Juggernaut: Paul Martin's Campaign for Chrétien's Crown

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.

Paul Martin’s march to the prime ministership is a Canadian first.
Never before has a sitting prime minister been openly forced from office
by a rival from within his own party. Susan Delacourt chronicles that
march in Juggernaut. The book’s excessive detail might have something
to do with the fact that Martin’s people opened the doors for her,
giving her access to Cabinet minutes and other government documents. Not
surprisingly, the book is slanted in Martin’s favour.

Delacourt introduces the reader to the young Liberal turks who were
working for Martin in 1990 when he lost the leadership to Jean Chrétien
and who have stayed loyal to him ever since. Her detailed description of
the Toronto Airport meeting of Martin supporters in 2000 is a vivid
example of both her knowledge of the facts and her fascination with
details.

Those looking for an analysis of public policy and its evolution would
be better off reading John Gray’s Paul Martin: The Power of Ambition.
Students of Canadian political history will find Juggernaut valuable for
its detailed description of the Martin team’s eventual victory; it is
a useful primer on how to “shake things up” and undermine the
establishment.

Of course, a question that inevitably arises from more recent events is
how could a team that was so successful in winning the leadership of the
Liberal Party make such a mess of the 2004 general election campaign?