Brooke Jeffrey, Divided Loyalties: The Liberal Party of Canada, 1984-2008

As I write this review, Canada appears to be on the eve of an election call. It thus seems fitting to reflect on elections and campaigns past. For the past two weeks, I’ve been making my way through Divided Loyalties, Concordia political scientist Brooke Jeffrey’s account of the internal dynamics of the Liberal Party of Canada from the end of the Trudeau era to the selection of Stéphane Dion as leader in 2008. Unfortunately, there is little being written these days by academic historians about party politics, particularly with regards to the most recent decades, and so Jeffrey’s account is a welcome addition to the literature.

In some respects, Jeffrey’s account echoes Stephen Clarkson’s The Big Red Machine which effectively chronicled past Liberal success at campaigning from the left, and governing from the centre or centre-right. In detailing the internecine warfare of the Liberal party during the years of the Turner-Chrétien and Chrétien-Martin feuds, Jeffrey, a former research director for the party, is clearly sympathetic to the Trudeauvian left-wing camp of social liberals in the party, and generally critical of the business liberal camp that followed Turner and Martin. Yet despite this bias, she generally provides an engaging and perceptive account of why the party has encountered its various difficulties in the past three decades – and why it succeeded when it did. Although this is a weighty tome (at 621 pages), it is written in a largely accessibly manner, and is filled with proverbial palace intrigue to sustain reader interest.

Perhaps the most interesting analytical angle put forth by Jeffrey is that the split within the Liberal party was not only the highly publicized business vs. social one, but that the more important, and perhaps less easily reconcilable, division was over conceptions of federalism. In her view, the party has succeeded most when it endorsed a Trudeauvian centralist approach to federalism and put forth a vigorous defence of national social programs as a central aspect of its nation-building program. It is during these periods, she argues, that the party is closest to the beliefs of its core supporters, and that it fares best at the polls. However, she is dismayed at a growing trend, often endorsed by the business liberal camp, and particularly under Martin and his followers towards decentralized and asymmetrical federalism. Jean Lapierre, the Liberal-turned-Bloquiste-turned-Martinite is subjected to particularly vigorous criticism – and not undeservedly, in my opinion. It’s noteworthy that she believes both current party leader Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae to fall within the asymmetrical federalism camp – one which she believes does not tend to lead to a sufficient degree of Liberal voter engagement and support.

There is much in Divided Loyalties for the policy wonk. A former researcher for the party, it is not surprising that Jeffrey devotes such attention to the development of various party platforms and policies. At points, the level of detail regarding key personalities may become moderately overwhelming for those not intimately familiar with the party, but these sections are nicely interwoven with the overarching narrative of major constitutional and political events. Implicit in her argument is the idea that the party desperately needs a strong set of well-articulated and presented policies to maintain voter support, which she contends has been lacking since the end of the “Red Book” era.

There are some frustrating elements to the book. Jeffrey had access to many party insiders, MPs and Senators, and these interviews inform much of her analysis. However, many interviewees insisted on confidentiality, with the result that the book has as many anonymous “senior party officials” and “caucus members” as a series of Jane Taber columns. These insights are valuable, but the lack of attribution is frustrating for the historian. Although most of the book is incredibly detailed, this level of detail and analysis tapers off sharply almost immediately after Martin’s departure. After reading detailed analyses of the conventions won by Turner, Chrétien and Martin, it was surprising that the 2006 leadership race was scarcely touched upon, and the roles played by Ken Dryden, Scott Brison and Martha Hall Findlay barely mentioned. Given that the book was published late in 2010, it is also somewhat disappointing that the 2008 federal election was relegated to a footnote. Although academic publishing timelines may partly explain this omission, it was particularly upsetting given that the footnote referred to Jeffrey’s own published work with another press.

After 621 pages of detail and analysis, I had also hoped for a more satisfying general conclusion and broad-based reflection, rather than the two paragraphs that Jeffrey provides. That said, her contention that the party requires a more concentrated effort at regrouping and rethinking its priorities and policy directions, and that it needs to stop fighting and tearing itself apart in public, is highly instructive. Alas, if the polls don’t turn around quickly, I fear we will soon see a repeat of the electoral campaigns described in Divided Loyalties, with Liberal insiders, caucus members and “senior party sources” calling publicly for the leader’s head, rather than trying to pull together for the duration of the election.

I hope to be proven wrong.

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Just another reason to think Paul Martin Jr was a tool

I'm sure that someone else has pointed this out already, but it bears repeating. If Paul Martin wasn't such a dithering idiot, Stephen Harper wouldn't have a full 18 Senate seats that he could stack this month. Several of those vacancies are holdovers from the Martin years.

Yet another reason to blame Paul Martin for the current mess that is our federal politics!

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Paul Wells, Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper's New Conservatism

I had been incredibly patient about reading Paul Wells' first book. I put it on my Christmas wish list, and then dutifully resisted several urges to buy and devour it before the holidays. But when my copy arrived in the mail as a Christmas gift from my sister a few days before the 25th, I could resist no longer. Which is why, at 7 AM on December 25th, I was contentedly sipping my morning coffee and reading its middle chapters on the couch in my in-laws' living room, while the rest of the family was still comatose.

