Coppin’ a plea: Sheila unleashed!

The Christmas book selling season officially got underway on Friday, as “leaks” about Sheila Copps upcoming tome made the rounds of Ottawa. With a few excerpts giving us a glimpse of what is to come in Worth Fighting For, we are left to believe that this will be a bare knuckles memoir, guaranteed to further isolate the once mighty Liberal cabinet minister from the current crew on the Hill.

The Liberal troops in Ottawa rallied around the Prime Minister on Friday, suggesting that Ms. Copps memory may be a tad faulty, in her remembrances of times in cabinet. Accusations that back in 1995, while he was Finance Minister, Paul Martin wanted to eliminate Old age pensions, get rid of the CBC and scrap our much cherished Medicare law were all treated with scorn by Liberal after Liberal on Friday.

To have Sheila tell it, only her concerns voiced to Prime Minister Chretien, saved the country from the destruction of our medical system. A suggestion that the Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan dismissed out of hand, handling the point on the attacks on the Prime Minister McLellan told the Commons that the only thing the Prime Minister has planned for the Health Act is to reinforce it on behalf of all Canadians.

She also fans the fire of Canada’s decision not to become involved in the current Iraqi situation, claiming that Martin would have had Canadian troops on the ground had he been Prime Minister one year earlier. It’s a charge she comes up with based purely on the company he keeps. In Sheila’s world, the fact that many of Martin’s leadership team were more pro American than she and other Liberals, somehow translates into a whole hearted desire to commit troops to Iraq. Apparently Martin’s placement of David Pratt as Defence Minister prior to the last election was a sign of our militaristic nature. One might call this a bit of a stretch. To somehow divine his long term plan from the appointments he made seems to be a rather special talent available only to Ms. Copps.

To confirm her bona fides as a “true Liberal”, Sheila enlists the aid of Jean Chrétien in her forward; Chrétien takes what many perceive to be a veiled jab at his successor, when he describes Ms. Copps as hard working and Loyal! However in true vacillating fashion we are treated to an immediate cautionary note from the Chrétien forces. An aide to the former Prime Minister claims that he was only providing the foreword as a favour to his loyal minister, adding that he hadn’t actually read the book when he did the foreword; we aren’t to read anything into his words. This makes for a bizarre situation that once again shows that even in retirement, some Liberals never seem to want to be responsible for their words or deeds.

Copps who lost her seat in a bitter nomination battle with Tony Valeri in Hamilton denies that she in any way is engaged in a revenge festival, claiming that if that had been the case she would have published her book before the election last May. But then one suspects that the best bitterness is that which ferments for a while.

She saves some of her most determined vitriol for the process that eventually forced her from her place in the party, suggesting that the Liberal party of today under Martin is conducting organized fraud from the top down, engaged in a number of dirty tricks. This from a woman who proudly declared her allegiance to a group of renegade Liberals known as the Rat pack!

She also slyly warns the Prime Minister that he may not be finished with her just yet, claiming that you never know she may make a third run for the party leadership! With these claims she firmly exhibits a delusion of grandeur if ever there was one. Seemingly lost in her place in Liberal history, she just can’t accept that her time may have come and truly gone. Having levelled her guns at many of the current Liberal members one wonders exactly where she plans on picking up any kind of ground swell of support.

What her efforts will do however; will further create division in a party that is suddenly thrust back into the backroom days of the Chrétien slow march to retirement. Complete with old rivalries, old scars and more uncertainty. This should make for an interesting situation for a government that is hanging onto its parliamentary life one vote at a time. The Liberal caucus room will be a cauldron of suspicion in the short term, any wagers on how many folks bring the book into the caucus room? You can bet that Conservatives will however, be checking the book out of the Parliamentary library, making their checklist of wavering Martinites, ready to pounce on a daily basis at any sign of discord with the boss.


Copps claims that her book is nothing more than her “telling truths, her truths!” Truths that apparently come will little or no back up documentation. As far as any form of corroborating evidence goes, Sheila claims she kept no papers, no recordings, nor notes, it’s all from her head and her soul. We are told we should trust her as she will swear on her father’s grave, that these are her simple truths.

And here is where the dilemma for booksellers will begin, with no backing evidence, no paper trail and a bit of an axe to grind with the Martin Liberals, one wonders where will your local book store place this epic purging of a tortured soul.

Will it be Fiction, Biography, Fantasy, Humour or True Crime Stories? Time and the sales count will be the final determining factor as to the fate of Sheila! Is she a crusading beacon for change or just a bitter and jaded politician who had a lengthy run at the trough and now is unable to let go.

One assumes the verdict will be issued by the amount of time it takes to go between the best seller list and remainder bins. Indeed we could also say that her political future is composed of very much those same parameters.