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On the Take: Crime, Greed and Corruption in the Mulroney Years
by author Stevie Cameron, ISBN : 0770427081
General description: When 'On the Take', ISBN : 0770427081, came out in 1994, it made author Stevie Cameron a household name in Canada. Her book's revelations about the rampant corruption and petty greed of Brian Mulroney's decade in the prime minister's office reverberated for many years in the Canadian political landscape and helped destroy his Progressive Conservative Party. (The party, one of Canada's most venerable, never recovered from Mulroney's stewardship and eventually merged with the Canadian Alliance Party.) Cameron, one of the country's leading investigative reporters, was one of the few reporters to consistently question and probe the corruption of the Mulroney years. She has a wonderful ear for storytelling, which helps make On the Take a page-turner. Cameron seems to rejoice in recounting the numerous unseemly episodes of the Mulroney administration and depicting all its seedy characters and hangers-on. Mulroney comes across as having been most comfortable in a powerbroker's backrooms, surrounding himself with dodgy bagmen and devious lobbyists. Cameron suggests that the country was "open for business," with a "for sale" sign on the front lawn. She writes that even in their final official act, as the Mulroneys departed from office in disgrace amid record-low popularity ratings, they tried to stiff taxpayers into buying their used furniture. |