On the whole, Right Side Up is a very enjoyable, entertaining and informative read. Macleans' columnist Paul Wells has set himself an ambitious goal: to chronicle both the collapse of the Liberal party and the concurrent rise of the new Conservative Party. In many respects, his book is like a work of old-school political history - the fates of both parties, in Wells' estimation, are intimately tied to the strategies and foibles of two white men: a cold and calculating Stephen Harper and an ambitious, but bumbling, Paul Martin. Wells constructs an entertaining narrative, drawing on his own observations as a journalist, those of his colleagues, and a host of political insiders, both named and unnamed. We, his readers, are treated to a rather sarcastic, yet highly insightful analysis of the careful planning which led to the reinvention of the Conservative parties' approach to federal politics, contrasted against the blind ambition for power that drove Paul Martin and his supporters to stage a their coup to take over the Liberal party.

It is often said that journalists write the first account of history, and this is certainly true when it comes to political happenings. Right Side Up might be considered a first-and-a-half account, written shortly after the events it chronicles - indeed, Wells includes initial observations about the Liberal leadership race which had not yet been concluded when the book went to press. This brings many strengths to the book, including current impressions about the motivations of the various players, and a very detailed blow-by-blow of the election campaigns of 2004 and 2005/6.

In other respects, his book can be frustrating. The intense focus on the Liberal-Conservative dynamic necessarilly leads to the marginalization of the roles played by the NDP and the Bloc. For example, the fall 2005 decision of the NDP to throw the Liberals to the wolves and end their temporary support of the government was not the subject of any analysis. There is also little detail on the policies of the Martin and Harper governments - once bills are passed through Parliament, they largely disappear from the narrative, with little follow-through on their implementation (or lack thereof).

Wells is very strong when analyzing politicking, and the manner in which the various parties tried to construct their voting coalitions among the various demographics of Canadian society. Future accounts of this period (should this turn out to be a more profound shift in Canadian politics), will need to ask the question of whether a more fundamental shift in Canadian political values and demographics is also occurring. Wells suggests that perhaps a change in lower middle-class and working-class voter allegiances is underway, similar to the shift in white middle-class male voting patterns which helped the Republicans rise to power after the Democratic 60s in the United States. This analysis will need to be followed up by other political scientists and historians.

Historians are always faced with the dilemma of deciding when to end their story. In this respect, I think Wells was poorly served by his editors. The last several chapters of his book deal with the events of summer 2006, dealing with unresolved (and sometimes minor) political spats and bills that had not been resolved. By the time the book was published (or almost immediately after), the dynamic had shifted. In particular, the Liberal leadership race should have been left out of this book. This chapter was dated by the time I read the book - less than two months after publication. Indeed, given the way that Gerard Kennedy, who turned out to play the role of kingmaker, was overlooked, this chapter seemed particularly weak.

These observations, it must be noted, reflect my own biases as a historian. It is the task of my own profession to go through the archival and journalistic record with a fine-toothed comb to flesh out some of these minor (or arcane) details, and to perhaps construct an alternative narrative (or narratives) to accompany these events. The political junkie in me greatly enjoyed this book, and found that Wells' analysis largely coincided with my own observations and recollections of the past three years. His wit and dry humour are always enjoyable, as are his equitable skewering of both Martin and Harper. Liberals in particularly would be well-advised to take his observations to heart, perhaps coupled with the analysis of Stephen Clarkson's Big Red Machine (my Christmas read last year).

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"A nation of minorities"? Time to retire a political buzz-phrase

Fighting insomnia last night, I decided to watch Paul Martin's farewell speech. I'm incredibly happy to see him go, as I think that his tenure in office will likely go down in political history as one of the most botched Prime Ministerships in the history of our country.

Listening to his speech, I couldn't help but notice that he was trotting out several of the catch phrases and buzzwords of the last election campaign. Particularly evident was the manner in which he wrapped himself, and the Liberal party, in the cloak of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Not a bad strategy at the moment, by the way, given that the Conservatives have just scrapped the Court Challenges Program.

Part of Martin's discourse on the Charter, however, is to speak of Canada as being a "nation of minorities." There has always been something about this phrase that didn't quite sit properly with me. It's not that from an objective standpoint it isn't true - there is probably some way or another in which every Canadian is a part of a minority group. However, there is also something of the politics of resentment, or the politics of victimization, which is elicited by this discourse of majority-minority relations. It speaks more to our particularisms than to what Canadians share in common, and what we might be trying to build together as a nation (or a country, depending on your choice of terminology). While I firmly believe that minority rights should be protected, I don't think that rights discourse alone is necessarilly enough to build a national vision (a concept that Michael Ignatieff also once discussed, back when he wrote The Rights Revolution - although his political philosophy appears to have drifted since publishing that book).

I'd be quite happy to see the "nation of minorities" phrase be dropped from the Liberal phrasebook, and see the party move on to a more unifying slogan. Of course, given that the party seems to be willing to throw around the term "nation" willy-nilly right now, I'm not sure that they're ready to construct new semantic concepts.

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