The Dark Side: The Personal Price of a Political Life

Ashley Thomson is a full librarian at Laurentian University and co-editor or co-author of nine books, most recently Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide, 1988-2005.

In an earlier book, The Life: The Seductive Call of Politics (2001),
Steve Paikin, a TV Ontario host, told stories of Canadian politicians
who worked hard and garnered success. In The Dark Side, he profiles
politicos who theoretically weren’t quite as successful. His
black-and-white dust jacket features an ex-politico sitting, head down
and one arm extended, at a dark desk.

In the book, readers will meet the following political has-beens: Lynda
Haverstock, former leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party; John Munro,
legendary Hamilton politico; Paul Dick, a lesser Progressive
Conservative cabinet minister brought low after the defeat of his party
in 1993;, Brian O’Kealey, another casualty of the collapse of the PCs
in 1993; David Peterson, Bob Rae, Frank McKenna, Clyde Wells, Bill
Vander Zalm, John Savage, Allan Blakeney, and Roy Romanow, ex-premiers
all; Nancy MacBeth, former Alberta PC cabinet minister who ended up as
leader of the opposition Liberals; Joe Clark, former Canadian prime
minister; Priscilla de Villiers (mother of a 19-year-old murder victim)
who was defeated as a provincial PC candidate in Ontario; and, finally,
Tim Murphy and Lyn McLeod, Ontario provincial Liberal politicians whose
careers collapsed in part thanks to the gay rights issue.

Each of Paikin’s profiles is based primarily on interviews and is
loaded with anecdotes that make the text compulsively readable. There is
also a nice collection of photographs in which many of the subjects seem
to be smiling—happier days. All profiles are set within a larger
context; for example, O’Kealey and Dick are grouped together in a
chapter titled “Collateral Damage” that illustrates how their defeat
in politics had unpleasant repercussions afterwards as they sought
decent jobs.

It is Paikin’s hope that readers will finish the book with a respect
for those who serve as politicians. In this, he succeeds. He fails,
however, to convince the reader that politics really does have that dark
a side. O’Kealey and Dick aside, most of the people he profiles
didn’t end up so badly. Take Bob Rae, for example. While it is true
that his party was crushed by the PCs under Harris, he himself bounced
back as a Bay Street lawyer and high-profile consultant.

It would seem, then, that you can’t really tell a book by its cover.