A Public PurposeA Public Purpose
An Experience of Liberal Opposition and Canadian Government
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eBook, 1988
Current format, eBook, 1988, , All copies in use.eBook, 1988
Current format, eBook, 1988, , All copies in use. Offered in 0 more formatsIn the clear, vigorous, and candid prose that is his trade mark, Kent recalls his role in the crises and triumphs of the Pearson government: the "Sixty Days of Decision," Walter Gordon's first budget, the flag debate, Medicare, the elventh-hour negotiations with Jean Lesage that averted a constitutional rupture over the Canada Pension Plan, and, after 1965, Pearson's increasing exhaustion and disenchantment. From the Pearson years, the book moves to the Trudeau impact on Ottawa, the regional development program, and the disagreement on economic policy that led Kent to leave Ottawa in 1971.
From 1951 to 1971, Tom Kent was successively Assistant Editor of The Economist; Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, confidant, adviser, and speechwriter to Opposition Leader Lester B. Pearson; leading light at the Kingston conference of 1960; policy consultant to the Liberal Party of Canada; candidate for Parliament against Tommy Douglas; "Co-ordinator of Progamming" (i.e., right-hand-man) in Pearson's PMO; Deputy Minister under Jean Marchand at Employment and Immigration; and first Deputy Minister, also under Marchand, at the new Department of Regional Economic Expansion. A Public Purpose is an account of Kent's experience as a central figure in the life of one of the most important governments of the last half century, and an agenda for unfinished business, suggesting policies for the present. His views on the events in which he was involved are strong and often unorthodox, but always consistent in their theme that politics should be conducted neither technocratically nor according to imperatives imposed by interest groups and the pork barrel. Instead, he argues, political parties should tell the people what they intend to do when they get into office and, once elected, should do it.
From 1951 to 1971, Tom Kent was successively Assistant Editor of The Economist; Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, confidant, adviser, and speechwriter to Opposition Leader Lester B. Pearson; leading light at the Kingston conference of 1960; policy consultant to the Liberal Party of Canada; candidate for Parliament against Tommy Douglas; "Co-ordinator of Progamming" (i.e., right-hand-man) in Pearson's PMO; Deputy Minister under Jean Marchand at Employment and Immigration; and first Deputy Minister, also under Marchand, at the new Department of Regional Economic Expansion. A Public Purpose is an account of Kent's experience as a central figure in the life of one of the most important governments of the last half century, and an agenda for unfinished business, suggesting policies for the present. His views on the events in which he was involved are strong and often unorthodox, but always consistent in their theme that politics should be conducted neither technocratically nor according to imperatives imposed by interest groups and the pork barrel. Instead, he argues, political parties should tell the people what they intend to do when they get into office and, once elected, should do it.
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- Kingston [Ont.] : McGill-Queen's University Press, Ă1988.
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