2005 Donald Smiley Prize

Winner: A.W. Johnson

Dream No Little Dreams: A Biography of the Douglas Government of Saskatchewan, 1944-1961 (University of Toronto Press, 2004)

Excerpt from jury report: This is an intensely personal account of a remarkable government. Al Johnson was present at the creation, and for nearly two decades after, as the Douglas Government set about not just reforming but revolutionizing Canadian understanding of the meaning of modern government. The Douglas years marked a political transformation in three respects: the creation of an expert bureaucracy, the introduction of universal social policies and the establishment of active and, on balance, profitable federal-provincial fiscal relations.

Reading Dream No Little Dreams creates the sensation that Harold Carter and Lord Carnarvon must have experienced when they broke through into the tomb of Tutankhamon. ‘So this is what it was like!’ Intimate, knowledgeable and scholarly, Johnson’s account of how populist or protest movements evolve when suddenly confronted with the rigours of governing has timeless relevance. In addition, there are insights about the mechanics of provincial politics and policy-making. Mesmeric as the leader was, Johnson makes clear that the Douglas Government was by no means a one-man operation.

Even the story of how this book came to be published is unique, with a senior civil servant going back to rework his forty-year-old dissertation to document a government and movement that has been woefully understudied.