One of Canada's most powerful political figures, Senator Pat Carney, now reflects upon the events closest to her over the years-providing us with fascinating and revealing insights into her life and the history she helped shape. Senator Pat Carney - journalist, businesswoman and politician - is one of Canada's most innovative and adventurous personalities. From her birth in Shanghai, China, in 1935, she details her personal and professional life. We learn how she came to Canada with her parents in 1939, and how she grew up on an "animal farm" in the Kootenays with the desire to be a rancher. As she charts the progress of her varied career, Carney provides us with an inside look at the world of newspapers, business and politics, and the many fascinating people she has known over the years. She chronicles the rowdy world of journalists in Vancouver in the '60s. She describes how she established her successful economic consulting firm in Yellowknife, and reveals her love and concern for the north. Many readers will be surprised to learn of her initial uncertainty about running as a Progressive Conservative candidate. She writes passionately about the hazards of being both a politician and a mother. We learn of her mixed feelings regarding the Free Trade Agreement, which she helped to negotiate. And we go behind the scenes to see the inner workings of political life in Ottawa. Carney writes candidly about her closeknit family and her heretofore unrevealed ability to talk to animals. She writes as a Canadian with deep Irish roots, who wants a strong Canada for all. This very personal history is written with Carney's trademark wit and honesty.(2000)

Pat Carney studied economics at the University of British Columbia before becoming a business columnist for the Vancouver Sun and the Province. In 1970, she moved to Yellowknife, where she ran her own consulting firm on northern socio-economic issues. Ten years later she was elected to Parliament. She was called to the Senate in 1990. She has a master’s degree in regional planning and has, for ten years, been an adjunct professor, teaching graduate students in the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. She holds honourary degrees from UBC and BC Open Learning University. Pat Carney has a son, John Dickson, and a daughter, Jane Reid. She lives on Saturna Island, British Columbia, with her husband Paul White and their cat Minou.

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