KAGAWONG—Steve Paikin is a familiar face to fans of TVO’s award winning current affairs program The Agenda, but he is also an accomplished author of note with several well-received tomes already under his belt. Mr. Paikin will be headlining a July 12 panel discussion upstairs at the Kagawong Park Centre on all things provincial politics while discussing his latest book ‘Bill Davis: Nation Builder, and Not So Bland After All.’
It is a measure of how well regarded is our Mr. Paikin in that his is the only authorized biography of the premier who dominated Ontario politics with a gentle guiding hand for 16 years.
“I will be discussing how difficult it was to get him to say yes,” admitted Mr. Paikin, when queried on what he would be bringing to the table during the Kagawong panel.
Joining Mr. Paikin on the panel as the discussion turns from Mr. Davis to Lester B. Pearson, will be Billings Mayor Austin Hunt, the man of whom Mr. Paikin said “nobody alive knew Lester B. Pearson better.” The panel will be emceed by current Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Mike Mantha.
“When you take it all together, there will be 70 years of experience on provincial-federal politics on the stage,” noted Mr. Paikin. From the 1940s to the 1960s, Mr. Hunt was very involved in working with the province along with Mr. Pearson for the benefit of the riding, Mr. Paikin’s book covers a major portion of the 1970s and 1980s, while Mr. Mantha brings things up to the present moment.
Mr. Davis was a legend in his own time for his deft handling of the helm of Ontario politics, but some suggested that his breaking of the Tory pattern of changing leaders every eight years led to the end of a 40-year hegemony. “I don’t buy it,” said Mr. Paikin. “He would have won that election easily.” The stats tend to bear his confidence out. At the time of his retirement, Mr. Davis held an enviable 50 percent rating in the polls—and polls were a lot more accurate predictors in those days. The NDP’s Bob Rae readily supports Mr. Paikin’s analysis.
The evening promised to be an enlightening sojourn into the world of Ontario politics as seen through some of the most experienced and knowledgeable eyes around.
Mr. Paikin’s book will be available at the discussion panel, but if you can’t make it there, you can always pop down to the Kagawong farmers’ market the same day.
“It is looking like it will be a pretty popular event,” said Old Mill Heritage Centre curator Rick Nelson. “We have already moved it from the downstairs to the upstairs hall in the Park Centre to make more room.”
Mr. Nelson described the event as following “a Johnny Carson format” with Mr. Mantha bringing Mr. Paikin out to talk about his book and Ontario politics past before inviting Mayor Hunt to the stage. Mayor Hunt, in addition to being the oldest serving municipal politician in the country, was former Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson’s point man in the riding and a close personal friend of Canada’s only Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
The panel discussion is part of a historic lecture series being put together by the Old Mill Heritage Centre and the Billings Museum Committee. The July 19 lecture by author Andre Cohen at the Mainstreet Café has already sold out and the two History Day presentations by Lester B. Pearson’s granddaughter Patricia Pearson on August 10—a matinee at 3:30 pm and an evening presentation at 7:30 pm.
