

me... And yet, in the conversation itself, in the joining of voices, I

find myself modestly encouraged, believing that so long as the

questions are still being asked, what binds us together might

somehow, ultimately, prevail. (438)

These questions, and this rhetoric is both a challenge to public language and an

attempt to find a public language for experiences that to Obama are intensely personal, private, and complicated (Purdy n.p.). Obama's personal struggle with his racial and communal identity which he explored in his memoir, as well as his personal narrative, is being submitted on the national stage as representative of a community's struggle, even if he is sometimes perceived as an atypical American or black man because of his upbringing and education. In this respect, his memoir also attempts to locate him and personalize him as possessing similar values and attributes to a variety of voters, even if he has possessed vastly different 279 experiences. While all politicians' books function to broadcast the politicians and their political ideologies to a wide market, gaining media and momentum simultaneously, Obama's personal narrative also becomes the basis of his campaign.

In an age of increasing focus on the individual politician, one would speculate that Obama's use of memoir as a method of connecting personal experiences to communal experiences, and as a means of demonstrating how the personal, in a wider context, ultimately forms the basis of both his ideology and his campaign will continue. And indeed, while in Canada, this trend of candidates having written and published books is not nearly as prevalent as in the United

States, ,13 Michael Ignatieff s True Patriot Love, published in the spring of 2009, proves the exception to this trend, and employs personal narrative as the precondition for his prime ministerial aspirations. The subtitle to the book is Four

Generations in Search of Canada, and as such, it is a family memoir. The book serves to remind the reader that Ignatieff possesses deep Canadian roots, and

113 Brian Mulroney published Where I Stand in 1983 as leader of the Official Opposition before the 1984 general election. Jack Layton, as leader of the N.D.P. published Speaking Out Loud and

Homelessness and published updated versions of each. Also, Stephane Dion published Straight

Talk: On Canadian Unity in 1999. These, however, are exceptions, and none of these books were memoirs. Audrey McLaughlin does employ her memoir however, A Woman's Place as an opportunity to introduce Canadians to both herself and her ideological principles which is, as noted, uncommon. Cynically, Jean Chretien's Straight From the Heart could be viewed as a platform for his future leadership ambitions, although he wrote it ostensibly on the occasion of his exit from politics.

280 subtly suggests that his pedigree has groomed him to hold Canada's highest office. Ignatieff claims that his intentions when he began writing in 2000 were those that carried him through to 2009: he would "tell the story of my mother's people and their vision of Canada." Meanwhile, however, the circumstances of his writing changed drastically; he went from occupying the role of private citizen to that of politician (Author's Note). As a result, it is of particular importance for

Ignatieff as an elected figure to demonstrate his personal connection to this national heritage. Because of his thirty years away from Canada, critics accuse him of lacking a personal investment in Canada as a country, and the book is hence an opportunity to prove these critics wrong and reveal his family's long history with Canada's growth as a nation. He discusses his great-grandfather

George Monro Grant's journey across Canada to trace the country's original railway line, his grandfather William Lawson Grant's experience fighting for

Canada in World War I, and his uncle George Grant's influential book Lament for a Nation. He weaves these histories together to demonstrate how they form his own political and personal sensibility, which, in short, is a deep commitment to working towards the potential of the country. As he writes, "the tradition of which I am part is an affirmation of Canadian possibility. But it is also a tradition that issues a challenge to the future" (172).

Naturally, in his current role as leader of the Official Opposition, he positions himself as the inheritor of this challenge. But because he is now a politician writing, these questions cannot be purely philosophical: the book is also an attempt to define himself for the Canadian electorate, before the 281 Conservatives define him negatively. He makes critical inquiries about nation,

patriotism, citizenship, and the value of public life, placing these questions within

the context of a personal history of Canada. But as the inheritor of these valuable

questions and of these challenges, whilst playing the role of politician, the book

retreats into campaign style platitudes about his journey across Canada and the

people he met along the way. In the tradition of his ancestors, he attempts to

provide his own grand vision for the country: he envisions hydro electricity and

oil being shared across the country, from the East to West, and using energy to

strengthen Canada's economy and international prominence (169). These projects

appear more of an attempt to prove he possesses grand ambitions, however, rather

than realistic, budgeted, policy initiatives. I would argue then that Ignatieff s

memoir serves to demonstrate that his heritage is rooted in the progression of

Canada, and that he has inherited the patriotic tradition of his forefathers and will

continue to imagine the best for Canada. True Patriot Love does not just bridge

the personal narrative to the public figure, but uses the personal narrative as justification and validation for Ignatieff s Prime Ministerial aspirations.

