COLUMN: Think Again – Lloyd Axworthy left too many things out
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/11/2024 (221 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Political memoirs are one of my favourite book genres. With their political futures no longer at stake, former politicians often drop their partisanship and give readers a window into what was really going on behind the scenes.
For example, Erik Nielsen’s memoir The House is Not a Home gave us insight into the very real ways that politics damages the personal lives of politicians. While Nielsen was a hard-nosed partisan when he served as deputy prime minister in Brian Mulroney’s government, he mostly left this partisanship behind in the pages of his memoir. The result was a highly readable book that remains a classic to this day.
I had high hopes that Lloyd Axworthy would follow Nielsen’s example in his newly released memoir My Life in Politics. Like Nielsen, Axworthy had a long and distinguished political career. First elected as a Liberal MP in 1979, he served first as a backbench opposition MP and then as a high-profile cabinet minister in Jean Chretien’s government until his retirement from politics in 2000.
Much of Axworthy’s memoir is quite interesting. For example, he told the story of how he first got involved in federal politics by running for the Liberals in the newly created Winnipeg Fort Garry seat. Axworthy was up against former provincial Conservative leader Sidney Spivak, and he knew that he had a fight on his hands. By intentionally targeting his campaign to local NDP supporters, Axworthy managed to eke out a narrow victory.
Axworthy also credits his victory to the ground game of his hardworking volunteers. The fact that he could tell the story of his first campaign so vividly more than forty years later makes it clear that this was a memorable time in Axworthy’s life.
We also gain insight into some of the tough choices Axworthy had to make as a cabinet minister. Notably, Axworthy was tasked with reforming federal income support programs such as unemployment insurance. This put Axworthy in a difficult spot since these cuts made him unpopular with people who depended on these programs. It didn’t help matters that some of his fellow cabinet ministers, notably Brian Tobin and David Dingwall, wanted to keep the status quo.
However, I was disappointed by how many things Axworthy left out of his memoir. I had been hoping to hear more about the internal machinations of the Liberal cabinet and caucus during Chretien’s time as prime minister. For example, Axworthy says little about the power struggle between Chretien and Finance Minister Paul Martin even though this struggle had a huge impact on the Chretien government.
In addition, Axworthy says virtually nothing about the 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum even though he was a senior cabinet minister at the time. No doubt the threat of Quebec separation weighed heavily in cabinet discussion and caucus meetings. It would have been nice to gain more insight into why the Liberal government responded the way it did on this issue.
Axworthy’s main passion was clearly foreign affairs. He devotes several chapters to topics such as the 1997 Ottawa Landmine Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and Canada’s involvement on the UN Security Council. Axworthy also recounts some of his most memorable visits with foreign leaders.
In the end, I would have appreciated Axworthy’s memoir more if he had written less about his international travels and more about what it was like as an MP in Ottawa. It seemed to me that Axworthy was more interested in promoting his views on international issues than on providing readers with a tell-all memoir.
While I’m still glad that I read Axworthy’s book, it wasn’t as good as it could have been.
Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.