In partnership with the Couchiching Institute.
Please join us on Monday, November 24th when Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, Former Prime Minister of Canada, discusses and takes questions from the audience regarding his new prime ministerial memoir, Hell or High Water, My Life in and out of Politics.
Paul Martin was the Prime Minister we never really knew – in this memoir he emerges as a fascinating flesh and blood man, still working hard to make a better world.
Great events and world figures stud this book, which is firm but polite as it sets the record straight, and is full of wry humour and self-deprecating stories. Far from ending with his defeat in 2006, the book deals with his continuing passions, such as the plight of Canada’s aboriginal peoples and the protection of the vital Congo Basin rainforest.
The book also acknowledges Paul Martin as a visionary of G8 reform and a leading mind of global financial architecture. In fact, the policies and concepts he initiated in these areas continue to be acknowledged both as necessary and ahead of their time.
This is an idealistic, interesting book that reveals the Paul Martin we never knew. It’s a pleasure to meet him.
Paul Martin was born in Windsor in 1938 and educated at the University of Ottawa and the University of Toronto. In 1965, he earned his LL.B and married Sheila, with whom he had three sons. After a successful business career as Chairman and CEO of Canada Steamship Lines he entered politics as a Liberal M.P. in 1988. After running for the leadership of the party he became minister of finance from 1993 till 2001, becoming prime minister in 2003. He resigned as party leader after the 2006 election, but continues to work in the public sphere.