Paul Martin: CEO for Canada?

Agar Adamson is the author of Letters of Agar Adamson, 1914–19 and former chair of the Department of Political Science at Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

This provocative and thought-provoking book provides a critical
examination of Paul Martin’s tenure as minister of finance as well as
his record at Canada Steamships (CSL) and Power Corporation. The author
makes no attempt to be neutral. He makes it quite clear that he is a
member of the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and
that Martin: CEO for Canada? is written from that perspective.

Dobbin argues that Martin’s budgets intensified class separation in
Canada, but gives Martin little credit for reducing the deficit. He is
concerned about Martin’s “closeness” to the United States. He
urges Canadians to resist Martin’s charm: “Paul Martin is the serial
seducer of Canadian politics, the man it is impossible not to like.”

There are a few factual errors. For example, Peter Nicholson was never
minister of finance in Nova Scotia. Nevertheless, this book will be a
useful research tool for future students as long as they remember that
it is a polemic designed to attack Martin and awaken Canadians to his
“true” political identity.