Richard Gwyn and John A. Macdonald

John A. Macdonald: Born in Scotland, Macdonald emigrated as a boy with his family to Kingston, Ont. where he was educated and built a legal practice before beginning political life in the 1840s. A rigorous thinker, bon vivant , political survivor, a man of culture, sometimes a problem drinker and always a wily adversary, Macdonald extraordinary life has been well chronicled by able biographers including the late Donald Creighton and the Toronto Star own Richard Gwyn. Canada Transformed , however, is the first attempt to gather a comprehensive selection of Macdonald public political utterances in a single volume, according to The Star. Sources of the oratory include accounts published in colonial newspapers as recounted by journalists and the sometimes sketchy legislative and parliamentary transcriptions of Macdonald era. The newspaper business flourished in Macdonald time, but technology did not allow for verbatim recording. Macdonald voice on these pages is reconstructed and no doubt shaped to some extent by the memories, attitudes and deadline haste of nineteenth-century political reporters. Parliamentary debates were not officially transcribed until 1875, almost a decade after confederation. The editors usefully provide a concise introduction and helpful footnotes that provide context while maintaining a readable tone and pace for a general, rather than strictly scholarly, readership and January 10, 2015 will mark the 200th anniversary of John A. Macdonald birth. So begins a year of commemoration and celebration of Canada first Prime Minister. It a suitable preliminary to the 2017 sesquicentennial of the Canadian state Macdonald helped form. Editors historian Sarah Katherine Gibson and journalist/political speech writer Arthur Milnes have assembled a useful compendium ranging in chronology from the beginnings of Macdonald political career to his final words in Parliament spoken just weeks prior to his death in 1891. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.