Any Tories who are reading my autobiography now had better listen, and listen well: I'm not taking any crap from anybody, especially you Neanderthal Conservatives. (My apologies to any Neanderthals who may be reading this.)
And as far as Chub-Chub Crosbie's referring to me as a titmouse, lemme tell him, he's only half-right.

All right, so what do you wanna know? How I became the lead singer in the new Canada-wide rock-throwing group, "Sheila and the Rats"? How a rookie MP from a small Ontario town like Hamilton could become the best-loved gal on the hit TV show, Question Period?

To be frank -- and some say I'd make a better Frank than a Sheila -- it was in my blood. My dad, Vic Copps, was the mayor of Hamilton, and my mom is a citizenship judge. I was born in late November, 1952 -- this lady ain't afraid to tell her age -- the second of four children. When I was 8 years old, my dad ran for city controller in Hamilton, and I was his campaign manager. I had recently been kicked out of the Brownies for wearing jeans and chains to meetings, so I was ready for anything.

But what I wasn't ready for was falling in love with Pierre Trudeau. When I saw him at that leadership convention in 1968 -- I was 15 and vulnerable, that I'll admit -- I was a goner. Sure, Turner was cute, but Trudeau was something else! So I began to work for John Munro in the federal election of that summer, building up a great reputation in Hamilton East, which I now represent, as the world knows and as every Tory fears.

I bounced around for the next decade, not doing too much. I studied French and English at Western, worked for the Ottawa Citizen, married and divorced a reporter in less than a year, worked for The Hamilton Spectator, and then was asked by my beloved provincial party to run in the riding of Hamilton Centre.

It was a great honour, sort of. The riding hadn't gone Grit since the Great Depression, there was less than a month left to the campaign, and I was all of 24 years of age. But I did it. I ran for the office. And although I lost, it was by a mere 14 votes, and the political bug had bitten. (I hear there's a shot for it, but I'm waiting until it's been tried on other laboratory animals. They don't call us the Rat Pack for nothing.)

I junked journalism and went to work for Stuart Smith, the provincial party leader at that time, still slogging it out in the wilderness. And I learned how to do it right: In the 1981 election, I won Hamilton Centre by nearly 3,000 votes.

It was a real joy, being the only woman in the Ontario provincial Liberal caucus. Clod Bennett applauded me on being better looking than my party's previous MPP of the female persuasion, Margaret Campbell, who had retired at the age of 69. Another Tory MPP, Mickey (Piggy) Hennessy told me to "go back to the kitchen." How could I? I'd never been in a kitchen in my life.

I soon became known as a Red Grit, slightly to the left of Mao and Che. I fought passionately for a constitutional amendment to make French an official language in Ontario (they can vote); for the inclusion of homosexual rights in the Ontario Human Rights Code (they can vote too!); for equal pay for work of equal value and premium-free medicare.

Within a year, there was a widespread call for me to run for the leadership of the provincial Liberal party. I felt that the Ontario Liberals had become stultified, fossilized and petrified. No wonder they needed someone with a softer body to get them back in power, after nearly four decades of drifting. Talk about new blood: I was 29.

OK, OK, so I lost. So big deal. I'm a gambler and I'm a believer, and opportunities don't always knock twice. I ran second to David Peterson, who, I'll have you know, became Premier, just a few years after he beat me. I worked on John Munro's federal Liberal leadership campaign in the summer of 1984, and urged him to support Chretien over Turner. So much for backing winners. But then Keith Davey and Marc Lalonde begged me to run federally, and how could I refuse? I just love it when men get on their hands and knees and beg me to do something.

So I ran, with ol' Blue Eyes as our leader, walloping the Tories by winning a hearty 40 seats, vs. their 211. It was a tough fight, but it helped that I spoke our country's other official language (Italian). And my left-wing politics appealed to the citizens of Hamilton East, who are so unionized, they think Bob White is the official bird of Canada. I won a great majority, and joined 26 other women in that quasi-masculine club in Ottawa.

And so it has gone, since September, 1984. I have become widely admired for my tremendous pluck at Question Period, during which many of the Tories have been heard screaming, "Get the pluck out of here!"

My voice has become a source of pleasure to every Grit, and a source of dread to every Tory. It has been compared to a Starfighter crashing in West Germany, a Newfoundland foghorn, and the last cry of the seagull that Dave Winfield hit with the baseball in that famous Yankees-Blue jays game. But Mulroney should talk! His voice sounds like a deepsea diver suffering from bends, and that little wifey of his has set back women's rights three centuries.

