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    Bootstraps Need Boots
    One Tory's Lonely Fight to End Poverty in Canada

    Hugh Segal (Author)

    9780774890465

    Paperback / softback, published 1 June 2020

    216 pages, 29 b&w photos
    22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.32 kg

    Boot Straps Need Boots is a great Canadian memoir of a poignant Canadian experience recognizable to millions. And it is more than that. Segal recalls as a 12-year old the day Prime Minister Diefenbaker spoke to his school assembly. Diefenbaker had a way of mesmerizing schoolchildren. "The family table we call Canada is the finest table in the world," said the Prime Minister. "There is space and food for all." Here Segal comes to the point of Boot Straps, a plain argument for a national guaranteed income program.

    - Holly Doan (Blacklock's Reporter) Segal's book reflects the author's deep understanding of his country. He has travelled widely, especially during his Senate years, talking to hundreds of people who share with him a lived experience of poverty. He lucidly explains the hardwired link between poverty and spiralling health-care costs. Cutting the first will mean dramatic reductions in the latter. - Jamie Swift (The Kingston Whig-Standard)

    For more than four decades, Hugh Segal has been one of the leading voices of progressive conservatism in Canada. A self-described Red Tory warrior who disdains "bootstrap" approaches to poverty, he has worked tirelessly to bring about policies that support the most economically vulnerable in society. Central to his life's work has been the championing of a basic annual income for all Canadians.

    Why would a life-long Tory support something so radical? In this revealing memoir, Segal shares how his life and experiences brought him to this most unlikely of places. He traces a trajectory from his childhood in a poor immigrant family in working-class Montreal to his time as a chief of staff for Prime Minister Mulroney and to his more recent work as an advisor on a basic income for the Ontario Liberal government. Along the way, he has worked across party lines to promote an anti-poverty agenda. This book is a passionate argument not only for why a basic annual income makes economic sense, but for why it is the right thing to do.

    Foreword by Andrew Coyne

    Preface

    1 The Cheery Edge of Poverty

    2 The Missing Toy Box

    3 Happiness, Anger, Religion, and Hockey

    4 A Special Assembly at School

    5 Starting the Political Voyage

    6 Clear Choices Emerge

    7 Policy Linkages and a New Idea

    8 Sinews of Impunity

    9 Learning from the Best

    10 On the Davis Team

    11 From Public to Private and Back

    12 Learning from Mulroney

    13 The Battle in the Senate

    14 Testing a Better Way

    15 Courage and Fairness Matter

    Appendix; Selected Bibliography; Index
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