From Protest to Power Personal Reflections on a Life in Politics

BOOK: Corners, Spine, Boards Bumped; Light Shelf Rub to Boards. DUST JACKET: Lightly Creased; Lightly Chipped; In Archival Quality Jacket Cover. FRONT COVER PHOTO BY: Paul Orenstein. BACK COVER PHOTOS COURTESY: Bob Rae. COVER DESIGN BY: Martin Gould. CONTENTS: Prologue--A Dose of Reality at Honey Harbour; One--Getting There; Two--Student Days; Three--English Adventures; Four--The Lure of Politics; Five--Up the Hill and Down Again; Six--No Soft Landings; Seven--In the Valley; Eight--How Sweet the Taste; Nine--"No, Premier"; Ten--Jobs, Jobs, Jobs; Eleven--Our Home and Native Land; Twelve--The Road to Charlottetown; Thirteen--Social Contract; Fourteen--Anyone Can Sail in Good Weather; Fifteen--Hard Choices; Sixteen--Losing & Leaving; Postscript; Index. SYNOPSIS: "Throughout my political life I have disagreed with the perspective that it is more moral to be out of power than in." When Bob Rae announced his resignation as leader of the Ontario NDP in January, 1996, praise for him poured in. Admired for his wit, his resilience and most of all his political compassion, many Ontarians and Canadians recognized that this would be a loss to his political party, his province and the country. But he was also criticized for a perceived inconsistency of policy, betrayal of his constituency and a lack of realism in dealing with the deficit. Many of the criticism could be laid at the door of a party that never expected to win. In this stunningly frank and personal memoir, Bob Rae re-examines his time in politics and shows us where he came from--as a thinker, as a politician and as a Canadian. We read about his education at the University of Toronto, and as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. His adventures range from organizing a notorious Mothers of Invention event (in which Frank Zappa poured shaving cream into every possible orifice of the organ at Convocation Hall); to studying Hegel and Marx with the great thinker Isaiah Berlin; to feeling under suspicion when a bomb was found on board his flight from Ireland to London. Growing up in a very close family, Rae felt the abiding influence of his father and his father's associates in the Canadian Foreign Service (men like Norman Robertson and Charles Ritchie). But as he pursued his education he also experienced the turmoil of defining his own political beliefs. After becoming a lawyer, his pre-politics career included working for the Steelworkers Union and articling with a labour law firm. In 1977, he entered politics and in 1978 won the Broadview riding in Toronto for the NDP. From Protest to Power details Rae's political life before the unexpected win in 1990: the Accord with David Peterson that ended forty-two years of Tory government, his part in Meech, protesting at Temagami, the campaign itself. And we read too of the twin tragedies in his personal life: the accidental deaths of Arlene Perly Rae's parents in 1985, and the tragic death of his brother David in 1989 of lymphatic cancer. And then the difficult transition from protest to power. Seventy-four NDP members were elected; more than fifty were entirely new to the legislature, and most had never been elected to any public office. It was a group full of life and determination but short on experience. Tough choices had to be made as they came to recognize how bad the provincial deficit really was, and began to navigate the rough waters between the unions and business interests. We read how the difficult decision was reached to achieve a "social contract"--and who supported that p9olicy in public and in private. Reviewing the Charlottetown Accord from the inside gives Rae the opportunity to present his ideas on constitutional reform, unity and interprovincial relations. In the final section of the book Rae looks at the big picture--what does all this mean for social democracy, for Ontario, for Canada? He looks at the dangers of governing in the name of a theory, whether of the left or the right, and at the challenge to social democracy to becom.