Ebook: Public Purpose

In the clear, vigorous, and candid prose that is his trade mark, Kent recalls his role in the crises and triumphs of the Pearson government: the "Sixty Days of Decision," Walter Gordon's first budget, the flag debate, Medicare, the elventh-hour negotiations with Jean Lesage that averted a constitutional rupture over the Canada Pension Plan, and, after 1965, Pearson's increasing exhaustion and disenchantment. From the Pearson years, the book moves to the Trudeau impact on Ottawa, the regional development program, and the disagreement on economic policy that led Kent to leave Ottawa in 1971.