Frank McKenna would make an excellent prime minister of Canada. He is not going to be prime minister of Canada. Harvey Sawler's book tells us a very great deal about why both of these statements are true, as well as about why McKenna is an honourable and impressive man and why Canadian politics is broken.
Unfortunately, the book itself doesn't do a terribly good job of telling McKenna's compelling story; the writing is uneven, the choice of topics to emphasize is idiosyncratic and it generally has the feel of a book written in a hurry to capitalize on the attention properly being paid to its subject. Still, without too much effort, one can piece together from Sawler's narrative Frank McKenna's real meaning to Canadian politics.
Frank McKenna: Beyond Politics, by Harvey Sawler, Douglas & McIntyre, 311 pages, $34.95
Many Canadians wish McKenna would take a run at the top job, especially as Michael Ignatieff continues to disappoint and Stephen Harper's grip tightens on 24 Sussex Dr. Most of these people are Liberals who, like all competitive people, believe that they deserve to win top honours in every contest. Recent elections have therefore been incomprehensible to them.
For the people pressing McKenna, a highly successful former New Brunswick premier and Canada's former ambassador to the United States, to lead their party, he is just a means to an end. As one senior Liberal said to me wistfully just the other day while discussing the party's electoral prospects, “If only Frank were leader …” For those who see only the game of politics, McKenna is somehow, inexplicably, refusing to do the right thing. The right thing in this case, of course, is to sacrifice himself so that the party can enjoy power.
Rreal power doesn't come from elected office, but from inside yourself
McKenna's not interested. That makes him a rare bird indeed: a former political junkie who has transcended the game of politics. But, like all reformed addicts, he makes those still trapped under the heel of their addiction writhe with self-loathing. They cannot imagine that there is any escape from politics except through irremediable defeat. A man who can stare down the prospect of serious political power and walk away is somehow an affront to the natural order of things, a reproachful reminder to guilty consciences that all the alleged “sacrifices” made for political life, the broken families, estranged children, sleepless nights, loss of privacy, and so forth are in fact not sacrifices at all; they are an ego trip for people convinced that their country needs them and that politics is the only way to serve people. Frank McKenna knows better.
It should have come through loud and clear from McKenna's past behaviour that he is not in the market. While at the height of his power and influence, he simply turned himself off as premier of New Brunswick, honouring a promise he made years earlier to serve 10 years as premier and no more. After a long period in the private sector, where he failed to find his real vocation, he was almost tempted back into the political fray by Paul Martin, who tried hard to recruit him to be one of his most senior ministers. McKenna, who could have had almost any seat he wanted, would serve only if he could represent Moncton. When the sitting MP refused to step aside, McKenna declined to pursue the opportunity further.
