The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa

On the whole this book by Eddie Goldenberg (Senior Advisor to Jean Chretien) was fairly bland and contained fewer surprising insights into how government works than I expected. There's also little in the way of the political gossip or drama that can liven up a dry read, and Goldenberg is so devoted to Chretien that he has almost nothing critical to say about the PM. It was interesting to see a view of Stephane Dion written before the Liberal leadership race of a couple of years ago. Dion comes across as an enormously respected, principled, and successful advocate of Canadian unity, with the ear of Chretien and a major role in how the Federal government dealt with Quebec--definitely a different picture than I gathered over the past several months from newspaper accounts.