It’s getting to be quite a stack of memoirs by former ministers in Justin Trudeau’s cabinet. Jody Wilson-Raybould, Bill Morneau, and Jane Philpott have contributed to the genre, as has former MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes, who was Trudeau’s parliamentary secretary, and Jocelyn Coulon, who was a close advisor to Stéphane Dion when Dion was foreign minister. And none of them really says working with the Prime Minister and his team was great.
Still, I felt bad about a headline that said Garneau was “settling scores” with Trudeau when he published his new book, A Most Extraordinary Ride: Space, Politics, and the Pursuit of the Canadian Dream. I really don’t think settling scores was his goal.
Sure, he didn’t like having extremely limited access to the PM. And he really didn’t like getting kicked out of the cabinet, immediately after winning a third term he wouldn’t have sought if he had known he wouldn’t be global-affairs minister any more. But he doesn’t particularly dwell on that stuff. He’s had a rich life apart from those disappointments. Indeed, he had already lived quite a life before he became Canada’s first astronaut, 40 years ago. So what he’s produced here is a brisk book that moves purposefully through all of those adventures, adding keen observations and anecdotes.
I used the book very loosely as the basis for our podcast interview. I’ve already written about Garneau’s career, in an ambitious feature I wrote when he retired from Parliament last year. We also crossed paths six months ago, when we both won awards from the Public Policy Forum. Here’s his thoughtful, quietly provocative acceptance speech.
So this week’s episode is by way of catching up with a Canadian whose distinguished record of public service should serve as an example.
This is the second episode of Season 3 of The Paul Wells Show. I’m really pleased that last week’s episode, featuring historian Tim Cook on Canada-US relations during WWII, is drawing a larger audience than it would have drawn last year. This quiet podcast continues to build an audience. Thank you for listening and sharing.
You can listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and a bunch of other platforms via the “Listen On” button that you can see at the top of this post when you view it on your desktop browser. If you listen on a podcast platform, hit “Like” and “Subscribe” buttons, and leave a good review, to help spread the word.
You can read a (machine-generated) transcript of this week’s episode via the "Transcript” button at the top of this page when you view it on your desktop browser.
I am grateful to be the Max Bell Foundation Senior Fellow at McGill University, the principal patron of this podcast. Antica Productions turns these interviews into a podcast every week. Kevin Breit wrote and performed the theme music. Andy Milne plays it on piano at the end of each episode. Thanks to all of them and to you. Please tell your friends to subscribe to The Paul Wells Show on their favourite podcast app, or here on the newsletter.
Marc Garneau on space and politics