Jaime Watt is sure that with his new book, What I Wish I Said: Confessions of a Columnist, that he’s done something no one else has ever attempted.
Out now via Optimum Publishing International, the columnist and executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. has collected an assortment of his work as it has appeared in the Toronto Star over the past seven-plus years. But he’s done it with a unique twist.
As the title suggests, Watt takes a fresh look at 48 of his own newspaper columns in the rear view mirror, and is openly honest about his hits and misses. As he explained to about 80 admirers at a garden party in Niagara-on-the-Lake Sunday, the book is about what he got right, what he got wrong, and what he wishes he had said.
“I find it amazing that people like me who shoot their mouths off on television or in newspapers don’t go back and reevaluate their work,” he told the gathering on a perfect afternoon. “If you are given the privilege to speak out, shouldn’t you be held to some sort of level of accountability?”
The well-known strategist was joined at the home of Lyle Hall by close friends, family members and associates from his position on the Shaw Festival board of directors, on which Hall also sits. Admirers of Watt’s work lined up to purchase copies of What I Wish I Said and have the author sign them.
St. Mark’s Anglican Church rector Leighton Lee had just purchased his copy of Watt’s book. Before attending the launch, Lee had taken the opportunity to read Watt’s latest column in that day’s Toronto Star, calling for US president Joe Biden to reform that country’s Supreme Court.
“I’m a regular reader of his columns,” Lee told The Local Sunday. “He’s the best. I’m really excited to jump into this book. And of course, I get it, the idea of things you wish you could have said. After all, I’m a preacher! I’d love to see more columnists and public figures do this kind of thing.”
Watt has served on Shaw’s board for a number of years, but it wasn’t until this past winter that he and his partner Paul decided to rent a property in town. Earlier in the week, The Local sat down with Watt and his friend of many years, former television broadcaster Phyllis Bennett, in his backyard overlooking the Niagara River.
While sailboats and paddleboards floated by on the water, Watt explained that he started Navigator Ltd. just over 20 years ago as a public relations, crisis management, lobbying and polling company. Over the years, his team has provided support and direction for high profile companies, celebrities and politicians during times of crisis.
Watt’s reputation as a strategist quickly led to him being a regular guest of Peter Mansbridge’s on CBC Television’s The National. So it was a natural fit when about eight years ago, Toronto Star publisher John Honderich enlisted him to contribute a weekly column to the newspaper’s new politics page.
“I hesitated at first,” he told The Local. “Even after all this time I still say that I’m not a professional columnist. I always say instead that I’m a professional who writes a column.”
Through his weekly columns Watt has taken on many of the issues of the day. About three years ago, he approached Optimum’s Dean Baxendale with the idea of compiling some of his columns in a book.
“I really liked the idea,” Baxendale said Sunday, “but I wanted to make it unique. We talked a bit about it at that time, then we resurrected the idea about a year ago. We brought together a great team and I feel we’ve put together a refreshing approach, looking at one’s foibles, and one’s successes.”
The tome is divided into six chapters which are really thematic collections of eight columns each. He begins each chapter with a summary or explanation of what’s to follow. Each column within the chapter is tagged with a ‘thumbs up’ symbol marking it as one he got right, a ‘thumbs down’ symbol representing an undeniable miss, or a ‘thought bubble’ to designate a column where he came close but didn’t hit the mark.
Under the heading Civil Liberties and Human Rights, Watt looks at some of the biggest issues of the day, including LGBTQ2S+ rights and the safeguarding of the right of elderly Canadians to vote.
“One of the things I got right was the fentanyl crisis,” Watt told The Local. “I called it a public health crisis very early, the way AIDS was. Like with AIDS, people believed it would never be an issue for them personally. Now we know the devastating impact that fentanyl has had. I think I was ahead of my time.”
Another chapter gathers Watt’s columns about the 45th president of the United States.
“I got Trump massively wrong,” he admitted. “I didn’t understand the impact that he would have on the judiciary. I wrote that it was just going to be a speed bump, there was nothing to worry about. I totally missed that, and that was really bloody stupid.”
It’s that brutal honesty that makes What I Wish I Said a fascinating read. Any newspaper contributor can publish a collection of his or her columns. But to take an introspective lens to one’s work takes a lot of intestinal fortitude.
Other chapters look at Watt’s columns on leaders, politicians in power, parties in opposition and the COVID-19 crisis. Even if Watt had not written a 350-word-maximum reflection on each column, this book would be an important document of discourse from the past seven years.
At Sunday’s gathering, Watt was quick to credit former Canadian senator Andrè Pratte and one-time Toronto Star editor Michael Cooke for their support and advice. And he gave much credit to 28-year-old Breen Wilkinson, his co-writer and a consultant and speech writer with Navigator.
“It was a great pleasure to work on this with Jaime,” Wilkinson said. “I hope I helped him to bring a fresh perspective. It was really exciting to work with him on this. His depth of political knowledge is just endless.”
Watt ends the book with a 49th and final, very personal column from March, 2023. It deals with his struggles with kidney disease, and the way his life changed when his partner donated a kidney to him for a successful transplant in 2022.
Watt has promised that all proceeds he makes from What I Wish I Said will go to The Centre for Living Organ Donation at University Health Network. It’s his personal advocacy mission, to make the world a better place through organ donation. That column was the only one that he read from at the garden party.
And he’s hoping What I Wish I Said itself advocates for another one of his personal missions.
“This exercise in intellectual honesty,” he said, “will be my contribution to hopefully end the terrible polarity that has taken hold the past few years. I’m proud of this book. It has something to say. I care a lot about this country, and I hope this book contributes to more civilized, thoughtful debate.”
