I really like books that you can pick up and read easily and without getting bogged down in too much jargon. For a book on the very esoteric field of Canadian political ideology, "The Big Shift" does a great job.

I was able to pick this up and quickly understand the primary thesis, and read the fairly weighty text without problems. In fact, this has been written in a very conversational and passionate style that will appeal to most people who actually hope to read the books they purchase.

So first off, big points for being approachable and understandable.

Secondly, the big idea - "The Big Shift" is truly a big idea; meaning - the reader truly gets some intellectual meat here that is worth your time to take a couple hours and try to understand. Based on credible and simply presented demographic and survey research results - "The Big Shift" is about how the change in the makeup, size and location of the Canadian public is having a very "Big" impact on Canadian politics.

The central thesis is that Canada's massive yearly influx of new immigrants is substantially changing the nature of Canadian politics, from a regional, brokerage model that benefited the Liberal Party of Canada, to a more ideological model that has benefited the Conservative Party of Canada and could benefit Canada's New Democrats as well.

Thirdly, this book is a polemic. The authors go out of their way to challenge conventional wisdom. How can you not like that?

I like this thesis and find it very useful and relevant in my day to day understanding of Canadian politics.

Consequently, I think this is a very important book. I recommend it strongly for Canadian political junkies.

I was looking forward to reading Warren Kinsella's new book "Fight the Right." Kinsella is an "all in" kind of guy, meaning when he has an opinion, he goes all in on supporting it. The theme of "Fight the Right" while cliched and doctrinaire, was nonetheless intriguing. And when Kinsella is good, he can be very interesting.

The marketing and the outside of the book is excellent - clear, provocative, passionate - just what I was expecting from the book itself.

The book, itself, is a real disappointment.

Kinsella is a great practitioner of political strategy. As a political philosopher, however, he sucks.

Unfortunately, this book is about Kinsella's political philosophy. It is a total failure.

There is no guide or practical part to this book. So it is very misleading to think that by reading this book you will get any sort of "manual" especially to the unexplained "Coming Conservative Apocalypse". That subtitle is misleading.

The book is a series of meandering riffs.

Kinsella seems completely unaware of his own pride and intellectual incoherence. The book tries (and fails) to give the reader what is best described as a marvel comics view of politics. To sum it up, the left - "progressives" - good and moral, the right, racist and greedy, immoral and bad.

Anyone on the right, it turns out, has some sort of moral failing. On the left, they are generous saintly martyrs for the common good.

Worse, half of the book is written on American politics, and although it is clear that Kinsella has no particular insight into the field, that is no impediment to his subsequent maligning of Conservative American politicians and in particular one prolific Conservative consultant - Fred Luntz (who should be read in the original).

An example of this kind of unfair attack is on page 43 where Kinsella quotes former Republican Presidential challenger Rick Perry as being against Social Security because he described it as a "Ponzi Scheme". A fair interpretation of the quote would have said that Perry was criticizing the unfunded nature of future social security benefits. But there is no quote or footnote for this quote from Rick Perry for the reader to independently check.

Kinsella has not used footnotes or any sort of scholarly techniques to support the interpretations that fill this book. So instead of building a rational, coherent argument - verified and supported by footnoted facts, Kinsella breezily drifts, untethered, from one cherry picked group of assertions to the next. The effect is off-putting, and ultimately, does harm to the valid parts of his argument.

For example, Kinsella is an advocate of the "progressive" parties of Canada - the Liberals and the NDP - uniting into one solid opposition party in Canada. Together, Kinsella argues, these two parties would be strong enough to defeat the Conservatives and Stephen Harper. So much so good. And if the book had stuck to this theme, it could have been interesting.

Kinsella, instead, wanders all the way over to indict the right by including in four full pages (86-90)on linking the mentally disturbed Norwegian Mass Murderer, Anders Brevik, to be as much a part of the Christian Conservative world as Stephen Harper and George Bush. So, we can safely say that civility and proportionality are not Kinsella's strong point.

One of the solutions it seems, says Kinsella, is to follow the strategies of the "peaceful" (Pg. 168) Occupy Movement. A movement Kinsella describes as "Christ-like." (Imagine what Kinsella would say if Prime Minister Stephen Harper described people who agreed with him politically as "Christ-like"?)

There are some good sections. When Kinsella writes about Canadian political strategy and tactics, as he does at the beginning of Chapter 4 it can be very interesting.