Anyway, we can't all lie low and act like statespersons. I have an obligation to go on search-and-destroy missions; the Good Lord, in Her Infinite Wisdom, placed me on Earth in order to make life impossible for Conservatives, and I am not about to shirk my obligations.

I recently remarried, in the summer of 1985, a guy I met in a bar, down in Florida. He had no idea what the hell an MP was, so I just knew that he was the type for me. He'll work as a TV editor in Ottawa, and it'll be nice to have a piping-hot dinner waiting for me when I come home. Would I want children? Sure, just so long as when they grow up, they don't marry Tories.

There's talk of me becoming the next head of the Liberals, but it's a bit early to think about that; hell, I'm still in my early 30s. Then again, Jean Chretien did quit. And if Turner doesn't get his act together....

Look, anything is possible for a girl from Hamilton, Ontario. I'm the Head of the Rat Pack. I drive the Tories batty. And there ain't nobody that's going to shush me up. Has Mulroney the Phony ever had his picture taken on a motorcycle, on the front cover of Saturday Night?

The first three letters of my last name are C-O-P. And the first three letters of my first name are S-H-E. And don't anybody ever forget it.

Straight from the Grave:

William Lyon Mackenzie King

"The medium is the message." - Marshall McLuhan

Imagine how excited I was to hear, through my medium, that this book was going to be created. Although my diary of 57 years has been published in bits and pieces -- and thoroughly misunderstood in such books as A Very Double Life -- I am delighted to get this chance to set the record straight, even if I have to do it from beyond.

Call me Willie, as my mother's contemporary, and a fellow-author, Mr. Herman Melville, might begin this. I could start with my own birth, in 1874, but like all Great Men, one has
to look back a generation or two, to see the real influences on my life. My grandfather,
for one -- William Lyon Mackenzie, 1795-1861 -- was a great publisher, an inspired editor, and a so-so rebel, back in 1837, when he led 750 farmers in a major uprising,
just north of Toronto.

My Mother, Isabel Grace Mackenzie, was born in 1843, the 13th child of that great political leader, William Lyon Mackenzie. She was not like other children: She was the brightest, the most beautiful, the most magnificent, the most awesome, the most precious Woman who was ever born on this earth, probably including the Virgin Mary, whose son also did rather well. Isabel Grace -- oh, just the writing down of that name sends me into rapture! -- had a painful and difficult childhood, for She was mocked and ill-treated, due to Her father's rather strange political career. I have no doubt that all those who made Her childhood an agony were eventually punished, whether through disease, accident (although there are no accidents), lingering death, or having Tories represent them in Parliament, which is really the same thing.

In 1872, Isabel Grace -- there's that exquisite name again! -- married John King, a lawyer, although no man -- even myself -- could be worthy of Her. Somehow this Goddess gave birth to four (4) children, so they must have engaged in s-x at least 4 (four) occasions, although I'd like to think that it was no more often than that.

The loving couple settled in Berlin, Ontario, which later changed its name to Kitchener, due to certain minor tensions overseas. My childhood was a tense one, owing to the frequent tellings of my grandfather's tragic life story by my Mother. It was made clear to me that I had a Moral Obligation to Restore the Honour of our Family Name, so besmirched by the exile of Our Rebel Hero.

I was, understandably, a brilliant student, and entered the University of Toronto at the age of 17, where I was soon the assistant editor of the Varsity. I was nicknamed "Rex," although I was never quite sure whether this was due to my last name, or in honour of the dog of the editor of Varsity.

I studied hard at U. of T., and led the normal life of a typical young student in the 1890s: studying, reading, attending classes, and saving ruined women from the depths of depravity.

After graduating from university in 1895, I wrote for The Toronto Globe, known at that time as "Toronto's local paper." Within a year, I had completed my Honours BA, earned my law degree, and had a year's experience as a journalist. Many of the women, by that time, had returned to the streets, but that is another matter.

I was a most impressive journalist, writing fierce exposes of cheap labour in Toronto. The ruined women weren't that cheap, now that I think of it. I then went off and studied at Harvard, with a halfdozen pictures of Mother on my walls, to keep me on the straight and narrow.

