Hell or High Water : My Life in and Out of Politics

National bestseller Paul Martin was the Prime Minister we never really knew — in this memoir he emerges as a fascinating flesh and blood man, still working hard to make a better world. “The next thing you know, I was in a jail cell.” (Chapter 2) “From the moment I flipped his truck on the road home to Morinville...” (Chapter 3) “When I came back into Aquin’s headquarters I had a broken nose.” (Chapter 4) These are not lines that you expect in a prime ministerial memoir. But Paul Martin — who led the country from 2003 to 2006 — is full of surprises, and his book will reveal a very different man from the prime minister who had such a rough ride in the wake of the sponsorship scandal. Although he grew up in Windsor and Ottawa as the son of the legendary Cabinet Minister Paul Martin, politics was not in his blood. As a kid he loved sports, and had summer jobs as a deckhand or a roustabout. As a young man he plunged into family life, and into the business world. After his years as a “corporate firefighter” for Power Corporation came the excitement of acquiring Canada Steamship Lines in Canada’s largest ever leveraged buy-out, “the most audacious gamble of my life.” In 1988, however, he became a Liberal M.P., ran for the leadership in 1990 and in 1993 became Jean Chrétien’s minister of finance, with the country in a deep hole. The story of his years as perhaps our best finance minister ever leads to his account of the revolt against Chrétien, and his time in office. Great events and world figures stud this book, which is firm but polite as it sets the record straight, and is full of wry humour and self-deprecating stories. Far from ending with his defeat in 2006, the book deals with his continuing passions, such as Canada’s aboriginals and the problems of Africa. This is an idealistic, interesting book that reveals the Paul Martin we never knew. It’s a pleasure to meet him. National bestseller Paul Martin was the Prime Minister we never really knew ' in this memoir he emerges as a fascinating flesh and blood man, still working hard to make a better world. "The next thing you know, I was in a jail cell." (Chapter 2) "From the moment I flipped his truck on the road home to Morinville'" (Chapter 3) "When I came back into Aquin's headquarters I had a broken nose." (Chapter 4) These are not lines that you expect in a prime ministerial memoir. But Paul Martin ' who led the country from 2003 to 2006 ' is full of surprises, and his book will reveal a very different man from the prime minister who had such a rough ride in the wake of the sponsorship scandal. Although he grew up in Windsor and Ottawa as the son of the legendary Cabinet Minister Paul Martin, politics was not in his blood. As a kid he loved sports, and had summer jobs as a deckhand or a roustabout. As a young man he plunged into family life, and into the business world. After his years as a "corporate firefighter" for Power Corporation came the excitement of acquiring Canada Steamship Lines in Canada's largest ever leveraged buy-out, "the most audacious gamble of my life." In 1988, however, he became a Liberal M.P., ran for the leadership in 1990 and in 1993 became Jean ChrEtien's minister of finance, with the country in a deep hole. The story of his years as perhaps our best finance minister ever leads to his account of the revolt against ChrEtien, and his time in office. Great events and world figures stud this book, which is firm but polite as it sets the record straight, and is full of wry humour and self-deprecating stories. Far from ending with his defeat in 2006, the book deals with his continuing passions, such as Canada's aboriginals and the problems of Africa. This is an idealistic, interesting book that reveals the Paul Martin we never knew. It's a pleasure to meet him. From the Hardcover edition "His account of the widening breach with Jean Chretien is told with restraint, leading to the chapter wryly entitled "Getting Quit." Many insider facts emerge about the leadership campaign that led to his victory, and about his time in office, when he was hemmed in by the sponsorship scandal inherited from his predecessor. During these years great events and major world figures affected his life, but so did memorable figures such as the Sri Lankan boy on a tsunami-swept beach." "The book is firm but polite as it sets the record straight. His narrow loss in the 2006 election, for example, is set in the context of RCMP Commissioner Guiliano Zaccardelli's extraordinary intervention at a turning point in the campaign ("in the absence of a rational and justifiable basis for such disclosure" according to the official Kennedy report), and of the Conservative Parry's alleged breach of Election Canada's laws on campaign spending limits." "Paul Martin's Acknowledgements stresses that he wanted to write these memoirs soon, "to stimulate further discussion of the issues that were of my greatest concern, discussion that might help others finish the job.'" For this is a thoughtful, idealistic book that for all its good humour takes our politics, and our future, very seriously. Far from ending with his defeat and resignation in 2006, the book deals with his continuing passions - such as the need for new, larger international bodies that reflect the real world, and for solutions to the problems facing our Aboriginal citizens and the problems in Africa, including the climate change crisis posed by the disappearing Congo rainforest."--Jacket "Paul Martin - who led the country from 2003 to 2006 - is full of surprises. His book reveals a decent, rounded human being who grew up in Windsor and Ottawa as the son of legendary Cabinet Minister Paul Martin ("Paul Martin the Great," according to a Chinese translator, who was less kind to the son)." "Surprisingly, politics was not in young Paul's blood. Growing up, he loved sports and tough summer jobs as a deckhand or a roustabout. After law school in Toronto he plunged into family life with Sheila (and later their three boys), and into the Montreal business world. Here is another surprise, one that will delight business readers: he writes with infectious excitement about his years as "a corporate firefighter" for Power Corporation and about the thrill of acquiring Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) in what was Canada's largest ever leveraged buyout, calling it "the most audacious gamble of my life."" "In 1988, however, with CSL on an even keel, he entered politics as a Liberal MP. Sensing an opportunity he ran for the party's leadership in 1990, in a campaign that left a gulf between his workers and the winning Chretien team. In 1993, however be became Jean Chretien's minister of finance, with the country in trouble. He reminds us that things were so bad that "in January 1995, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial that said Canada had become an 'honorary member of the Third World' because of our debt." Yet the tough measures he and his team at Finance adopted brought the country back from the brink, leading many to describe him as the country's best minister of finance."