A classmate of mine once asked our political science professor whether she thought good people got into politics. “They may enter into politics,” he replied, “but good people often don’t stay there.” Echoing most Canadian’s perceptions of their parliamentarians, our professor then explained how politics is for a cutthroat few well trained in the arts of deception, compromise and patronage.

Or maybe not. In his new book, The Life: The Seductive Call of Politics, veteran TVO journalist Steve Paikin challenges this notion by letting some of Canada’s best-known politicians—Kim Campbell, Bob Rae and even Brian Mulroney—tell their stories in a series of candid one-on-one interviews.

“Media doesn’t cover the complete story; 90 per cent of what these people do is not covered,” notes Paikin.

Filed into that hidden 90 per cent is the question of why people get into, and stay in, politics. Some like the thrill—the notion that “the whole government could collapse if I made a mistake”— while others, like the Alliance’s Deborah Grey, come upon it quite by accident. Grey maintains she never wanted to run for office, let alone become a politician, prior to 1988 when she won her riding.

Paikin finds commonality in politicians’ desires to “improve people’s lives,” and the sacrifices made to help constituents, with many politicians saying they have been estranged from family and friends due to professional demands and the distance between Ottawa and their home riding. The book also works to dispel the image of the power-hungry politician, saying, “All of the influence that [backbenchers are supposed to have in influencing government policy] is a joke.”

Although Paikin is sympathetic to their plight, he refrains from being overly so. Inasmuch as this book strives to get away from media sensationalism, it isn’t void of controversial stories. Accounts of phone tapping, intimidation and internal conflict give some insight into just how vicious and underhanded politics can be, providing a striking contrast between the reality of “the life” and the notion of making the world a better place.

This paradigm, which keeps surfacing throughout the book, challenges the reader to draw their own conclusions about what they think of politicians. The reader gets to know these public figures in a deeper way than he/she would by watching question period or seeing clips from a media scrum on the nightly news.