Scores of people lined up to shake a former Prime Minister’s hand, as Paul Martin stopped by Toronto on Tuesday, Oct. 28, to promote his new memoir, Hell or High Water: My Life In and Out of Politics. Martin was interviewed by Indigo CEO Heather Reisman at the Bay and Bloor bookstore.
Martin spoke on a range of subjects, but the global financial crisis dominated the talk due to Martin’s days as a deficit-slaying finance minister.
“[They’ve] got the right idea—you need to stabilize the credit markets,” Martin said, expressing support for bailout plans in the U.S. and the U.K. He warned of dire consequences if the federal government runs a deficit.
“If you a run a deficit, your children pay for it. If they don’t, your grandchildren do.”
The former PM took several shots at Stephen Harper, who won a minority government in an October election of questionable legality.
Martin became emotional as he recounted a story of visiting a reservation and offering his condolences to a girl who had lost a brother to suicide, to which she replied that she wasn’t sorry. Dumbstruck, Martin asked another reserve resident what she had meant, and learned that it was the third time a brother of hers had killed himself. Harper’s government, Martin said, has turned its back on Aboriginal issues.
When an audience member asked how Martin thinks Harper would get along with Senator Obama should he be elected the American president, he laughed and said, “Boy, would I like to tee off on that one.” He then stressed the need for international cooperation.
Reisman wanted to know how Martin reconciled his support for same-sex marriage with his Catholic faith. Martin spoke of the teenage daughter of a close friend who became inexplicably depressed and suicidal. Upon meeting a female partner and her family’s acceptance of the relationship, the girl recovered and went on to obtain a PhD and move out West with her partner. “We cannot tell people that we’re going to put them in a corner and not understand where they’re coming from,” Martin said.
