Mark Bourrie at Eden Mills Festival
Join Mark Bourrie (author of Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre) as he speaks at the Eden Mills Writers Festival on the panel “The Kim Lang Set: True North Unsettled: A Conversation on Democracy.” Mark will be in conversation alongside David A. Robertson, Andrew Coyne, Ariel Sim, and Karin Wells, as well as host Jessica Johnson.
In a nation long mythologized as orderly and fair, what happens when our democratic assumptions and institutions begin to wobble? The cracks have always been there—widening now into fault lines that shape our politics, our laws, and our daily lives. In this conversation, journalists, a legal historian, an Indigenous organizer, and a civic thinker gather to ask how a democracy survives when its story no longer matches its reality. From federal failures to grassroots resistance, from the rights of rivers to the rights of women, they invite us to wrestle with the hardest questions: Whose democracy is it? And who gets to decide?
The conversation will take place at The Meadow on Sunday, September 7 at 1:30PM. More details here.
Grab Ripper here!
Six weeks into the Covid pandemic, New York Times columnist David Brooks identified two types of Western politicians: rippers and weavers. Rippers, whether on the right or the left, see politics as war. They don’t care about the destruction that’s caused as they fight for power. Weavers are their opposite: people who try to fix things, who want to bring people together and try to build consensus. At the beginning of the pandemic, weavers seemed to be winning. Five years later, as Canada heads towards a pivotal election, that’s no longer the case. Across the border, a ripper is remaking the American government. And for the first time in its history, Canada has its own ripper poised to assume power.
Pierre Poilievre has enjoyed most of the advantages of the mainstream Canadian middle class. Yet he’s long been the angriest man on the political stage. In Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre, bestselling author Mark Bourrie, winner of the Charles Taylor Prize, charts Poilievre’s rise through the political system, from teenage volunteer to outspoken Opposition leader known for cutting soundbites and theatrics. Bourrie shows how we arrived at this divisive moment in our history, one in which rippers are poised to capitalize on conflict. He shows how Poilievre and this new style of politics have gained so much ground—and warns of what it will cost us if they succeed.
Mark Bourrie is an Ottawa-based author, lawyer, and journalist. He holds a master’s in journalism from Carleton University and a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa. In 2017, he was awarded a Juris Doctor degree and was called to the bar in 2018. He has won numerous awards for his journalism, including a National Magazine Award, and received the RBC Charles Taylor Prize in 2020 for his book Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson. His most recent books include Big Men Fear Me: The Fast Life and Quick Death of Canada’s Most Powerful Media Mogul, the national bestseller Crosses in the Sky: Jean de Brébeuf and the Destruction of Huronia, and Ripper: The Making of Pierre Poilievre.
