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

[Benjamin Frank]

I had already decided to break this review into several sections most of which I would write later, when what I was writing got deleted, so I'm going to post even more later if anybody wants me to (or maybe just because I feel like it.)

I give this book 2.5 stars out of 5.

Brooke Jeffrey was a researcher in the Federal Civil Service (and is now a political science professor) when she was hired by the Liberal Party to head up its then newly formed Liberal Party Caucus Research Bureau in 1985 following the Liberal Party's defeat in the 1984 election.

The strengths: Even at 621 pages (with another 59 pages of notes) the book is a fairly brisk read and the 'story' part is mostly interesting. Of course, 621 pages covering 25 years is pretty much exactly just 25 pages per year.

The best part of the book is when it goes over some of the rumors even if it doesn't clear everything up. The best example of this is the longstanding rumor the John Turner was asked to resign in the middle of the 1988 election campaign (before the English debate.) The book isn't totally clear on how serious the attempt to get Turner to step aside was, but it seems there were three seperate groups who at least discussed the possibility with themselves, but never coordinated with each other.

Complicating this though, is that Turner had a very painful back injury during the campaign, and so it's not a surprise that contingencies in the event Turner could not continue to campaign had to be made. Unless somebody has a time machine, it will never be known how much was an attempt to get Turner to step aside, and how much was media sensationalism based on unsurprising Liberal campaign heads discussions of 'what if?'

For political junkies, the book's narratives are interesting though not as gossipy as that, but can be very much 'in the weeds.' For instance, the book goes into some detail describing the concurrent 1990 Liberal Party Presidency race (in addition to the leadership race) between two 1984 leadership candidates and then cabinet ministers Don Johnson and John Roberts even detailing the platforms of both men.

The book has two significant weaknesses and two more minor weaknesses.

Minor weaknesses
1.The, to be expected, personal glorification. Who knew that the Liberal Party in opposition would have collapsed if it weren't for the Liberal Party Caucus Research Bureau?

2.The myriad minor factual errors in the book. I gather this is fairly normal for a first edition, but because there was no subsequent printings of this book, they haven't been corrected.

Three examples: (These aren't direct quotes because I don't feel like looking them up again, but they were direct quotes when I wrote this the first time just a few minutes ago.)

1.The book mentions that in the 1993 election, the Liberals 6 seats in British Columia was their best result "west of Ontario." In fact, the Liberals won 12 of the 14 ridings in Manitoba in 1993.

On the same page in detailing the 1993 election, it mentions the Liberals won just one seat in Saskatchewan but for the purposes of cabinet making and regional representation all was well since that one person was Ralph Goodale. In fact, the Liberals won 5 seats in Saskatchewan in 1993. This is an even odder error since in describing the results of the 1997 election, the book even mentions how the Liberals went from 5 seats to one in Saskatchewan.

2.The book mentions that in the 2004 election, the NDP lost both seats and vote share. In fact, the NDP increased its seats from 13 to 19 and its share of the vote from 11% to 15.7%

3.The book mentions how Paul Martin's hopes of gaining in British Columbia were dashed in the 2004 election as the Liberal vote share in B.C declined from 32 to 28%. In fact, from 1993 to 2008 the Liberal share of the vote in British Columbia was remarkably consistent between 27-29% of the vote. Interestingly enough, excluding 2011 and 2015, the Liberal vote share in British Columbia is now again around 27-29% but more concentrated in Greater Vancouver.

At the end of the book, there are even a couple typos, with Liberal M.P Navdeep Bains being called Nahdeep Bains, and a reference to Stephane Dion's PMO (Prime Minister's Office) instead of OLO (Office of the Leader of the Opposition.)

The major problems:
1.The overall thesis of the book.
2.The hatchet job on Paul Martin

I'll go into more details on these later

The overall thesis of the book is that Liberals win when:
1.The party remains united behind the leader with no dissent allowed.
2.The party represents Federalism

On the first, journalist Jeffrey Simpson wrote a book on the Chretien Government called 'The Friendly Dictatorship.' It pointed out that no other Parliamentary System in the world has such an extensive whipping of M.Ps votes, including the 'Mother of all Parliaments' (though I understand the U.K under the Conservatives have been moving more in that direction.)

On the second, the book claims that the Meech Lake Accord created a second axis in the Liberal Party between federalists and decentralists, in addition to the long standing business Liberals vs social Liberals axis. Jeffrey argues this started with John Turner, the decentralist, embracing the Meech Lake Accord, and Jean Chretien, the federalist, opposing the Meech Lake Accord. It then continued with Paul Martin, a Meech Lake supporter, then ultimately pushing Jean Chretien out as Prime Minister.

