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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2008-01-10, Page 18PAGE 18. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2008.Blyth’s newest author explores local politics As of Nov. 13, 2007, you can add author to North Huron councillor Greg McClinchey’s resumé. McClinchey spent about four years on Stickin’ to his Guns: A through-the-keyhole look at Mr. Paul Daniel Steckle, and now it’s finally ready to hit local shelves. Steckle, five-time Liberal MP in Huron-Bruce has his share of stories, being a Liberal candidate who had some rather controversial and con- servative views, all of which are on display in the book. After spending three years on-and- off researching and writing the book in his spare time and a year to get it published, McClinchey is now see- ing returns on all his hard work. McClinchey says the first ship- ment of books that he distributed individually to local stores and pri- vately, sold before he was even able to order another shipment. So after the first order of 500 books, he ordered a second batch, which also sold very quickly and he was expect- ing a third shipment last week that was spoken for before it arrived to his house. McClinchey says that the book has already done far better than he ini- tially anticipated already, not bad for a rookie experiment. “I did it because I had never done it before. I think that life is about experiences and that you should do things that you’ve never done before to keep it interesting,” he said. McClinchey had been working on the book for about two years before he even told Steckle what he was doing. He wrote much of it inde- pendently of Steckle, then inter- viewed him about his younger years. “I have electronic copies of every- thing I’ve written over the last 14 years, so it was just a matter of going through them and awakening some old memories. When I got through that stage, I began speaking with his family, his wife, his children, his sib- lings and his friends. They all kept the secret,” he said. “When it came to Paul’s childhood and things like that I needed him to fact check.” The book starts at the beginning and brings the reader up to speed with the present, although not always in that order. “The book is arranged in what I call narrative chronicles. Because of the nature of politics and that noth- ing is really linear, I kind of catego- rized it by subject, so each chapter essentially reads like a short story, so you could read them independently of each other, but if you read them all together, they’re part of a bigger picture,” he said. “I wanted this book to be the type of book that a non- reader could read easily. McClinchey thinks that back- benchers are the flavour of politics and so often, he says, they have very unique stories to tell, stories that so often go untold. He said it’s unfortu- nate because Canadians can lose some historical perspective when backbenchers get lost in the shuffle. Steckle is one of the most interest- ing backbenchers of them all. It’s Steckle’s uniqueness and his flavour that will make people want to read the book McClinchey says. “There are situations where a sin- gle member of parliament will do some really spectacular things throughout their career and they don’t get their name in the paper every day or their face on the televi- sion, but they’ve made a real differ- ence and I think it’s good for Canadians to understand the ration-ale behind that,” he said. “There’s the other side of it toowhere backbenchers do some reallycrazy, outlandish things and that’spart of the story too. But as Canadians, we love to hate politi- cians, it’s what we do. I think that if Canadians had an opportunity to know the men and women serving as their elected officials at all levels it helps to breed a different level of understanding, it allows us to under- stand what our leaders are thinking, for better or worse and what drives them.” McClinchey says that some parts of the book will explain why Steckle, who has been accused of conservative views from time to time, is a loyal and successful mem- ber of the Liberal party. “I think that most Canadians would be shocked to see some of the correspondence we get, what kind of material coming in,” he said. “Paul has been under death threat. Most people don’t understand that, even if it is for a short time when a man has to give up his ability to just go to a meeting without having an RCMP guard in the audience. It’s all part of the job, now whether it should be or shouldn’t be isn’t the issue, but it is and those are the things I wanted to draw out.” Shock value, however, isn’t what McClinchey is after. He said he wanted to paint as full a portrait of Steckle as he could, as a man whose personal and public lives are interwoven so closely that it can be hard to tell them apart sometimes.“People always say that you haveto leave work at the office. Well,unfortunately, when you’re an MP, you’re never off duty, you’re always an MP. When Paul and Cathy go to supper on their wedding anniversary, he’s still that MP and people come up to him and they talk, they vent, they voice their support, let him hear their problems. So it’s actually a serious intertwining, it’s a very unique profession, but I wanted to show people that it’s near-impossi- ble to separate the personal from the professional,” he said. “There’s also the human side of it. Many people know that Paul and Cathy have two sons; not many peo- ple know they had a daughter they lost.” In humanizing Steckle and making him accessible for all the readers, McClinchey won iUniverse’s Publisher’s Choice designation. McClinchey got the book published through a company called iUniverse, which offers a “gamble” section where manuscripts can be submitted and judged for a chance to be pub- lished. Stickin’ to his Guns won the honour to be published. McClinchey’s book also received acclaim at Parliament Hill when the Speaker of the House held a release at the House of Commons for the book where Steckle, McClinchey and Paul Martin, who wrote the fore- word, gave speeches. However, while the book hasearned the respect of McClinchey’spolitical peers, he said that writingan accurate portrait of a politicianthat stayed classy wasn’t necessarilywhat the publishers wanted. “Before I found iUniverse, I essen- tially went to four publishers and I found that most of them and one in particular came right out and said that if he was going to publish my book that there had to be five points of smut. He used the word smut,” he said. “That really turned me off. He was just being honest, smut sells, it shouldn’t, but it does.” So how was writing a book for the councillor? He says he wouldn’t rule out doing it again. “It was a lot of fun to write the book, it was certainly nostalgic. It was hard, basically. It was difficult. It was something that didn’t have to take four years, but it’s something that I’d maybe like to do again one day down the road, maybe not on the same topic, but I’d definitely like to try it again,” he said. “I have to say it’s pretty rewarding and a little odd to be holding a book in your hand with your name on the front cover. That’s still sinking in for me.” Stickin’ to his Guns is available at Finchers in Goderich and Kincardine, The Gift Cupboard and The Maple and Moose (when it reopens in the spring) in Blyth and on all major on-line bookstores like Amazon.ca and Chapters.ca By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Stickin’ to his guns North Huron councillor Greg McClinchey, right, released his biography on Huron-Bruce MP Paul Steckle, left, at the House of Commons in Ottawa in December. It chronicles Steckle’s life from childhood to Parliament Hill and every- thing in between. 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