Leadership to Save Canada

About the Book

Leadership to Save Canada tells why Paul Martin is ill-equipped to become Prime Minister of Canada in light of his record as a Chrétien cabinet minister and evidence now emerging that he lacks appropriate strategic policy priorities. This book further contends that the government of Canada and its institutions, as now constituted, are increasingly dysfunctional and unable to provide the leadership we require to respond to twenty-first century change. Our government system has failed and the myopic and corrupt partisanship now practiced will diminish future Canadian quality of life. In the modern security and health-threat environment, government incompetence will be a threat to life itself.

Canada's faltering economic productivity and the lack of government focus on productivity as a strategic imperative is portrayed as being the key failure in achieving the levels of economic success required to restore our health care, education, military forces and other areas to levels of satisfactory performance. The recommendations which have been put forward by politicians and political scientists for an elected Senate and improved representativeness in the House of Commons are portrayed as changes which should have been achieved a century ago and are completely inadequate by themselves as a response to twenty first century change.

The challenge of twenty first century change is extensively described in the book. The book recommends a comprehensive program of institutional reform to change the Canadian Senate to a Senior Leadership Council. This Council will have the power to dismiss senior government officials including the Prime Minister. The Council will also be available to give mature and competent advice to all government departments and agencies, whether they be federal, provincial or municipal.

Paul Martin has embraced the need to change the way the Canadian federal government does things, but until he demonstrates an improved capability to seize and implement effective strategic priorities to get Canada producing up to its capability, his ability to achieve useful change will be very limited because of lack of resources. Under these conditions, Canada's ability to achieve reasonable objectives under Martin will be only marginally better than the completely unsatisfactory results realized under Chrétien.

About the Author

Howard Shaver grew up in Moulinette, a small village west of Cornwall, Ontario which was subjected to ultimate change when it was flooded by the St. Lawrence Seaway. He had earlier planned an escape, attending Queen's University at Kingston for a Bachelor of Arts degree and joining the Royal Canadian Air Force in Aeronautical Engineering. He had the additional good fortune of obtaining a degree in Electrical Engineering at the United States Air Force Institute of Technology - just down the road a bit from Orville and Wilbur Wright's bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. After attaining the rank of Major in the Air Force, he joined the Federal Department of Industry from which he had a spectacular view of various Ministers, including Jean Chrétien, trying to deal with the growing demands of economic competitiveness. The great pastime in the Department of Industry was reorganization and changing names to hide the lack of grip the Ministers and their advisers had on an appropriate strategy for economic development priorities. Shaver resolved that when he retired he would try to develop some ideas about the requirements of government leadership and an appropriate government leadership and development strategy for Canada. The book Leadership to Save Canada is the result of his efforts. He is married and has three adorable grand-daughters. He is grateful for his two daughters, the grand-daughters' mothers, and his son whose contribution to the book was drawing the author's attention to his main metaphor - the sun going down on Canadian leadership and Canadian excellence.