I remain gobsmacked by Kinsella's absolutely lack of self awareness. His hypocrisy, and the simple poor quality of the thought in this book. I found little to recommend it.I hope he returns to writing about things he knows about.

I recommend this really unusual book by former AG and former MPP Michael Bryant.

At its core, 28 seconds is an unpleasant story of the "28 Seconds" that changed Michael Bryant's life. One evening while returning from an anniversary dinner with his prominent lawyer wife, his car bumped an inebriated and belligerent Darcy Sheppard. In the resulting altercation, Sheppard was killed after attacking Bryant and his wife while they sat in the car and tried to avoid him.

Sheppard was ultimately found responsible in part for his own death. But not before fate reduced Bryant's stature, his fortune, and his marriage to nothing.

Michael Bryant in this book talks about how his life was so great until the 28 seconds - he had enjoyed a series of incredible political victories - and about his underlying problems - his alcoholism and the gradual disintegration of him marriage.

Many, including myself, appreciate the irony of one of the most powerful lawyers in the province coming under the incredible weight of a full prosecution stemming from the police laying charges for his killing of Sheppard.

The shallowness and lack of introspection of Bryant shines through the whole book. That is why this book is so interesting. Bryant wrote it honestly, warts and all, in spite of the fact that he emerges from it as an unsympathetic character.

The worst part of the book is chapter 13 - "Uncomfortably Numb" which features the Bryant's philosophizing on how to be a better person as he stumbles through a weak and unaware recitation of the tenets of secular humanism.

For fans of Queens Park, there is lots of good gossip and stories here. Including an section on page 73 where Bryant goes into detail about cabinet deliberations - which I will assume Bryant had sworn to keep secret. Again, this stuff is well worth reading.

Overall, a book well worth reading, if you can get past its difficult and tragic core story line.

I must admit I was very disappointed by this uneven work.

Newman's writing remains crisp, the problem is his thought and his thesis about the Liberal Party of Canada are a mix of bang on or bozo.

At is core, I sense that Newman is writing this not as an actual practioner of Canadian politics, but as someone who reads a lot about it and talks a lot about it. And the difference shows in this work.

There is some original stuff in here, which is fantastic. But for the most part, I thought I was getting a regurgitated revision of what others like Paul Wells have already published.

The tower of Babble by Richard Stursburg is a exciting and interesting read about Stursburg's six years as president of English language services at the CBC.

I really liked this book for a number of reasons.

As a CBC consumer I found a lot of his stories touched me through my personal experience watching the CBC

Stursberg writes well and clearly. He doesn't suffer fools gladly. And that makes for an exciting read.

And the CBC continues to occupy a key place in Canadian culture and his role is worth reading about.

His account stretches across many areas of interest. For examples begins with is enough inauspicious start in 2005 which leads quickly into the CBC strike and cutbacks. He is particularly good at discribing the bysantine world of internal CBC politics and the protectorates that had grown up at the CBC.

For those students of media bias in particular is worth reading to sections: first his part about the extremely unfair coverage reporters gave him during the CBC strike, and secondly his efforts to convince the Harper conservative government that English CBC was no more biased than the other two main networks. )This did not go well)

Hockey fans will be fascinated to read about the bidding war the rights to hockey night Canada and how CBC was outbid by CTV for the Olympic games rights.

Perhaps the most striking part of this book for me was how much I continue to consume of the CBC in my household-for example the CBC show "Heartland" is a big hit in my household. We have purchased several seasons of its DVDs. It turns out heartland was a key part of Stursberg's plans to make the CBC more relevant.

I can't attest to the accuracy of this first-person account. It certainly seems as if Stursburg is an excellent self-promoter. But, with that in mind, I think that his audacity has made for agreat read.

This is one of the worst books on Canadian politics I have read in a long time.

Its theme is actually pretty standard, Stephen Harper, the current Prime Minister, is a "Rogue" in power, in a nasty Sarah Palin way - just like her first book: Going Rogue: An American Life.

Author Christian Nadeau argues that Harper's values are out of step with the Canadian Public. Worse, Harper and his clique are scheming to impose these values in an illegitimate way on the Canadian public through crafty machinations. Nadeau believes Harper is making Canada into a "harder, more mean-spirited place."

This is all fair comment. I take no issue with the direction of the book. I purchased it to read because I was looking forward to a solid substantive lefty critique of Harper, much on the lines of Brian Topp's recent book: How We Almost Gave the Tories the Boot: The inside story behind the coalition that I positively reviewed.

