At the risk of stating the obvious, if you’re perusing this magazine, it’s probably a safe bet that your holiday shopping list includes someone with a seemingly inextinguishable passion for Canadian politics — and an even better chance that, at least as far as your family and friends are concerned, that someone is you.
Whether you’re scrambling for last-minute stocking stuffers or looking to drop some highly specific hints on what you hope to find under the tree this season, here’s a quick rundown of some of the most-talked-about books to hit the shelves this year.
(Just be ready to play referee if it leads to a rousing post-turkey reboot of the now-wrapped campaign!)
As Justin Trudeau heads into his second go-round in government — this time, without the safety net provided by a working majority in the House — it might be worth scheduling a back-to-back binge read of the two biographies that came out during the countdown to the vote: Veteran journalist Aaron Wherry’s Promise and Peril: Trudeau in Power which offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes during some of the most closely-watched moments of Trudeau’s first four years in office, and Justin Trudeau: The Education of a Prime Minister, in which longtime Postmedia columnist John Ivison attempts to figure out exactly what makes the quixotic Liberal leader tick.
If that sounds like it might be too heavy for a cosy fireside reading session, you could always take a break to flip through Trudeau on Trudeau: The Deep Thoughts of Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister by Ian Ferguson, which bills itself as “a hilarious journey through the mind of the part-time snowboarding instructor, drama teacher, and ‘costume’ enthusiast who is the prime minister of Canada.”
For those with a hankering for more intel on the latest addition to the opposition front bench lineup, there’s Love and Courage, New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh’s recollections of growing up Sikh in Canada, which, as the promotional text stresses, is not a “political memoir,” but a “personal and heartfelt” account of the backstory that led to him becoming the first member of a visible minority to lead one of Canada’s main federal political parties.
Alas for anyone who may have been hoping to find more about Trudeau’s main challenger, neither Andrew Scheer nor anyone else has put pen to paper to tell his story just yet, which means that big and small-c conservative-minded bookworms may have to content themselves with Conrad Black’s Canadian Manifesto, in which he outlines no fewer than “nineteen visionary policy proposals” to put our “chipper, patient and courteous” nation back on the international front line in honing the “arts of government.”
Those aligned with the avowedly non — or post — partisan crowd will likely find much to mull over in From Where I Stand, former Team Trudeau front bencher turned capital-I Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould’s thesis-style proposal on “rebuilding Indigenous nations for a stronger Canada,” although to avoid disappointment, it’s probably a good idea to let them know up front that it doesn’t include any juicy tidbits on the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
Meanwhile, clocking in at less than 100 pages, Linwood Barclay’s take on Ford Nation — or, as the title puts it, Ford Abomination — promises to “put a smile on your face while you contemplate the end of everything that’s made Ontario such a great place to live.”
Finally, there are, of course, those who firmly believe that the Yuletide season should be, if not necessarily a politics-free zone, at least a safe space for those looking for a break from relentless bickering over the latest outrage du jour.
If that’s the case in your household, you might want to swap out one of the above suggestions in favour of Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson a full-fledged ripper of a tale by historian Mark Bourrie that chronicles the exploits of what Bourrie describes as “an eager hustler with no known scruples.”
(Which, come to think of it, could describe any number of Canadian politicians past and present.)
Also rich with historical intrigue: The Missing Millionaire: The True Story of Ambrose Small and the City Obsessed With Finding Him, Katie Daubs’ made-for-Netflix-limited-series account of the Toronto theatre magnate who vanished without a trace a century ago and whose ultimate fate remains one of Canada’s most offbeat unsolved mysteries.
