An interesting young man has written an interesting book about an interesting time in Canadian politics.
Brandon Holden, son of Michelle and Trevor is studying Education at Red Deer Polytechnic. He also just self-published his first book called 47 Days: The Election That Changed Canada.
This book details the 1993 federal election.
This was a tumultuous time in federal politics. There was the resignation of Brian Mulroney in the wake of the NAFTA debate and the controversial implementation of the GST, Kim Campbell’s brief leadership, alienation of Quebec and the West, culminating with the rise of Lucien Bouchard and Preston Manning, respectively, and ultimately the installation of the Jean Chretien Liberal party.
“I have always liked history of course and beyond that, when you look at a lot of Canadian history books, while they are incredibly well written by very intelligent people, they are not necessarily targeted to the general public,” explains Holden. “I thought I would want to write a book on Canadian history that people would want to read. I poked around, andTthe 1993 federal election does not have a lot of coverage on it, let alone anything written like a novel. I thought there was an interesting story there that people could be interested in.”
He found many of the issues, such as separation, and Western alienation, are still major issues in federal politics.
“It was a very transformative time for Canada. and I think today we are still feeling a lot of the ramifications of what happened in 1993,” he said. “I think what was most interesting when you look at Preston Manning and Lucien Bouchard, what I noticed in the research is while they are from very different backgrounds and very different regions of the country, there are a lot of similarities in their resentment towards the federal government. In a lot of ways, the anger that the Bloc Quebecois had in the 1990s was very much a parallel of the Reform Party.”
He has been busy with studying, working and writing, but managed to finish the book quickly.
“From start to finish, it took me about five months to write, but two of those were purely research,” Holden tells the Mail.
The book was released in August of this year. It is available locally at Riverside Value Drug Mart. Holden says it is available on Amazon as Kindle or paperback.
“It is getting very good reception. For a brief moment, it was the number one bestseller under the political category on Amazon, so that was exciting, but I have still to get a phone call from Jean Chretien or Preston Manning saying they have read the book.”
