NO PUBLISHER CAN be good at every genre and, as I had learned from the best of them, if you spread yourself too thin, you will accumulate too many unsold books. You have to mark your territory.
After Allan Fotheringham launched us into politics, we knew that there was a large, curious audience for books about what went on in the backrooms of the nation. That ever-elusive book-buyer, “the general public,” was interested in issues and events that influenced the buyer’s daily life. And people loved gossip. Stevie Cameron’s Ottawa Inside Out was filled with it. Claire Hoy’s Friends in High Places: Politics and Patronage in the Mulroney Government catalogued the most egregious scandals of the Mulroney government: Tunagate, the sinking of a cabinet minister, Sinclair Stevens, Mila Mulroney’s renovation bills, and the cronies who had the inside track to the PMO. Brian Mulroney was enraged by Hoy’s allegations, though there was nothing he could hang a lawsuit on. Adding insult to injury, Julian, a fellow Tory, had made sure that we were legally safe.I In a later unguarded interview with Peter Newman, Mulroney alleged that he would have appointed Julian chief justice but for that “unfortunate” Hoy book. Luckily, Julian didn’t take that comment seriously.
I remember some of the legal threats we received, and that few of them ever made their way to trial. Saskatchewan politician Colin ThatcherII served notice of legal action over a quickie mass-market book by journalist Heather Bird that suggested he had his wife killed (he was serving time for that offence in an Alberta jail). There were lawsuits by the two men hired by Mr. BuxbaumIII to dispose of his wife (they were in jail for that offence); by the Scientologists over The Bare-Faced Messiah; and by coroner Morton Shulman over allegations in Ken Lefolii’s Claims: Adventures in the Gold Trade. I had a tendency to panic when I saw writs arrive, whereas Julian thought writs were just a way of scaring publishers into cancelling books. They shouldn’t work, and with us, they rarely did. We lost in our bid for an early release of the book about the Buxbaum killers but won against the Scientologists. We backed down when threatened by Morton Shulman because Julian advised we would not have the necessary funds for a prolonged court case.
I approached Vancouver Province columnist Allen Garr to write about British Columbia premier Bill Bennett, “the kind of leader,” Garr wrote, “who makes people feel comfortable about their prejudices.” Tough Guy got national coverage and even Jack Webster congratulated us on the success of the book. Bill Bennett was a great deal less enthusiastic, but at least he didn’t sue.
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I HAD MET Premier Peter Lougheed through Julian’s Conservative Party connections and spent several days, both in Edmonton and in Toronto, trying to persuade him to write a memoir. He was a brilliant politician, a tactician with charm, persuasive, tough, perceptive, and almost always ready to listen to other opinions. He was an attractive combination of modesty and bravado. He had played football with the Edmonton Eskimos, had been to Harvard, and had the debating skills and sharp mind of a business school graduate. He enjoyed the limelight, though not the presence of his minders; he was embarrassed by the adulation of Albertans but missed it when it was no longer there.
Progressive Conservatives had ousted Alberta’s Social Credit, after thirty-six years of uninterrupted rule, in 1971. He had become premier on a wave of Western self-confidence and desire for change. He set up the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund to try to “ensure the prosperity of the future generations of Albertans.”
Contrary to Toronto’s suspicions, Peter was not a Western separatist, but he fought for Alberta’s place at the negotiating table where energy was discussed. “The blue-eyed sheik of Alberta,” as he was called by Southam Press’s Charlie Lynch, did not invent the slogan “Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark,” though I suspect he was amused by seeing it on Albertan bumper stickers. He promoted provincial powers without wishing to destroy the federal system. In that, he was not much different from other premiers I have known. He viewed his tactics as fair in light of the federal grab for Alberta’s resources.
When Robert Stanfield gave up on the leadership of the national Progressive Conservatives, Peter could have seized the opportunity. Despite his lack of French, newspaper surveys declared him to be the clear favourite. After a lot of thinking and discussion with various advisers, including Dalton Camp and Julian, he decided he could not win against Pierre Trudeau. He was probably right about that.
The Lougheed Legacy had started life as Peter Lougheed’s memoir, ghosted by David Wood, but Peter decided that the person who wrote the book should take all the credit. David Wood had earned his stripes not only in media and public relations but also as the older man who had befriended Peter when he was just a young lawyer. Peter had trusted David with his secrets but, in the end, despite its access to the backrooms, the book lacked emotional insights that no amount of cajoling could elicit from David.
When I was working on the manuscript, Peter drove me to the airport a couple of times. I think walking on the red carpet to a movie premiere with the star would have been rather like my experience walking with the premier of Alberta at the Edmonton airport. People shouted, cheered, called his name, and Peter waved and shouted back, as if greeting old friends. Years later, when he was no longer premier, we walked along a Calgary street and I looked at passersby, but now there were few cheers. Though Peter continued to serve on many corporate boards after he left politics, he was no longer the emblem of Alberta’s ambitions.
I. Julian did a great deal to keep us safe and relatively calm during both the M&S and the Key Porter years.
II. Not Above the Law, by Heather Bird.
III. Conspiracy to Murder: The Trial of Helmuth Buxbaum, also by Heather Bird.