Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin is coming out with a score-settling book, Hell or High Water. In it he takes swipes at his predecessor, Jean Chrétien, and generally tries to get even with a Liberal Party that is not quite working anymore.

The book is not out yet, but some newspapers have started publishing unauthorized excerpts. Just a week away from October 14, the day of the federal election, Liberals are worried that Mr. Martin’s tell-all book could harm them. The party has therefore issued a call to all candidates and party faithful not to discuss the book with anyone, especially members of the press.

But with the excerpts floating around, the damage already seems done. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, who has made his past track record on the Clarity Act one of his oft-repeated mantras in stump speeches, is also coming under attack in Mr. Martin’s book, who writes that “the law, which Mr. Dion oversaw, was unnecessary in light of a previous Supreme Court ruling.”

There you go: considered one of his biggest accomplishments – and arguably his only accomplishment to date – the Clarity Act has just been relegated to the landfill of political ideas by a former prime minister.

Mr. Martin is not too happy with Mr. Chrétien’s restrictions on political donations either. Before leaving office to make room for his rival, Mr. Chrétien substantially limited the amount individuals can donate to political parties, thus ensuring that the party that, in Mr. Chrétien’s view, had stabbed him in the back, would be financially hampered in future. Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper then raised the ante by limiting political donations even further.

But the main focus of the book seems to be on Mr. Martin’s rivalry with Jean Chrétien. His biggest beef is with the way Mr. Chrétien tried to clear himself of any involvement in the Adscam scandal by keeping the auditor-general’s report under lock and key until the day it was time for Mr. Martin to step up to the plate.

As Mr. Martin writes in some of the book excerpts, “I was furious with Mr. Chrétien, who left this time-bomb behind him. Either because he was worried about his legacy being tarred by the sponsorship scandal, or because of rancour against me – only he can answer that question – he delayed the publication of the Auditor-General’s report until I replaced him at 24 Sussex Dr.”

This is hardly news to anyone who has watched Canadian politics with just half an eye open. Mr. Chrétien was a consummate tactician, and Mr. Martin’s interpretation of the events then is spot-on. Mr. Chrétien never wanted his former finance minister to succeed, even if it meant sacrificing his own party. In addition, always concerned about his “legacy”, Mr. Chrétien wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and a colossal scandal, for which he was clearly and ultimately responsible (as well as for a host of other large-scale scandals before that).

Poor Mr. Martin did not stand a chance. Once the Adscam floodgates had swung wide open, there was no way he and his party would stay in power for too long. Mr. Chrétien’s plan worked beautifully: Mr. Martin’s political career ended up being a shipwreck, but the Liberal Party suffered tremendous damage as well.

In many ways, it is an enormous shame, because Mr. Martin could have become an extremely competent and even popular prime minister. Even in Alberta, where “only a dead federal Liberal is a good federal Liberal” has been the order of the day for decades, Mr. Martin’s popularity numbers were extremely high on taking over from Mr. Chrétien. But those quickly evaporated once the Adscam fallout hit the fan.

After the hell Mr. Martin has been put through by his former boss, it is not surprising that he is trying to find joy in activities outside of Canadian politics – such as aid to Africa and similar projects – and even said in a newspaper interview that “politics sucks”.

Mr. Martin is doubtless a much happier man today, doing what he truly cares for and loves. Now that he has laid to rest the ghosts of a turbulent political past in his cathartic book, he will be able to move on and surely excel at anything he puts his mind to.