An interesting young man has written an interesting book about an interesting time in Canadian politics.
Brandon Holden, son of Michelle and Trevor is studying Education at Red Deer Polytechnic. He also just self-published his first book called 47 Days: The Election That Changed Canada.
This book details the 1993 federal election.
This was a tumultuous time in federal politics. There was the resignation of Brian Mulroney in the wake of the NAFTA debate and the controversial implementation of the GST, Kim Campbell’s brief leadership, alienation of Quebec and the West, culminating with the rise of Lucien Bouchard and Preston Manning, respectively, and ultimately the installation of the Jean Chretien Liberal party.
“I have always liked history of course and beyond that, when you look at a lot of Canadian history books, while they are incredibly well written by very intelligent people, they are not necessarily targeted to the general public,” explains Holden. “I thought I would want to write a book on Canadian history that people would want to read. I poked around, andTthe 1993 federal election does not have a lot of coverage on it, let alone anything written like a novel. I thought there was an interesting story there that people could be interested in.”
He found many of the issues, such as separation, and Western alienation, are still major issues in federal politics.
“It was a very transformative time for Canada. and I think today we are still feeling a lot of the ramifications of what happened in 1993,” he said. “I think what was most interesting when you look at Preston Manning and Lucien Bouchard, what I noticed in the research is while they are from very different backgrounds and very different regions of the country, there are a lot of similarities in their resentment towards the federal government. In a lot of ways, the anger that the Bloc Quebecois had in the 1990s was very much a parallel of the Reform Party.”
He has been busy with studying, working and writing, but managed to finish the book quickly.
“From start to finish, it took me about five months to write, but two of those were purely research,” Holden tells the Mail.
The book was released in August of this year. It is available locally at Riverside Value Drug Mart. Holden says it is available on Amazon as Kindle or paperback.
“It is getting very good reception. For a brief moment, it was the number one bestseller under the political category on Amazon, so that was exciting, but I have still to get a phone call from Jean Chretien or Preston Manning saying they have read the book.”

Wheatland County council provided its support in regards to a request from a group of residents from the community of Redland to establish potable water connections to the Wheatland Regional Corporation (WRC) regional waterline for individual residents during the regular Tuesday, September 5 council meeting.
Council also directed administration to communicate this support with WRC, which is the organization in charge of the regional waterline.
WRC was formed in 2016 when the villages of Hussar, Rockyford, and Standard, as well as the surrounding municipality of Wheatland County created its regional partnership, originally called the Wheatland Regional Water Partnership, to investigate brining potable water supply to the three village municipalities, as well as the hamlets of Gleichen and Rosebud.
Since then, the project has seen an agreement with the Western Irrigation District (WID) to supply water, upgrades to the raw water pipes and treatment plant in Standard, and connection to the village of Rockyford and hamlets of Rosebud and Gleichen.
Construction of Phase 3 of the project, which supplied water to Rosebud, saw the waterline built through the boundary of Redland by December 2020. After completion of this phase of the project, the Village of Hussar made the decision to withdraw from the WRC board, citing an unforeseeable need for regional water in the community; however, this decision has since been retracted.
Despite the proximity of the regional line to the community, residents were not connected and a public engagement was held in October 2022 to outline potential costs for residents. The total project cost to the connect the community to the water line was estimated at some $477,301, which would be paid through a Local Improvement Tax on 10 property parcels which would benefit from connection over a 20 year period; this figure did not include an estimated $30,000 for each resident to connect individually to the line.
However, residents were concerned over the costs of individual connection.
Both the county and WRC have received communications from several Redland residents inquiring about installation of the potable water service to serve a total of six properties.
Council directed administration to communicate with WRC, including in regards to any future servicing plans for the area, and to inform WRC of the county’s support for individual residents in Redland to connect to the water service.