Instead, what we have is a regurgitation of lefty arrogance and intolerance devoid of supportive research or critical thought. In fact, it would not surprise me to find out that Nadeau wrote and produced this book in a bubble without running it past any leading Conservative intellectual at all. (He sites Joseph Health in his credits - it would greatly diminish Mr. Heath if he had signed off on this crap.)

Perhaps the lowest point of the book is on page 36, where Nadeau says - without footnote or attribution - that "Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have a Hobbsian view of politics". In short, instead of providing a useful "applied philosophy", which Nadeau states is his goal in writing this book, he is simply insulting using the technical language of a philosopher to insult those he disagrees with. In my experience with Conservative politicians and activists - they regularly cite Locke, Smith, Rand and Friedman as their source of intellectual inspiration. I have yet to met one of substance who said they were inspired by Hobbes.

This kind of sums up the problem with this book - it was written without intellectual rigour and without any challenge to its basic emotional and illogical assumptions. Today, as I write this, the Harper Conservatives are seven days from a federal election and are currently the the choice of a significant plurality of Canadians (39%) versus the next leading party at 26%. It would seem to me a basic question to answer why this "Rogue" Harper seems so popular with ordinary Canadians, and this book would have been an ideal place to do it.

On page 11 we see the kind of logic that Nadeau uses to advance his arguments. In criticizing as a major fault the Harper government's ending of the long form census in 2010 Nadeau states: " There never were any good, practical reasons for doing away with it." Except for the fact that Harper and the government DID do away with the census. So instead of fairly presenting the case for getting rid of the long form census, Nadeau is simply dismissive and the reader is the worse off for Nadeau's intellectual partisanship.

I was really disappointed to see such sloppy and indulgent thought. I also question the quality of Lorimer in publishing this. They must know something I don't.

Imagine you live in a lovely small town - close enough to the big city to be convenient, but far enough away to be a quiet country hideaway. Now imagine that one day, without warning or provocation, a group of thugs arrive in your town and take a construction site hostage. In the months to follow, these interlopers "with a little help from their friends" will erect barricades, rip up the main street, push a van on its side and roll it off a bridge, and blow up a hydro facility, cutting power to the town.

Fiction? Not at all. This nightmare actually took place in the town of Caledonia, with members of the Six Nations reserve seizing control of the Douglas Creek Estates subdivision on February 28, 2006. Five years later, the occupation is still going on.

Columnist and crime reporter Christie Blatchford's Helpless is the tale of how the residents of Caledonia had their lives turned upside down - in the name of political correctness gone mad. Blatchford makes it clear right from the start that this book is not about the validity of native land claims, or a chronicle of abuses Canadian officials from an earlier time foisted upon our First Nations. What she is interested in doing is telling a story that few, if any, have had the courage to tell, revealing dark and difficult truths along the way.

Needless to say, there has already been something of a backlash to this book. Some have even gone as far to condemn Blatchford as a racist. Others point to her portrayals of the townsfolk as heroes and the natives as thugs and bullies. While showing several of the residents of Caledonia acting with great courage and patience, only one of the occupiers comes off well - Michael Laughing, a high-steel ironworker who volunteered at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks.

Blatchford, however, saves her real venom not for the natives holding Caledonia hostage, but for those who seemed unwilling or unable to enforce the Rule of Law in this community. Whether calling out the Government of Ontario - and, in particular, Premier McGuinty - or senior officials with the Ontario Provincial Police first and foremost, former OPP Chief Julian Fantino.

Blatchford shows just how spineless and conniving those in charge can be. The book also shines an unflattering light on the province's judicial system, as well as the mainstream media, which for the most part could not be bothered to cover this story.

Hovering over this story is the ghost of Ipperwash another Native occupation from 1995, where one of the protestors, Dudley George, was shot and killed by an OPP officer. With the public inquiry still fresh in everyone's mind when the occupation of Caledonia began, it comes as no surprise that the Government of Ontario and the OPP would do everything in their power - including doing nothing - to ensure they didn't end up with a second Ipperwash on their hands.

Particularly appalling is the treatment of those holding the town hostage. This "hands off, kid gloves" approach stands in stark contrast to the way the law-abiding citizens were treated, which can only be described as a "blame the victim" approach.