While continuing my studies in England, the Laurier administration offered me a position as deputy minister in the newly-formed Department of Labour, and the editorship of a new publication, Labour Gazette. Wilfie had just been elected to his second term as Prime Minister, so I quickly returned home, partly to fill this exciting new position, and mainly because I wished to be close to Mother. If you had known Her, you would have felt the same way.

In 1901, I told my Mother what every mother wants to hear from her son: I whispered to her, "If I ever do become Prime Minister, or come near to such a mark, it will be due to your life and love that I have done so." She embraced me, and I didn't wash where She touched me until other civil servants began to complain.

For the next seven years, I worked long hours in gloomy Ottawa, which, I gather, hasn't changed much. I became known as a labour trouble-shooter, unlike some of the company owners, who used to shoot labour. I am proud of my accomplishments, such as the agreement I negotiated with the Imperial Japanese government for the Canadian government, which severely limited Japanese immigration to Canada. I also managed to exclude immigration from India as well. Since the native Canadian Indians were already here, it was impossible to limit them from coming, dammit.

I was a hit!! The Toronto Globe raved about "the brilliant young administrator" in Ottawa in 1908, and they were talking about me! I was seen as a friend of labour, so when I was elected to Parliament at the age of 33, and was Minister of Labour from 1908 to 1910, no one was suprised. Certainly not my beloved, blessed Mother. As I thought at the time, there was a reward in this for Her, as well as for me; reward for the sacrifices that Her father, William Lyon Mackenzie, made. (In 1912, I managed to prevent an unsympathetic biography of my grandfather from being published; power is a wonderful thing, as I was quickly learning).

In 1911, a dreadful thing occurred, but it was one of those nasty, unpleasant things that can only happen in a democracy: Laurier and I went down to defeat, and the wretched Tories, lead by Robert Laird Borden took over.

But things soon picked up. In 1914, when that skirmish over in Europe was beginning, I was asked to head the Rockefeller Foundation's new Department of Industrial Relations. Suddenly, I had the support, trust and friendship of one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, John D. Rockefeller! It was like being buddies with Sir Wilfrid Laurier, except this guy had money.

By the end of the Great War, I had a dreadful few years: My father died. My sister died. My brother was dying. And my Mother and I lost contact for awhile owing to her passing from this plane to beyond. And Laurier and I lost another election.

Then, as fate would have it, Wilfrid Laurier died, in February, 1919. And in August of the same year, I was chosen the leader of the federal Liberal party! Oh, Mother! If only You could have been there in body as you were in spirit! Mother, destiny had intended me to continue to carry on the fight which Grandfather commenced so bravely on behalf of the common people in their struggle.

And struggle we did. In 1920, Borden was replaced by Arthur Meighen, the author of that stupid 1917 Conscription Bill which drove the French-Canadians to apoplexy. So I knew exactly what to do, in the 1921 election: nothing. I figured that if I never outlined a clear and intelligible policy in my election campaign, I'd irritate nobody. And this inspired concept of non-leadership has worked wondrously well for the federal Grits, right to this day. Well, at least until 1984, which was after my time, anyway.

Well, it finally happened: on December 29, 1921, the grandson of the rebel took office as the Prime Minister of Canada - and without a single shot fired. It was a narrow majority government, however, so I continued in my policy and gave my people nothing. When I went to the people in October of 1925, there was nothing for the rotten Tories to attack!
It didn't work. And H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man had been such a big best-seller, too. The voters elected 116 Tories, 99 Liberals, 24 Progressives, and 6 Independents - the fools. Not only that, I had lost my seat, which made it tough to try and get the Speaker's attention during Question Period.

But hell hath no fury like a King scorned, to coin a phrase. I brilliantly recovered a Parliamentary majority, defeated the Evil Conservatives, and managed to kick out my hated enemy, Arthur Meighen.

It's never really been told before, but here's what I did: I told the Governor General, Lord Byng, that I would carry on as P.M., with the support of the Progressives, who didn't much believe in doing anything in government, either. Byng, the rotter, told me that I should resign. So I asked him for a dissolution of Parliament, and he refused me again. So I quickly resigned, was replaced by Meighen, who tripped up within 72 hours, and was defeated by a single vote!

Anyway, the voters went to the polls that fall, for the second time in a year. Mother was with me, in the campaign, voting as often as She could (It's an old Liberal tradition). And the God of our fathers had chosen me - as he did King Saul, for the ancient Hebrews. From then on, I was to go forward in the strength of God, with his Might and Right, to battle as my forefathers had battled, for the right of the People, and do God's will on earth, even as it is done in Heaven. God, I finally realized, was a True Grit.

