Bootstraps Need Boots

Hugh Segal, OC, O Ont, is a remarkable Canadian whose multiple vocations have spanned politics, academia, business, and communications for more than four decades. He has served in myriad capacities in provincial, federal, and international politics, including formal roles as chief of staff to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and principal secretary to Premier Bill Davis. Internationally, he was a member of the nine-person Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group that proposed reforms around democracy, rule of law, human rights, gender equity, judicial independence, and modernization to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2011. Hugh Segal has taught at Queen's University's School of Policy Studies for twenty years and has lectured at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He is a distinguished fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Policy Studies, a life-time fellow of the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal,a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Calgary, and a former principal of Massey College.He is also an outspoken political commentator and the author of seven books on public policy and the nature of conservatism in Canada – the most recent being Two Freedoms: Canada's Global Agenda. In 2016 the Ontario government commissioned him to devise a blueprint for a guaranteed annual income pilot project in Ontario. Although shelved by a change in government in the province, it serves as an important model to put poverty reduction into practice.

Boot Straps Need Boots is a great Canadian memoir of a poignant Canadian experience recognizable to millions. And it is more than that. Segal recalls as a 12-year old the day Prime Minister Diefenbaker spoke to his school assembly. Diefenbaker had a way of mesmerizing schoolchildren. "The family table we call Canada is the finest table in the world," said the Prime Minister. "There is space and food for all." Here Segal comes to the point of Boot Straps, a plain argument for a national guaranteed income program.- Holly Doan (Blacklock's Reporter) Segal's book reflects the author's deep understanding of his country. He has travelled widely, especially during his Senate years, talking to hundreds of people who share with him a lived experience of poverty. He lucidly explains the hardwired link between poverty and spiralling health-care costs. Cutting the first will mean dramatic reductions in the latter. - Jamie Swift (The Kingston Whig-Standard)

• Foreword by Andrew CoynePreface1 The Cheery Edge of Poverty2 The Missing Toy Box 3 Happiness, Anger, Religion, and Hockey4 A Special Assembly at School5 Starting the Political Voyage6 Clear Choices Emerge7 Policy Linkages and a New Idea8 Sinews of Impunity9 Learning from the Best10 On the Davis Team11 From Public to Private and Back12 Learning from Mulroney13 The Battle in the Senate14 Testing a Better Way15 Courage and Fairness MatterAppendix; Selected Bibliography; Index