Over the last three days, I’ve had the incredibly surreal experience of having to write history. Like, literally.
There’s a book coming out in a couple of months on how different Canadian prime ministers have managed their cabinets; I helped co-author the final chapter. Academic publishing timelines being what they are, we’ve had ample time to rewrite and revise since the editors started this project in 2022, but every time we did, events (dear boy) rushed in to make the new copy instantly out of date.
And then there was December 2024.
And THEN there was January 2025.
I come at this from the privileged position of still having two living parents, so maybe this analogy is stupid, but rewriting this final chapter one last time — now that it definitively is the final chapter in this prime minister’s political life — felt a bit like being a pall bearer. Something is gone, now. All you can do is be thoughtful about how it happened, and what it meant.
I’m a fast writer when I want to be (and when I have to be). I took my time with this one. Pored over the cabinet lists to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Dutifully added in a million citations (the editors will hate that but new habits die hard). Ignored my inbox, mostly. Went for unironic walks in the snow to clear my head.
History is not bunk — a quote attributed to Henry Ford that I first heard when kids in my high school gave our favourite history teacher a briefcase with this quote scrawled on the inside — but neither is it easy, at least not in the moment.
I’m glad I could help write this final chapter. Someone else can write the next one.
Jeni Armstrong 