True to form, John Manley pulls no punches in discussing his daunting challenge in running for the Liberal leadership.

“There’s no doubt that I’m running on his heels,” Manley, Canada’s deputy prime minister and minister of finance, acknowledges of his underdog role behind the front-running Paul Martin.

Yet the feisty 53-year-old marathon runner, who was named Time Canada’s Newsmaker of the Year for his sterling performance as Canada’s spokesman after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, seems to relish the role of underdog, and is quick to point out that marathons are won with a strong finishing kick.

Manley, sporting a keen sense of humour, an air of confidence, a refreshing candor and some old- fashioned straight talk, recently went toe-to-toe with the Edge during a campaign swing through the Prairies.

He opened the interview by apologizing for having postponed the interview due to a late departure from Toronto, where “I was enjoying the delights of Air Canada’s company.” 1. Can you talk about your boyhood in Ottawa and the influence of your parents?

Photo courtesy John Manley campaign
John Manley acknowledges he’s running on the heels of Paul Martin, but says he is still focused on going the distance and achieving his objective.

“I guess we were a poor family, although I didn’t know we were poor at the time. My dad spent a lot of my youngest years in hospital as a result of coming back from World War II with tuberculosis, so I kind of missed a chunk of his time. But my parents were always very interested in politics. My mother was Conservative and my father was Liberal and, in a typical Irish household, there were always discussions at the dinner table. If you didn’t have a good argument, it wasn’t much of a dinner. Even in disagreeing about politics, they left me with the impression that it was important and people who went into politics were in the public service. That always stuck with me, and politics was one of my great interests of youth. Since neither of my parents went past Grade 8, they very strongly influenced me that education was key and there was never any question about the fact that I would go to university. Unfortunately, they never saw me elected.”

2. What was your boyhood dream and who was your boyhood idol?

“(Laughing) I wanted to play pro hockey, years before I realized I wasn’t any good. I spent most of the winter on the outdoor rink we would make in the backyard and a lot of the rest of the year playing street hockey. Sports were a big part of my life as a kid. My heroes were people like Ron Stewart and Russ Jackson of the (Canadian Football League’s Rough Riders) and hockey players like Jean Beliveau and Bernie Geoffrion (National Hockey League’s Montreal Canadiens).”

3. What do you recall about your first foray into politics?

“I had a wonderful experience at the 1968 Liberal leadership convention when I went as a volunteer with some of my high school classmates. I thought then if I didn’t try politics, it might be something that I’d always regret. It was what you might call the rocking chair test. I didn’t want to be on my rocking chair one day and say: ‘You know, I was interested in that and I wonder what would have happened if I’d tried that.’ ”

4. What’s the greatest lesson politics has taught you?

“Politics is a wonderful learning experience, but I think that one of the things that I have learned is that you have to have confidence in your gut that you’re doing the right thing, because there are a lot of critics. You can be bombarded by criticism and be pushed off course unless you know who you are, what you’re about and what you believe in.”

5. What in your mind makes a great leader?

“You need confidence, you need the ability to listen to people, you need the ability to shrug off criticism and do what you think is right, you need to be able to make decisions and you need to accept that you can’t please everybody all of the time. And if you can do all of those things and still get elected, you should be successful at politics.”

6. Who’s the leader you most admire and respect today in business or politics?

“There are a number of people that I’ve got a lot of respect for. Certainly, Pierre Trudeau was somebody that I had a lot of respect for. In thinking of Alberta, I’m an admirer of Peter Lougheed (former Alberta premier and a Conservative), unashamedly. I think he was one of the provincial premiers who demonstrated a national vision, as did Bill Davis (former Ontario premier). In terms of the people who have really influenced me, and this will surprise you, one of my heroes was William Wilberforce (a British politician in the early 1800s). He led the crusade against the slave trade and was successful. Shortly before he died, he saw the abolition of the slave trade.”

7. What was your single most compelling reason for running for the Liberal leadership?

“It was my conviction that this was the appropriate time for me. Again, in a way, it was the armchair test. I was industry minister for seven years, I’ve been a foreign affairs minister and I’ve now been the finance minister and deputy prime minister. I think that I can do the job. I have confidence that I can do the job. And now is the time for me to offer myself as a candidate. We’ll see what the party chooses.”

8. What’s tougher, running on the heels of Paul Martin or running a marathon race?

“I’ve run four marathons. There are two things about marathons. The first thing is that you should never start too fast, because you need some energy in the end. The other thing is that it’s at least 50 per cent mental. In the four marathons that I’ve run in, I’ve never allowed myself to even contemplate not achieving my objective. So I have the same attitude with this marathon as I did with those marathons.”

9. What personal qualities do you have that may give you an edge over Paul Martin in this race?

“I don’t intend this as a criticism of him, but I’d say that, first of all, I have the experience in cabinet that is varied in dealing both with the economy as well as foreign affairs. That gives me a good base and I also have done a budget, which is an important attribute. I think my life experience is quite different from his and I think it’s not a bad thing to have had an experience (upbringing) that has had its challenges to it. It’s one thing in a campaign to make promises and then you see whether, if you’re elected, you can fulfil them, but the things you never know are the unknown things that are going to be thrown at you. And on 9/11 (the U.S. terrorist attacks), the prime minister turned to me and asked me to take the lead in the response to that. When you do that, you can’t get consultants to tell you what to do. You’ve just got to respond from your gut and I think I demonstrated that I can do that, that I can take a difficult situation and have the right instincts in terms of how to deal with it.”

10. Ralph Goodale says that Paul Martin is “the best candidate to bring Western Canada in as a full partner to Confederation.” What’s your stance on this issue?

