The 33rd premier of British Columbia and former federal cabinet minister Ujjal Dosanjh discusses his memoir, Journey After Midnight: India, Canada and the Road Beyond (Figure 1 Publishing, 2016), his time in politics, politics today, India and more, with Joseph Planta.

Journey After Midnight: India, Canada and the Road Beyond by Ujjal Dosanjh (Figure 1, 2016). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Journey After Midnight

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Ujjal Dosanjh joins me now. The politician, lawyer and activist has written a new memoir, Journey After Midnight: India, Canada and the Road Beyond. It’s a book that looks at his life from when he was born ten months after Pakistan’s partition from India, through a rural and impoverished background, leaving for England, and then coming to Canada, where he would become a cabinet minister and attorney general in British Columbia, to being premier, and then a noted career in federal politics where he served as minister of health in the Paul Martin Liberal government. Along the book is frank about the danger of extremism religious and political, which Mr. Dosanjh faced as an immigrant, through his activism and advocacies. The book’s central theme is the search for identity, and it’s a compelling read in that sense. The search for belonging makes the book eminently readable and difficult to put down. I’ll get its author to tell us why this book and why now, as well as what conclusions he perhaps has drawn in the process of looking back. I also got the sense reading it there’s a lot of looking ahead too. Ujjal Dosanjh became Attorney General in 1995, and leader of the BC NDP in February 2000, serving as premier until 2001. In 2004, he entered federal politics and was the MP for Vancouver South from 2004 to 2011. His website is at www.ujjaldosanjh.org, where he blogs regularly. And you can follow him on Twitter. The handle is @ujjaldosanjh. The book is published by Figure 1. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, in person today, the 33rd premier of the province of British Columbia, Ujjal Dosanjh; Mr. Dosanjh, good morning.

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