The Liberal Party of Canada is not an ethnic group, as such. But if it were, this book would be an ethnocentric modern history of the Liberal Party that focuses on the “how” of its continuing progress and success, marginally on the “why,” but not very much on the “what.” The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics, Stephen Clarkson’s scholarly treatment of the Liberals’ electoral progress from 1974 to 2004, is no less worth reading because of its rather mechanical focus. Clarkson’s in-depth facility with Canadian Liberalism (as evinced by his collaborations with his late wife, Christina McCall) and his sometime formal association as a partisan and card carrier only enrich the understanding of the objective mechanics and individual engineers who drive or have driven the Liberal Rube Goldberg contraption forward.
And while there may be a few Canadians (those outside the Liberal, as opposed to the liberal, experience) who feel...
Hugh Segal was a political strategist, senator from Ontario, and principal of Massey College. He wrote The Right Balance: Canada’s Conservative Tradition, among other books.
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