As the world knows, we won a majority government. Meighen was defeated and he resigned, replaced by Richard Bennett, a lawyer with almost as much money as Rockefeller, but less power, thank God.

People made fun of me, since I was a bachelor, and in my 50s, but they never knew what
a rich and vibrant private life I had with my dogs and with Mother. We used to have long conversations -- in fact some of my best ideas came from Mother and the dogs.

I had inherited Laurier's house in Ottawa, where I lived until my passing. But I spent my summers up at Kingsmere, my country estate just a few miles outside Ottawa. I had lots of sheep, and used to collect the ruins of historical buildings which had fallen into disarray under the rule of the Tories.

No, I never did find a woman who was right for me. For one thing, she would have to possess all the qualities which I demanded in a wife: she had to be born in 1843. She had to be named Isabel Grace. She had to be the daughter of a great Canadian politician and rebel leader. In a nutshell, she had to be my Mother. As you can well imagine, this limited my dating options greatly. And speaking of Mom, which I frequently did and still do, little did Canadians of the 20s, 30s, and 40s know, when they asked for guidance from above, that they were getting it on a regular basis.

Things sort of fell apart in 1929, with the Great Depression, as it came to be known. I think I blew it, when I announced that "I would not give a five cent piece to any Conservative provincial party which had opposed me." How was I to know how many people could have used a nickel, in those days? So the Canadian people elected a Conservative government in the summer of 1930 -- they're only human, you know -- and they had to suffer under the incompetent leadership of R.B. Bennett.

In 1932, in the worst depths of the Depression, I had some of my best times. I spoke to Mother regularly, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier gave me some great advice, as well. Now, it is an honoured tradition for political leaders to discuss matters with their predecessors, but what made this so special was the fact that Laurier had been dead for over a dozen years. What he told me was most profound: that I would lead our party to a majestic victory in the next election.

My slogan in 1935 was superb: KING OR CHAOS. It had a nice ring to it, and although most Canadians didn't know what it meant, you can't argue with a great idea, when it comes from the dead.

The late 30s were wonderful years, since I celebrated the centenary of the Mackenzie rebellion in 1937, and visited the Third Reich. What a great time I had there! The Fuehrer was a charming fellow. I told him that we had a lot in common. After all, Berlin was my hometown, too! He liked that. I told him that I wasn't too hot for Jews either. He liked that, too. Then I told him that I had no intention whatsoever of taking any of his Jews off his hands, and he was a bit put off.

He deeply impressed me with the great highways he was building, and the way he created such fine discipline in his country. Why, he had almost single-handedly eliminated unemployment, just by throwing Jews and Communists out of work! I told him it was a great idea, but we just didn't have enough of both in Canada to make it work. What a character he was! It's true, he finally threw Europe into some disarray, but I sure liked him a lot better than Mitch Hepburn, back in Ontario.

By 1940, when my old chum Adolf was busy on the other side of the Atlantic, I was
re-elected with an overwhelming majority: 181 Liberals to 40 Conservatives and 8 CCFers. Once again, I didn't have to do much at all. I merely hired C.D. Howe as Minister of Everything On Earth, and I sat back, relaxed, talked to Mom, played with Pat I, II or III, and let the clouds of war roll by.

On April 20, 1948, I surpassed Sir Robert Walpole's record of leadership: 7,619 days in office. I felt that it was time for me to finally think about stepping down. But when to do it? Timing is everything! I finally decided on three days in August on which to hold the Liberal convention, since the stars were perfect, on the 5th, 6th and 7th of that month. I don't know why others can't see the importance of these things.

I made sure that Uncle Louis would replace me; I felt that it was time for another one of them. After all, they helped found Canada too, you know. It was over a quarter-century since the Liberals had had a new leader, and it must have been quite a blow for them, but they clearly survived.

I had done a masterful job, if I say so myself. I regarded my having helped to keep Canada united throughout the war as the main contribution I had made, although making the Liberals the true Ruling Party of Canada was probably the other.

I wasn't too upset about dying, I must admit. After all, I'd been PM for over 21 years, and I got to be buried right next to Mother, which is every man's ream. I was put off, when my 57 years of diaries were found and began to be published; that stuff was for Mother's and Pats' ears alone. Still, I helped save the country, and that makes it all worthwhile. I didn't just do it for myself but for my family. Grandfather? Mother? Is anybody there?