Public Purpose

From 1951 to 1971, Tom Kent was successively Assistant Editor of The Economist; Editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, confidant, adviser, and speechwriter to Opposition Leader Lester B. Pearson; leading light at the Kingston conference of 1960; policy consultant to the Liberal Party of Canada; candidate for Parliament against Tommy Douglas; "Co-ordinator of Progamming" (i.e., right-hand-man) in Pearson's PMO; Deputy Minister under Jean Marchand at Employment and Immigration; and first Deputy Minister, also under Marchand, at the new Department of Regional Economic Expansion. A Public Purpose is an account of Kent's experience as a central figure in the life of one of the most important governments of the last half century, and an agenda for unfinished business, suggesting policies for the present. His views on the events in which he was involved are strong and often unorthodox, but always consistent in their theme that politics should be conducted neither technocratically nor according to imperatives imposed by interest groups and the pork barrel. Instead, he argues, political parties should tell the people what they intend to do when they get into office and, once elected, should do it.