In fact, a fair amount of Helpless is spent chronicling political and law enforcement tactics - tactics that worked all too well in protecting and supporting the activities of the protestors, but did little to help the besieged and beleaguered townsfolk. Blatchford goes into great detail, having interviewed most of the key participants (although Premier McGuinty and Chief Fantino declined to be interviewed), showing just how far political correctness has been allowed to go. Perhaps most telling is the saga of Richmond Hill activist, Gary McHale, who was arrested following a peaceful rally on the make-believe charge of "counselling mischief not committed."

This is an important book, a dangerous book, because it takes no hostages and instructs us in a very real way just how out-of-control and topsy-turvy our world has become. Having the courage to tell the truth at a time when few others seem able or willing to do so, Christie Blatchford reminds us of the true role of the media - to be fair and to be accurate.

Do yourself a favour. Ignore the naysayers and read the book.

Power is the latest in a long line of very well written, quality books ostensibly about Canadian government by the prolific and thoughtful author, Donald J. Savoie.

Savoie knows of what he writes. A former senior public servant in the Canadian system, he is now a respected professor at the University of Moncton and is of noted influence through his large number of writings on Public Administration.

In his newest book, "Power, where is it?" Savoie continues a successful and thoughtful deliberation on how the Canadian political system actually works.
This book is not really about power per se, but it is much more about where has power been in the Canadian political system, where it is now, what are the sources of power and where it is going. For people outside of "the system", this kind of intellectualisation would be pretty dull.

For those of us who are students of Canadian politics and involved in the system, this is gripping stuff and pretty useful. I must commend him for taking on a very challenging subject, as there are few more nebulous topics than who really has power in a complex system like Canadian government and the other leading Anglo-American Democracies like Britain and the United States.

His interpretation of where power lies right now is an incredibly valid, timely and useful analysis.

In Canada, Power has become more concentrated in the Prime Minister and his key advisors in the Canadian system. Parliament, caucus and the Cabinet have fallen in influence. Savoie explains why. He cites increasing complexity in government and the suffocating complexity of any program or process so that only very powerful individuals have the ability to bend the system to their will.

He argues, with solid backing, that certain individuals in our current system have become increasingly powerful actors. This is different from his experience when he entered the Canadian Public Service, where several specific line ministries had significant power, particularly External Affairs.
I found the book provided me with a good analytical framework to better understand power in government.

I had a couple of reservations though, and because it is such a good book, I feel comfortable in discussing these reservations.
In particular, the whole theme around power strikes me as a bit forced because the book also is about Donald J. Savoie, a lead player and man with considerable connections in the Canadian governmental system. It is also very much his personal view about where power is within the system.

Another shortcoming is that I think Savoie has held back from telling his readers what he really thinks. Savoie is a fairly prominent man, and he makes it clear in his writing that in some ways, he is privy to confidences. And sorry reader, he is simply not going to tell you everything. So instead Savoie teases the reader by suggesting the content of these confidences. I think it is clear that Savoie holds back from telling his readers everything.

That brings us to the last criticism of Savoie - he still thinks like an elitist civil servant. After reading this book, I am not really clear what he believes in, if anything. Even as the senior guy on the block, this guy is not engaged; he is detached. He is hiding his opinions behind his analysis. I wish he would have shared more of his true opinions in this book. It would have been an even better read if he had.

What Savoie does best in this book is to identify how individuals are currently the crux of power within the Anglo-American democracies, particularly Canada.

It is in this clarity and his understanding of ongoing themes within the Canadian Public Service that provides so much value for this work that I give it a strong recommendation.

Too often the workings of government in Canada are shrouded in mystery and speculation. Just as often the public are left wondering how ideas, policies and agreements are reached amongst our elected representatives in Ottawa and the provincial capitals. From this endless night of conjecture comes a startlingly clear view of the closed door negotiations of some recent events that monopolized the headlines from the end of 2008 until early 2009. Brian Topp's new book is an vivid account of the negotiations that lay behind the attempt to form a working coalition between the Federal Liberal Party and Federal NDP, who abetted by the Bloc Quebecois hoped to brush aside the minority government of the federal Conservatives the after the election in the fall of 2008.

The author Brian Topp was the NDP Federal Campaign Director during the 2008 vote and so he is well placed to provide this riveting first-person memoir of the high level negotiations he took part in. Topp played a lead role for the NDP in the promotion and negotiation of the coalition. He was also instrumental in formulating the idea of a coalition during a NDP election planning conference in October of 2008. Throughout the book Topp often excerpts word for word messages sent and received from his Blackberry and this only helps to add to the insider feeling this book has.