This continued with the Liberals in opposition during the Charlottetown Accord and in government with the Quebec separatist referendum in 1995. In terms of Constitutional debates and related, it showed up one more time in 2006 when Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff propsed recognizing Quebec as a 'nation' which Prime Minister Stephen Harper then adopted with a motion in Parliament. (The most significant consequence of this likely was that it caused Conservative M.P Michael Chong to resign from cabinet.)

Other than that, this theme of federalism vs decentralism was entirely over financial matters. What Brooke Jeffrey seems to be unable to understand is this cleavage in the Liberal Party would have occured irrespective of Meech Lake and the other Constitutional debates because the Federal Government simply did not have the money to intrude on matters of provincial jurisdiction with provincial acceptance like it once did.

This was accomplished for a while in Canada through what were referred to as '50 cent dollars.' Which meant that the Federal Government could dictate demands on provincial spending, especially in health care, by giving the provinces an equal amount to what the province itself spent. Not surprisingly, the Federal government didn't like this open ended arrangement after awhile, and in 1977 it altered this arrangement slightly. However, it was not until the significant cuts to transfers in the 1994 budget of Finance Minister Paul Martin that the federal government lost this leverage.

So, this debate isn't so much philosophical (though there is a degree of that) as it is practical, with the provinces obviously arguing 'these are matters of provincial jurisdiction, if you aren't putting the money in, why should you have a say?'

On the hatchet job on Paul Martin.  The most famous hatchet job in modern Canadian politics is 'Reign of Error' by jounalist Greg Weston on Liberal leader John Turner. I can't find any mention of it right now, but apparently even Weston later admitted it was a hatchet job and that he distorted some facts in the book. However, that book, unlike this book, was also hilarious.

Two examples on this (The Jeffrey book.)
The book mentions the 2004 nomination fight caused by redistricting/redistribution between M.Ps Tony Valeri and Sheila Copps. Tony Valeri was a newly appointed Martin cabinet minister, while Sheila Copps was a Chretien cabinet minister who ran against Paul Martin for the leadership.

First, unlike in the United States, there is no question that riding redistribution is handled independent of the government (and in fact, of all the political parties.) So, there was never any attempt to 'get Sheila Copps' and, also the riding redistribution was completed before Martin even became Liberal Leader (he did not become Prime Minister for a few more months.)

The book describes this new riding of Hamilton East-Stoney Creek as 'Sheila Copps' riding' but doesn't mention that, in fact, the riding was split roughly 50/50 between parts of Sheila Copps' old riding and parts of Tony Valeri's old riding.

Second the mere mention in the book of the riding as 'Sheila Copps' riding' is absurd. Neither Sheila Copps nor anybody else 'owns' the riding.

More importantly, the book quotes Sheila Copps verbatim on 'irregularities' after losing the nomination fight, but neglects to mention any of her claims. The only one that was investigated for illegal activity was her claim the supporters of Tony Valeri tied up her phone lines. The police determined, and long before this book was published, that about 40 people knew the numbers of the phone lines and that it was impossible for them to determine who was behind the illegal activity.

All of the other claims from Sheila Copps are very reminiscent of claims made by Donald Trump. At the time, Tony Valeri described them as 'sounding like out of The X-Files (TV Show.)

Also not mentioned was that Sheila Copps herself was recorded for a television documentary stating how she was going to prevent Tony Valeri supporters from being able to vote by blocking up the parking spots. (Tony Valeri won the nomination approx 2,800-2,500.)

So, as much as Martin did seem to go out of his way to remove the most ardent Chretien supporters from the caucus, based on the evidence, it is false to say that he had anything to do with Sheila Copps losing renomination.

On the infamous Sponsorship Scandal and the Gomery Inquiry. The book lays the blame at Paul Martin for calling the inquiry in the first place. That is a matter of a different debate, but again, it uses any source to attack Paul Martin for this, no matter how dubious.

The book quotes Alfonso Gagliano, who, was the responsible Minister of Government Services and Public Works during the time of the Sponsorship Scandal, as saying he would sue Paul Martin for firing him as Ambassador to Denmark and for besmirching his name.

Judge Gomery determined Gagliano was responsible for mismanagement but did not find him legally to blame, so Gagliano hardly had a 'good name' to besmirch and again the Gomery reports came out long before the publication of this book.

The book also doesn't mention that ultimately Gagliano never sued Paul Martin for slander or that the judge threw out his case arguing that ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister and can be recalled at any time.

So, I would argue Brooke Jeffrey doesn't go as far in writing a hatchet job on Paul Martin as Greg Weston did on John Turner, but that it's not that far off and that her book isn't as amusing as Greg Weston's was.