Best known as the host of TVO’s flagship current affairs program, Steve Paikin comes to Haliburton County June 12 to talk about the book he wrote about a Canadian prime minister who served for only 79 days.
Paikin’s The Man Behind the Myth is about John Turner, who held Canada’s top political job for a spell in 1984.
Asked what he plans to share with attendees at the Telling Our Stories Speaker Series at the Pinestone next week, Paikin said, “I think it will be overwhelmingly about the man himself. Let’s face it, unless you’re 65 years old and over, you don’t know who John Turner was. There’s an increasingly diminishing number of people in the country who know his story; which is one of the reasons I wanted to write it.”
Paikin hosts The Agenda with Steve Paikin and co-hosts the weekly provincial affairs #onpoli podcast and contributes columns to tvo.org. For this project, he delved into Turner’s life, exploring his commitment to Canada and his impact. The book highlights Turner’s accomplishments, including his service as minister of consumer and corporate affairs, minister of justice, and minister of finance. Paikin also reveals personal anecdotes about Turner, such as his rescue of former prime minister John Diefenbaker from drowning, and his advice to his wife during the October Crisis.
He also explores Turner’s personal life.
“He’s really one of the most fascinating case studies in Canadian political history. He’s a guy who came into public life very young. People were predicting big things for him. He had this meteoric rise to finance minister. Then, he resigned and went away for a decade.
“When he made his comeback, there were older partisan Liberals who remembered who he was, but when you go away for a decade, there is a whole generation of people who don’t know anything about you. His comeback did not go well.” He got “thrashed” twice by Brian Mulroney. Paikin said younger people “don’t know the earlier story and they don’t know the later story. He had a great third act in public life.”
He said he wanted to write the book because Turner had three very distinctive chapters in public life people would not know about. He said in his opinion, becoming prime minister was not in the top five accomplishments of Turners’ life. He said the story is “all the other stuff he did” on the way to becoming prime minister, and after.
Paikin had a personal relationship with Turner. He was a cub reporter in 1984 when Turner won the Liberal leadership. He got to know him over the years. Their birthdays are two days apart, and they used to go out for lunch to celebrate. One of his sons lived across the road from Paikin. “We had a very nice rapport.”
After Turner died, a couple of people who worked with Turner approached Paikin about writing a book “about Turner the guy.” He was given access to the family and Turner’s private papers.
The book’s been out a couple of years. As Paikin promotes it, he believes he is educating people about who Turner was. He’s been told, ‘more people need to know this guy’s story’.
“I just love that.”
The event is Thursday, June 12, 7-9 p.m. at the Pinestone. $15. Go to tellingourstories. company.site/