In fact the book is so loaded with email and text chat that it seems as if a new genre of political writing is evolving before the readers eyes. No doubt as messages were being sent no one foresaw them forming the basis of this book and their unguardedness only adds to the behind the scenes atmosphere of the book. Gone are the smoky backrooms of the corridors of power, seemingly replaced by an unlimited data plan and an omnivorous 24 hour news cycle.

Still the old world does rear its head at times as when Topp recounts how on December 1st, 2008 when the NDP was called by CTV reporter Robert Fife to comment on his scoop that the Liberals and NDP had agreed to create a four person economic panel to guide the new government on finance, budget and economic issues.

"It seemed like a pretty good idea to me," Topp writes. "The only thing surprising about it was that we learned about it on CTV, not during the many hours of meetings we had just had with our Liberal partners."

Instances like this will be ring all too true to any political professional.

The back and forth of the negotiations is fascinating reading for those interested in how an accord such as this would take form and the obstacles it faced. One of the more interesting things noted is the unwillingness of some Liberals to give any cabinet seats to the NDP since they saw this as a chance to finally get the cabinet position they had waited for. Though anecdotal this to me is a telling sign of a sense of Liberal entitlement that many of the electorate had grown tired of. Obviously though a dip in popularity did nothing to get the message to its intended Liberal recipients.

This was not the first time Brian Topp had worked on forming a political accord between rival parties. He draws on his work in Saskatchewan and Ontario and he also brings up the accord that was discussed between the NDP, the Tories and the Bloc in 2006. All in all it is hard to think of a timelier entertaining read.

Recent news stories are indicating that the Federal Conservative party is preparing to run in the next election against the idea of an anti-Conservative coalition - make this memoir exceedingly relevant. One of the recurring ideas in the book is Topp musing aloud about next time. It is apparent that at least from Brian Topp's perspective (and in all likelihood the leadership of the NDP) a coalition government is a reasonable option to consider following the next federal election in Canada. This is doubly interesting as the continued popularity of the Bloc Québécois continues to hinder realistic chances of any party forming a majority government in Canada.

While the "progressive" coalition of late 2008 may be dead, as long as the Canadian electorate continues to return minority parliament, the promotion and negotiation of a Canadian governing coalition will continue to be a very hot topic over the next several years. A newly minted coalition government in Great Britain may also help to soften up the talking points in the Canadian media landscape as well.

I also recommend the book because Brian Topp runs you through much of his decision making strategies he uses when constantly faced with incomplete information and lack of time. You see the kind of skill set, he possesses - the cool headedness mixed with aggression and a very broad set of common sense skills that are necessary for performing at his high level where he does.

I do need to quibble with one part of the book, however. When it comes to the Canadian media, Topp has a bizarre view. He opens the book with a real whopper in his preface when states that we live in an era of "monolithically conservative media in English Canada". Is he talking about the same media that include the Toronto (Red) Star and the politically correct monotony of the CBC? Just how is that "monolithic"? I found it really jarring, especially when it is clear that the practical-minded Topp is otherwise quite a realist. In fairness, this warped victim-like world view of the media seems de rigueur in NDP/Green/leftie circles.

The couple key themes that you learn when reading the book: First - the Federal NDP has not given up on the coalition idea - at all. Second: the Federal Liberals are really cagey and are one tough group to negotiate with. Third: former- NDP leader Ed Broadbent and former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien remain big players in their respective parties (they were brought in to negotiate the coalition).

Students of Canadian politics will be fascinated by the emerging left-right cleavage that the emergence of the coalition indicates. Always when Topp is talking about the difficulties in locking down negotiations with the Liberal Party of Canada, it is because of an existence of what he calls "Blue Liberals" as opposed to "Red Liberals". It was the "Blue" Liberals that Topp identifies as having the most problems in accepting a coalition. This suggests a cleavage within Canadian politics that runs right through the middle of the Liberal Party that is the cleavage between "Progressives" on the left and "Traditionalists" on the right

We recently saw the influence and staying power of these "Blue" Liberals recently when they voted in the House of Commons with the Conservative party to block a Liberal Party motion that they viewed as pro-abortion.

I strongly recommend this book. It is a very easy read and congratulations to Brian Topp for taking the time to compose this fascinating chronicle of Canadian Politics at its highest levels.

Meg Meeker's short and clear book will give you targeted advice on how to be a good father. As the father of two girls, I found this book an easy read on first reading. And I return to it regularly, and every time I return I find myself reading large parts of it again as her advice is so practical.

A must read guide for fathers of daughters.