Review of 'When the Gods Changed' by Peter c. Newman

.When The Gods Changed: The Death of Liberal Canada by Peter C. Newman. A book published by Randdom House Canada. 291pp.


   Once upon a time, which wasn't too long ago, the federal Liberal party won one election after another and therefore was the the government of Canada. Their main rival, the Progressive Conservative party could only look on in envy. "Conservatives are like measles," one Liberal said. "You get them once in a lifetime and then they're gone forever."
    But then all of that changed. A reformed and very right wing Conservative party started to win one election after another and the Liberals ended up in second place. In the 2011 federal election, the Liberals fell to third place behind the New Democratic party and the governing Conservatives, led by the very right wing Prime Minister Stephen  Harper.
      Why did all this happen? Peter C. Newman thinks he has the answer. "A groupie of the power elite," I once said about Newman. But while this may be true, Newman is also a fine writer who has written many interesting books about Canadian politics and business. In this book called 'When The Gods Changed' Newman zeroes in on Michael Ignatieff the Canadian-born writer, traveller, professor, human rights activist and then leader of the federal Liberal party. Ignatieff was supposed to lead the Liberals back to power. Instead he led the party to a disastrous third place finish and then resigned as leader.
    Newman singles out many reasons for the Liberals's collapse. They include the now ancient sponsorship scandal, the ferocious rivalry between Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his Finance minister Paul Martin, Martin's weak role as Prime Minister and so on.But the main reason is simple; the Liberals got old.
     "Of the many Canadian politicians who flashed like meteors across the northern sky," writes Newman, "Ignatieff was the most complex, the most puzzling and the least transparent." Newman is well positioned to say this, since he's known and hung out with many politicians and leaders of the last 50 years. But Newman's focus on the leaders, ignores the upheaval among the vast majority of non-leaders. For the past 30 years, Canadian governments of all stripes and labels have slashed social programs, shovelled out big tax breaks to the rich and hammered private and public sector unions.
     The Liberals party could and did promise all Canadians a better and more prosperous life. But that promise has now vanished as the welfare state disappears. As Canada becomes a very unequal society, the middle ground that the Liberals stood on started to shrink. And so did their supporters too.
    In the end, Newman blames the Liberal party for Ignatieff's crushing defeat. He also realizes that an academic like Ignatieff took too long to learn political skills.
     The best parts of 'When the Gods Changed' are Newman's interviews with Ignatieff and Ignatieff's reflections on his life. The book takes us on an interesting ride through the collapse of the Liberal party. But the Liberals"s eclipse may only be temporary. After all there is the figure of Justin Trudeau looming on the political horizon. Maybe the ageing Peter C. Newman will give us another book about the Liberal party's revival. After all he did the same about Justin Trudeau's father more than forty years ago.