Your last minute Christmas book guide for the political nerds on your list...

It's not too late to buy from some of the great authors you've heard from this year.

Yes, I’m a political nerd and if you are reading this newsletter on a regular basis then you likely are too. One of the great things about my jobs is that I get to meet and chat with interesting people across a wide range of areas and topics.

This is especially true hosting the Full Comment Podcast where I regularly will interview authors of political books.

If you are struggling for a last minute gift for someone on your list who likes politics, or you just want something good to read yourself, then here are some suggestions from authors I’ve spoken with this past year. Yes, each of the recommendations comes with an Amazon link and if you buy from there, I get a small - and it really is small, about 4% - but you should know.

You can also find many of these books at your local bookshop, but if not, they can normally be delivered quite quickly.

Breaking Point: The New Big Shifts Putting Canada at Risk

This book from Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson came out at the end of October and examines the forces rehsaping Canadian politics. It includes material up to and through the most recent federal election - the one that a year ago most people thought the Conservatives would win.

Darrell is the CEO of Ipsos Global Public Affairs and in charge of polling for much of the world at the world’s largest polling firm. Some folks don’t like polling these days, I say it’s all in how you read them and Darrell is one of the guys who taught me how to read a poll so well that I predicts Brexit would happen and Trump would win in 2016 based on public polls.

He’s been writing with John Ibbitson, a longtime columnist for the Globe and Mail who has now retired from full-time writing but still works on books. They produced The Big Shift and the global best seller Empty Planet together, so they are a smart pair and worth listening to.

I chatted with them on video for the Toronto Sun in October.

For Canadian political nerds, Breaking Point is one you will want to read.

Freedom Fighter: John Diefenbaker’s Battle for Canadian Liberties and Independence

Ask most Canadians about John Diefenbaker and the first thing they will probably mention is the Avro Arrow. That’s a shame because as author Bob Plamondon details in his book, there is much more to Dief the Chief than that.

What most people don’t realize, because most of the media are Liberal shills, is that before there was Trudeaumania there was Diefenbaker, the prairie populist was packing halls and arenas long before Trudeau.

Plamondon also details how he advanced the causes of freedom and liberty for all, not by what we now call virtue signalling, but by changing laws and regulations. He brought in the Bill of Rights, expanded citizenship, gave meaningful reforms for Indigenous Canadians, appointed the first woman to cabinet in Ellen Fairclough, appointed the first Indigenous senator in James Gladstone and had Douglas Jung, a PC MP Chinese descent represent Canada at the United Nations at a time when that was considered shocking.

Dief just looked at merit and skill and wanted everyone treated the same.

Bob Plamondon is a well established author and an activist in the Conservative movement in Canada who tells it like it is, rather than how Liberals wish it was, you will like this book.

Here’s our chat on Full Comment.

Corrupted by Fear: How the Charter was betrayed, and what Canadians can do about it

I’d really rather forget about the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a dark time, but there are lessons to be learned and that is what John Carpay deals with in his book. Carpay is a lawyer and the founder of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.

In Corrupted by Fear, John looks at how Charter violations over lockdown, mandates and more went unchecked by our courts. It was a depressing time when cases that in normal times would have seen government overreach struck down by the courts instead saw the actions in question upheld.

If citizens, and their courts are so ready and willing to overlook rights violations during the pandemic, what does that tell us about what to expect the next time the government declares an emergency.

Here’s our chat on Full Comment.

Get John’s book.

Anatomy of a Cover-Up: The Truth about the RCMP and the Nova Scotia Massacres

Paul Palango’s book Anatomy of a Cover-Up on the Nova Scotia Massacre is a Canadian best seller despite getting little mainstream media attention. He points to evidence ignored by others, points to problems in the official police story and tells a fuller story about those horrific events than the government wants you to know about.

Is it the true story? That’s tough to say, but I think Paul’s story is much closer to the truth than what the government wants you to know about.

Remember, this was the mass casualty event that Justin Trudeau justified to bring in his gun ban and still not completed, or even started, gun buy-back program. The police and government response to what happened in Nova Scotia in April 2020 was all politics all the time and had very little to do with the truth or public safety.

Paul Palango, is an old-school journalist who follows the facts. It doesn’t hurt that he’s from Hamilton like so many great media people. In Hamilton, you learn quickly not to trust the official story and to look around.

That’s what Paul does in Anatomy of a Cover-Up. Here is our chat on Full Comment.

Sir John A. Macdonald: & The Apocalyptic Year 1885

This one is reaching back a bit because I interviewed the author Patrice Dutil for an episode that ran just before Christmas last year. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth reading and taking a look at Sir John A. Macdonald: & The Apocalyptic Year 1885.

Patrice, one of Canada’s foremost historians in my view, lays out a realistic view of Macdonald that we don’t see in the media today. For fans of Sir Joh A., this is a book you will want to add to the collection.

Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America

One of the fascinating things about interviewing the author of Buckley, Sam Tanenhaus, was finding out that for several years we intersected without knowing each other. He was a visiting professor at the University of Toronto and was teaching where I walk my dog on a near daily basis.

That is thankfully not the most interesting thing in his book on one of the most important thinkers in the American conservative movement in the last century.

Buckley was the founder of National Review in 1955 shortly after his breakout book God and Man at Yale. It was Buckley who helped give the world Ronald Reagan, it was Buckley argues Tanenhaus that set the stage for the Trump world we see today.