{"id":1580,"date":"2007-11-25T22:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T03:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2007-11-25T22:14:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-26T03:14:00","slug":"barts-books-straight-from-the-heart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"Bart’s Books – Straight From the Heart 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After finishing up the Mulroney tome<\/a>, it was time for another round of prime ministerial memoirs – Jean Chretien\u2019s My Years as Prime Minister<\/em><\/a>. Reading the two back to back means this review will likely feature a lot of comparisons between the books which might not be fair because the two are vastly different.<\/p>\n

Mulroney approached his almost as a historical essay on his time in office, going into lengthy detail on most decisions and arguing his case vociferously with as much supporting evidence as he could find. Chretien\u2019s book, meanwhile, is ghostwritten in the same folksy style as Straight from the Heart<\/em> and you get the sense that he didn\u2019t approach it with the same intensity that Mulroney did. From the start, he\u2019s frank that his book isn\u2019t a weighty account of his time in office since that \u201cshould be left to the historians and scholars\u201d. The result is a book that is written at a lower political reading level than Mulroney\u2019s; it\u2019s clearly targeted more to the mainstream population than to political junkies. Elections and \u201cinside baseball\u201d government decisions are glossed over and content is grouped by subject rather than chronologically.<\/p>\n

Because of this, My Years as Prime Minister<\/em> cannot be considered the defining book on the Chretien years \u2013 there\u2019s probably more meat in the Eddie Goldeberg<\/a>, Lawrence Martin, or Susan Delacourt <\/a>books. Where Chretien’s memoirs excel is by treating the reader to very personal recollections of events like the break in to 24 Sussex, the \u201cShawinigan handshake\u201d, and non-political conversations with the likes of Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth, Tiger Woods, and Fidel Castro. On the downside, major accomplishments of Chretien\u2019s government like Same Sex Marriage recognition or the \"\"<\/a>innovation agenda seem glossed over. Contrary to Peter C. Newman\u2019s review<\/a>, Chretien does use a considerable amount of ink on the various \u201cgate\u201d scandals that hit his government, although he does dismiss Adscam rather off handedly. It is a shame that the book ends with his resignation as Prime Minister, if only because Chretien recounting his \u201cgolf ball\u201d testimony at the Gomery inquiry would have been quite enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Chretien admits in the introduction that he couldn\u2019t bring himself to write a \u201cwarts and all\u201d recap of those close to him although he is certainly willing to point out the warts on Paul Martin. In his review, Cherniak concludes <\/a>that Chretien\u2019s jabs are uncalled for because Martin wasn\u2019t planning a putsch. Well, maybe. And, if you\u2019re in the 4% of the population who believe Martin wasn\u2019t organizing against Chretien, you\u2019ll probably find Jean a bit vindictive in this book. But really, he doesn\u2019t dwell on it, he\u2019s a lot nicer than Sheila Copps was, and, with the exception of his Afghanistan jab<\/a>, you don\u2019t get the sense that Chretien is going out of his way to smear Martin in this book the way Mulroney set out to attack his enemies. Instead, he tries to \"\"<\/a>get his revenge by pushing hard on the story that he wouldn\u2019t have run for a third term if Martin hadn\u2019t been organizing against him \u2013 true, or not, (and I have some doubts) it is somewhat fitting to think of Martin\u2019s over ambition as being the cause of his downfall.<\/p>\n

Apart from Martin, the only former Cabinet Minister getting a noticeable amount of attention is Stephane Dion, who Chretien says nothing but good things about. This is probably partly to help the party out but you really do get the sense that Dion was his favourite Cabinet Minister. It was Aline Chretien who suggested he bring Dion into politics and the two men worked closely together on the unity file\"\"<\/a> which was near and dear to Chretien\u2019s heart. Like Mulroney, this was probably the issue he felt strongest about, even if his view was vastly different from Brian\u2019s. Reading the two books back to back, it\u2019s amazing just how different their recaps of the constitution repatriation, Meech Lake, and Charlottetown accord were\u2026the two didn\u2019t agree on much except from their disdain for Lucien Bouchard. It was also interesting to hear of Chretien\u2019s frequent behind the scenes discussions with Trudeau on unity topics \u2013 although Trudeau appears to have influenced his former Cabinet Minister\u2019s view of federalism, the two did disagree at \"\"<\/a>times on the more pragmatic side of politics.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re looking for a detailed recap of the Chretien years, then there are probably better reference sources. But Chretien has injected so much life into his memoirs that it will certainly make for an enjoyable read, even for those who aren\u2019t huge political buffs. Because of that, I imagine Chretien\u2019s book will find its way into more stockings this Christmas than Mulroney\u2019s (also, it would take a really big stocking to hold Mulroney\u2019s book).<\/p>\n

<\/strong>
Recommendation: <\/strong>Certainly worth asking Santa for it, even if you only have a passing interest in politics.<\/p>\n

For more Chretien goodness, be sure to check out Jean and Rick’s return to Harveys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em>
<\/em>
A copy of the book was provided by Random House for review<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After finishing up the Mulroney tome, it was time for another round of prime ministerial memoirs – Jean Chretien\u2019s My Years as Prime Minister. Reading the two back to back means this review will likely feature a lot of comparisons between the books which might not be fair because the two are vastly different. Mulroney […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}