“As you know, Ralph supported Paul in the 1990 leadership and I’m not surprised that he’s supporting him. I think that one of the reasons why I’ve had a pretty good response in Western Canada over the years is because I’m known as a person who says what I think, even if people don’t agree with it. And my experience is that Western Canadians respect that and they also operate that way. I think that we have a serious issue here which is the visibility and presence of the federal government in the regions of the country. And we’ve got a challenge to ensure that we are listening to Western Canadians, taking their concerns on board and responding to them in a real way. But at the same time I think that the West, and particularly Alberta, wants to be a positive force in making Canada the kind of country that it can be. And I’m convinced that I could make that work.”

11. If you are elected prime minister, would you regularly visit and consult with Albertans, unlike many of your Liberal predecessors?

“Absolutely, I would. That’s been my practice over the years that I’ve been a minister.”

12. What’s your view of Paul Martin’s controversial decision last month to hand over control of Canada Steamships Lines to his sons?

“I don’t think he needed to do it. I have no concerns about Paul’s personal integrity and I don’t think that he needed to take that decision. I don’t understand exactly why he did it.”

13. Sheila Copps took you very seriously when you suggested that people shouldn’t take her candidacy too seriously. How seriously did you take her response that you have an old boys’ attitude?

“Not too seriously (laughter) . . . I think she was probably happy to have somebody to take a swing at.”

14. How can Canada best mend its rocky relationship with the U.S. to the benefit of Canadian businesses?

“Short-term, I think we’ve got to demonstrate our commitment to the reconstruction in Iraq, the delivery of humanitarian assistance and ongoing support in the war against terrorism, including fulfilling our commitment to sending troops into Afghanistan, which will be a challenging undertaking. Longer term, I think we have to demonstrate our commitment to the defence of North America, and that’s going to mean that we’ve got to make a stronger commitment to defence and to other securities issues.”

15. With Ottawa expected to collect about $29.1 billion from the GST during the fiscal year ended March 31, shouldn’t the government use this for tax relief?

“Well, as you know, we’re still funding tax reductions. We’re not reducing the GST, but we’ve reduced other taxes. I think what we primarily need to do at this point is to ensure that we continue to reduce our debt. We look pretty good compared to other G7 countries, but we still have a debt load that is a bit too high and I would make that currently a higher priority than further tax reductions.”

16. What needs to be done to restore confidence in the Canadian equity markets and encourage investment in Canadian companies?

“There are a number of things we’ve tried to do without being as prescriptive as the United States in the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation (for corporate governance and accounting). The government has played a supportive role with some regulators and with accounting professions in advocating standards of practice and behaviour that will address the confidence issues. We already had laws in place (for corporate fraud) and I think the key thing is that we have to enforce them. One of the reasons I put a chunk of money in the budget was specifically to expand the capability of police forces in investigating and prosecuting corporate fraud.

“A lot of things have weighed down the confidence in the economy, but we never did abolish the business cycle.”

17. It is 2010. You’re the prime minister. What kind of Canada is it?

“It will have implemented a national education agenda that will give us the best standards of education in the world, we will be proud of our Canadian armed forces, we will be pulling our weight in continental security as well as global security and peacekeeping, we will have continued to increase our investments in innovation and research and development, we will have achieved our goal of being fifth in the world in terms of R&D as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) and we’ll be able to say that there will be no child in Canada who doesn’t have access to adequate food, shelter and educational opportunities. How’s that for an agenda?”

18. How would you go about raising education standards?

“Obviously, education is a provincial jurisdiction, but so is health care. In the last three years, we’ve had two federal-provincial health accords, we’ve had a royal commission and we’ve had a Senate study on health. I think we need to put the same degree of emphasis on education. It’s going to mean in part, I hope, building an agenda with the provinces. But, even without the provinces, we need to build a national strategy. The federal government is directly involved in post-secondary education through transfers to the provinces of cash, through contributions to the universities for research and development and support of the students through Canada student loans and millennium scholarships. I think we need to build on our successes in those areas, but the outcome should be that no qualified Canadian student is denied access to post-secondary education because of its costs.”

19. If you had to swap jobs with one person tomorrow, who would it be with?

“Jean Chretien.”

20. Beyond politics, what’s your most important life goal?

“The thing that motivates me is family. I have three children and my wife (Judith) and I just celebrated our 30th anniversary. That’s the rest of my life. That’s what it revolves around. You couldn’t do this without a supportive partner. It would not be possible. It would be a miserable life experience. My wife is supportive and helpful. She has given speeches and done appearances for me. She’s a rock, a very solid person and an anchor in my life.”

IN PROFILE: John Manley
* Born/raised/age: Ottawa, 53.
* Title: Canada’s deputy prime minister, minister of finance.
* Family: Wife Judith, children Becky, David and Sarah.
* Education: Carleton University (Ottawa), Bachelor of Arts; University of Ottawa, Law Degree.
* Vision: To become the next leader of the Liberal party and the next prime minister of Canada. He is running against former minister of finance Paul Martin and Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, and launched his
campaign on April 10.
* Career: Manley began his career as law clerk for Bora Laskin, chief justice of Canada (1976-77) and then
practised as a tax lawyer with an Ottawa firm before launching his political career in 1988 when first elected as the member of Parliament for Ottawa South. He was
re-elected in 1993, 1997 and 2000. Prior to becoming deputy prime minister and minister of finance, he has been minister of industry, minister of foreign affairs, chair of the cabinet committee on public security and anti-terrorism, minister responsible for infrastructure and political minister for Ontario.
* Accolades: Manley was recognized as Time Canada magazine’s Newsmaker of the Year for his response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
* Passions: Marathon running, sailing.
* Website: www.johnmanley.ca