Two other political memoirs recently published in Canada114 reveal the

broad spectrum of the attraction to the genre, as well as its potential for various

methods of communication. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin's memoirs,

written with the assistance of former journalist Paul Adams, were released in late

October of 2008. A synopsis from the publisher, McClelland & Stewart,

114 They were published after this thesis had been written and are therefore not included in the main text. 282 indicated that Hell or High Water would be stately rather than gossipy, which is reminiscent of Paul Martin Sr.'s multi-volume political memoir, A Very Public

Life. The book would be "firm but polite as it sets the record straight" in response to Chretien's accusations against Martin in My Years as Prime Minister ("About this Book"). As noted, Chretien's memoir was damning in its charges against

Martin. But, the synopsis promised, Martin "is full of surprises, and his book will reveal a very different man from the prime minister who had such a rough ride in the wake of the sponsorship scandal" ("About this Book"). The memoir "reveals the Paul Martin we never knew" ("About this Book"). This promise of a more intimate knowledge of Martin attempts to solidify the importance of the text and of the genre of memoir as the only method of truly understanding the former

Prime Minister. It indicates that there is a private side to Martin that is being revealed and exposed only through memoir. But the memoir, when released, failed to live up to these expectations. The memoir effectively discusses many policy initiatives and wide-ranging agenda items, from humanitarian aid to budgets. But it glosses over a more personal or emotional narrative. Never, in the memoir, does the reader see the depths of the in-fighting, drama or personal divisions within the Liberal Party that accompanied Paul Martin's rise and fall from power. Where Chretien vociferously attacks Martin in his memoir, Martin merely glosses over many of the turbulent times within his years in politics and unfortunately the result is bland and unrevealing. For example, when discussing the sponsorship scandal, he writes that "Whether I liked it or not - and I definitely did not like it - my time as prime minister would be marked by a scandal that was 283 the fruit of mismanagement and malfeasance by others. I understand the anger of

Canadians; indeed, I share it" (276). The fact that he "definitely did not like" being left with the remains of the sponsorship scandal appears to be awfully weak language, even for a polite, restrained memoir that may have no desire to rip open old wounds. The previews to the book suggested that had Canadians known his personal narrative, had we "met" him through memoir earlier, our perspective of him might have been different. This, in turn, potentially could have altered his political fortunes and the future of Canadian government. But the memoir never lives up to this promise. The reader sees a careful, considerate, intelligent politician who cares deeply for his country, but who continues to veil the personality conflicts that followed his time in office and ultimately shaped

Canada's political history. Despite this, the memoir can in many ways be read as a companion piece to Chretien's book, and the genre of memoir is thus featured in the popular and political culture as an opportunity for political dialogue.

In contrast, Julie Couillard, the former girlfriend of the former Minister of

Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier, wrote a very different political memoir, one designed to capitalize on scandal and notoriety. Couillard's memoir was released in the late fall of 2008, again by McClelland & Stewart. In the spring of 2008, revelations that Couillard had links to the Hell's Angels and that Bernier had left confidential government documents at her home made national and international news. The story was made even more scandalous, in Canadian political standards, by Couillard's revealing wardrobe. Couillard made the fine line between how much personal information is relevant to one's political life a matter 284 of national discussion. Prime Minister Harper at first defended his minister's right to privacy, but Bernier was eventually forced to resign when the issue became one of potential national security (Laghi Al 1). In Couillard's decision to publish a memoir, she seizes on the public's fascination and desire to unmask public figures, as well as seizing upon her brief moment of fame and cultural capital in the public sphere.

These very different examples of new Canadian political memoirs demonstrate the range of possibilities for the genre in the twenty-first century.

Memoir offers potential for politicians and public figures to communicate to a broad public who are eager for personal life stories in an age of political celebrity.

I believe that this political culture and popularity of the political memoir will only continue to grow, both for elected officials, and those surrounding them. For example, the fact that the political side of government, in the form of strategists and assistants, continues to balloon potentially signifies less cohesion within parties and more opportunity for betrayal in the form of a memoir. Furthermore, the glorification of political strategists by the media allows strategists to become the story in themselves, giving them more name recognition and hence potential opportunity for memoir. The international influence of political memoir, moreover, has the potential to affect Canadian politics.

To conclude, I believe that in this age of political celebrity, political memoir will continue to thrive in Canada. The potential and ability for personal narratives to inform public narratives is alluring for both authors and consumers.

As Roy MacLaren writes, his years in Parliament belong "to all of us" as they 285 have become "part of the very fabric of Canada" (10). These life stories, as former Speaker James Jerome writes, are "more than just interesting personal experience" they are "actually a bit of history" (7). These memoirs then, make history accessible, and allow public affairs, often deemed distant and remote, to be readily available to readers, who are also consumers, voters, and citizens. It is my hope, furthermore, that political memoir will also serve as an opportunity for women and minority groups to make public statements and even to effect public change. In terms of the study of political memoir, the genre, despite its shortcomings, offers broad and constructive methods of understanding Canadian political culture and communication as well as Canadian history. Beyond the political maneuvering, the image consultants, and the competing egos, we are fortunate that politicians have recorded their experiences, and will continue to do so, through the accessible and entertaining form of memoir.

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