When I met Gerry Nicholls at a luncheon last week and requested an advance copy of his book Loyal to the Core (Freedom Press), I did so out of a sense of kinship, not out of a burning desire to read it. After all, Gerry is a staunch conservative, true blue, with hardcore street cred from his years with the National Citizens Coalition. But when the book arrived Monday morning, I held the package in my hands, dreading the moment I would have to open it and begin taking notes. You see, I will be interviewing Gerry tomorrow night for Monday’s Brass Balls Radio. So I had to rush through this book, ASAP.
Let’s face it folks, books about Canadian politics are epic in their dullness. Our politics are stale and English, dull as dishwater. I wanted to stab my eyes out so I wouldn’t have to read a tome about the NCC. But guess what?
The book is awesome!
I whipped through it in a day; I was riveted. The first half reads like a recruitment and fund raising tool for the NCC. Makes sense, since Gerry was the communications director there for years before he was promoted to VP. Despite the gung-ho love for the NCC displayed in this half of the book, the tidbits of gossip are enjoyable and make for quick page-turning.
Hey Fat Boy!
Fat Boy, AKA Stephen Harper, arrived on the NCC scene in the late 90s and things began to change. Harper was an uber-conservative with very little sense of humor, and his time at the NCC reflected this. Fewer piggie ads, more court challenges. But when he left the organization to become head of the Alliance, the NCC stopped being about the Citizens and became a Harper machine. They lost sight of their non-partisan mission and worked round the clock to get their boy elected to run the country.
Only to see him take office and suddenly forget his conservative principles. I can sympathize. As the former VP of my district association, I too worked to get Harper and the Conservatives elected. And once elected, they moved so far to the left that I felt like my vote was wasted.
So Gerry and the NCC team began to push back against Harper’s policies, as they had with every other PM over the years. Why should it matter that Harper had been NCC president? Turns out it mattered a lot. In 2007, the NCC fired Nicholls after 22 years of loyal service. Content to carry on as a Harper Machine, the NCC saw no longer saw reason to challenge the political status quo.
I guarantee that if this book had been written a few years ago instead of today, there’s a chance we would have a different Prime Minister right now. And I have to say, if this book sells well, it will hurt Harper’s future.
While the book is unlikely to appeal to all but the hardest wonks in the American audience, every Canadian remotely interested in politics and the state of the country should have a read of Loyal to the Core.
The book is officially released next week, but is available for pre-sale via Freedom Press.
As a conservative, I probably share some political principles with Mr. Nichols, and enjoy reading his opinions when he takes a serious approach.
However, Mr. Nichols has previously swallowed the smelly bait to be a useful idiot on the pages of the Red Star: “All hail the People’s Party! All hail Harper!”
With over 500 words of pap-trash like that, you’d think Nichols had adopted Warren Kinsella as his mentor or was on the CBC payroll.
Your comment “if this book sells well, it will hurt Harper’s future” leads me to wonder if this book is a cheap slagfest, a tawdry collection of quotes and anecdotes to arm the left-wing loonies with.
My advice to Nichols is “He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself”, or perhaps maybe one just for himself.
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/286823
Nicholls did indeed swallow the bait, for a time, and admits his guilt. However, instead of a slagfest, the book reads more like a sad realization that he backed the wrong horse. We all did.
RG
I must say I get very tired of so-called Conservatives such as AG who seem to believe that Harper is the messiah and can do no wrong. He abandoned all of his principles, and mine, believing it would get him a majority. It hasn’t and it never will.
Did you see the pictures of him this weekend, riding a snowmobile and handing out millions of dollars for snowmobile trails? He looked like a fool, delivering another foolish piece of pork to the idiot masses.
And a GREAT VP you were!!
Hi RG.
Great review with Gerry Nichols on BB Radio RG. Sounds like Gerry’s book is definitely worth a read. A very politically savvy, but sincere and decent sounding person.
[...] RIGHT GIRL– I cringe on Kinsella’s behalf; The Battle of Burlington; Review: Loyal to the Core …. [...]
Harper is your best bet. Unless you wish to lean towards Hitler-like leaders.
I watched Gerry Nicholls interviewed by Michael Coren last night on CTS TV. After the interview, it occurred to me Bloc Quebecois leader, Gilles Duceppe, who started out a far-left communist, had moved right towards a kind of social democratic middle, whereas Stehpen Harper, who had started out a small-C conservative with the NCC, had moved to the left, also towards a kind of social democratic middle, by delivering budgets with huge public spending and ballooning deficits. And I thought: “There’s the alleged Great Canadian Compromise for you!” Then I wondered whether “compromise” mightn’t be a nice word for betrayal of one’s core principles – just as “edit” is sometimes used as a polite way to frame an act of censorship.