Goldenberg, The Way It Works

I’ve just finished reading the memoirs of Eddie Goldenberg, The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa.

Goldenberg was the senior policy advisor to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien throughout Chrétien’s time in office. The title directs our attention to the lessons that Goldenberg learned as a Government of Canada insider. Presumably that aspect of the book will be of particular interest to those who pursue a career in politics.

The book is also, emphatically, a defence of Chrétien’s record. News media are taking particular delight in the unflattering portrait Goldenberg paints of then Finance Minister Paul Martin, a Chrétien rival ensconced in Cabinet. (Goldenberg was the principle intermediary between Chrétien and Martin, who collaborated effectively, but only at a remove from one another.)

The most colourful one-liner is a reference to Martin as a boil that had to be lanced (p. 374). But the cumulative effect is more devastating than any single line:  Martin is depicted as a mere footsoldier, giving effect to Chrétien’s creative policies.

The book is interesting but flawed. Goldenberg puts Chrétien’s achievements in the most positive light possible, while passing over the blight on Chrétien’s record in silence:  e.g., the APEC protest controversy and the suspicious Shawinigate transactions.

It must have been impossible for Goldenberg to pass over the Sponsorship scandal in silence, but he gives it as little attention as possible. His message is, the scandal was blown out of all proportion:  just a few bad apples exploiting a defensible program and misappropriating a small amount of taxpayers’ money.

The events surrounding the 1995 referendum on Quebec secession provide the core material of The Way It Works. (Quebecers said No to secession by a hair’s breadth:  50.6% voted No, 49.4% voted Yes.) About a third of the book is devoted to this national crisis, from a quick survey of events dating back to 1869, through the Clarity Act, which passed into law in 2000.

I found these chapters quite rivetting to read. Here’s an excerpt, under the heading No Help from Mike Harris:

The next morning [1½ days after the referendum], Chrétien and I met for breakfast with the premier of Ontario. After the 1980 referendum, we had made the same visit to Queen’s Park seeking the support of [Progressive Conservative] Premier Bill Davis in a time of national crisis, and he had not failed us. But the current premier, Mike Harris, was no Bill Davis. When Chrétien explained the delicacy of the situation in the country and asked him to work with the federal government to reach out to Quebec and give effect to the general commitments he had made in the Verdun speech less than ten days earlier, the atmosphere in the premier’s corner office became almost glacial. The coffee was all that was warm in the room. Harris made it clear that he was not the slightest bit interested in anything other than his agenda for Ontario. The deep concern expressed for the future of the country by all Canadians at the Unity Rally in Montreal (ironically attended by Mike Harris himself less than a week before) was nowhere to be found that day in the office of the premier of Ontario, despite that province’s traditional role as a keystone of the federation. Chrétien and I left Queen’s Park disappointed and badly shaken.

In the car as we moved south on University Avenue, Chrétien recalled the unacceptable list of constitutional demands prepared by the provincial premiers in 1978 for Pierre Trudeau after the first Parti Québécois election victory and before the first Quebec referendum. We thought back to the federal-provincial conference of September 1980 shortly after the referendum of May 1980 when Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford said that he preferred the Canada of [separatist leader] René Lévesque to the Canada of Pierre Trudeau. Now, the meeting with Harris, provincial in every sense of the word, was enough for him. Premiers of Ontario had traditionally played a nation-building role in Canada; this time the prime minister of Canada could not count even on the support of Ontario.

Chrétien decided there and then that he was not going to spend much energy on the provincial premiers. It was clear to him that action to meet the unprecedented threat to the country arising from the referendum results would have to come from Ottawa, and directly from himself as prime minister. (pp. 223-24)

Chrétien’s bold decision to confront separatism head on after the 1995 referendum is greatly to his credit. The Way It Works is a good read for anyone interested in Canadian political history.