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Sheila Copps, author, is very much like Sheila Copps, politician: blunt, forceful, and hugely divisive. As such, it's certain
Worth Fighting For will arm her opponents and her supporters equally. Those who decry the former Deputy Prime Minister as shrill, naïve, and nursing a persecution complex will find heaps of supporting evidence. Ditto, sympathizers who view Copps as a trailblazer dogged by a patriarchal government and sexist media. The two things both camps will agree on, and possibly the best reasons to recommend her book, are these: Copps understands and cherishes the Liberal party and writes about it with clarity, and she hates Paul Martin's guts. What better reason to digest a political memoir mired in controversy about its facts or lack thereof? The knocks on Martin come early and often. "There is no doubt in my mind that if Paul Martin had been leader, we would have gone to Iraq with the United States," Copps writes in the book's most scathing chapter, snidely titled "The Coronation." The hits never stop. "Our prime ministers' archives are kept by the state through the Library and Archives of Canada, but, sadly, most of their material is available only to scholars and elites with special access. Jean Chrétien's planned Canada History Museum would have tried to change that, but as part of his effort to obliterate his predecessor's history Mr. Martin cancelled the project." Though Copps accuses Martin and his cronies of everything from physical intimidation to political malfeasance, her assertion that the former Finance Minister contemplated a "plan to end the outdated Canada Health Act and replace it with something more flexible" has brought the most derisive howls. If true, it's an astonishing and important revelation about Canada's most powerful elected official that should have been tabled with great care. But since Copps wrote the book, in her words, "from memory," including no corroborating documentation, it's hard to judge the truth of her claim. That kind of credibility gap casts a pall over the entire book. Too bad, because Copps has genuine insight into hot-button topics like the environment, defence, what's wrong with the civil service, and why nurturing multiculturalism is essential in a post 9/11 world.
--Kim Hughes
Review
“Copps gives readers a blunt, no-holds-barred glimpse into the seamy backrooms of Canadian politics, laying bare the scheming and the backstabbing.”
–
The Gazette (Montreal)
