McKenna 'Beyond Politics'
Published Thursday November 12th, 2009
New book outlines former premier's political life, reasons against returning to public office
Most New Brunswickers have opinions of Frank McKenna, and Harvey Sawler's new book Frank McKenna Beyond Politics isn't likely to change many.
Although the 311-page volume traces McKenna's path from the early life-lessons taught by his paternal grandmother to his most recent philanthropic ventures with the likes of Hollywood star Matt Damon, it does not exhaustively re-examine McKenna's time as New Brunswick's premier.
In fact, only a couple of chapters in the book look at McKenna's 10-year premiership and focus on his efforts to fix the province's unemployment issues as well as the lessons he learned at the expense of the failed Meech Lake Accord.
Instead, Sawler uses Mckenna's time as premier as a touchstone he calls on throughout the book in order to help explain the decisions he has made since leaving office.
Chief among those decisions is McKenna's decision to resist the attraction of federal politics and a run at the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada and perhaps the job of Prime Minister of Canada.
The book goes well beyond the January 30, 2006 news conference at which McKenna explained he would not seek the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, and the trap-and-cheese analogy containing missive that was sent to reporters to quash the most recent speculation about one year ago.
Beyond McKenna's own explanation even, Sawler actually provides a list of pros and cons that McKenna wrote while considering the job at the urging of an army of friends and supporters.
The list includes negatives such as his lack of French proficiency and the baggage of his role in the Meech Lake Accord saga.
Sawler's interviews with McKenna and others around him make it clear that the thought of spending years in opposition, campaigning, and opening up his private life to public scrutiny, were not how McKenna ideally envisions living at this stage in his life.
Although McKenna calls his time as premier the most fulfilling and captivating of his life, Beyond Politics makes it clear that they were also the most taxing and obsessive.
The interviews Sawler conducts with McKenna's wife Julie, friends, former aides, colleagues, veteran journalists and no fewer than three former three former prime ministers helps to more fully explain what the protagonist meant when he told reporters he would keep his promise to not return for the cheese once he had escaped the trap of public life.
In addition, Sawler contrasts the circumstances in which New Brunswickers were living when McKenna entered provincial politics with Canada's position today.
He writes that the socio-economic cancers that were killing New Brunswick made McKenna's 'mission' more palpable.
"New Brunswick almost needed chemotherapy to bring it around to the point of pride and prosperity. The citizenry understood the challenges because they were so visible," wrote Sawler. "Canada, in contrast is not suffering from anything so grave."
Sawler uses McKenna's own words from a speech at St. Francis Xavier University to illustrate his concerns that Canada is punching below its weight due, in large part, to the fact that Canadians have grown complacent over their own excellent quality of life.
Sawler explained that McKenna thought Canadians could never reach their true potential if they didn't begin to understand how great their own institutions are or can be.
Rather than focusing on what could have been if McKenna had made the jump onto the federal political scene, Sawler expands the scope of the book to examine how the concept of leadership has evolved for a man still deeply committed to public service.
The book is also crammed with anecdotes that bring the reader into some of McKenna's discussions with some of the world's most powerful people.
It reports on the access McKenna has built up with some of the world's most powerful men.
"Sometimes things aren't as good as they seem to be or as bad as they seem to be. My job is to smoke him out," former American President George W. Bush tells McKenna after a meeting with Russia' Vladimir Putin.
Sawler paints of a portrait of a warm relationship between McKenna and George W. Bush, who spoke at McKenna' annual Fox Harb'r gathering of businessmen and politicians this summer.
However, New Brunswick's former premier does call the former president politically uncurious, a trait that he believes explains many of his problems in office.
On the other hand, readers may be startled by the frostiness of the relationship between McKenna and former secretary of state Condoleeza Rice, who told him "you don't want to be on our radar screen" after he had told her that it was difficult for Canada to get the attention of the American administration.
The book brings the reader into a St. John's Newfoundland hotel room where McKenna and former U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins watch horrific scenes of Hurricane Katrina on television.
In this case, like in the entire breadth of eye-catching anecdotes used by Sawler, the story is not told gratuitously to simply show where McKenna has been spending his time and who he has met.
Instead, Sawler uses it to illustrate character traits of McKenna by explaining that McKenna was not only moved by the images, but already considering Canada's role in providing relief and assistance.
It also plays into Sawler's thesis that McKenna is much more interested in leading on his won terms rather than campaigning to lead a federal party.
Sawler's book provides a fresh look at McKenna as a politician, diplomat, businessman and citizen by examining each facet and demonstrating how they fit together.
It explains how McKenna's past is propelling his future as a philanthropist at the head of ONEXONE and the Starfish Foundation.
However, beyond the criticism of an Ottawa columnist who quips that McKenna's entrance into federal politics could result in making Canada the call centre capital of the world, Sawler presents his protagonist as an Everyman, and his delivery and the breadth of research and voices make it easy to agree, but readers may be left wondering what happened to his critical voices.
Disabled
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
Comments (1)
All comments are subject to the site Terms of Use. For a full commenting tutorial click here.
Our editorial team relies on filtering technology and our visitor community to identify inappropriate comments. In the event that a site user has submitted offensive content that has evaded our filter, please select the option to Flag As Inappropriate presented within the comment. Thank you for helping to keep this site clean.
Mr. McKenna became Premier of N.B. because everyone had grown tired of Richard Hatfield's government. A monkey could have run against Hatfield and won McKenna's first election.
To give credit to Frank McKenna for balancing the books is the most ridiculous statement I have ever read. New Brunswicker's balanced the books not Mr. McKenna. N.B. taxpayers had to sit back and watch him total destroy our healthcare and education system's. It did not matter who disagreed, there was no opposition to fight it.
That took a brave man now didn't it?