Brian Mulroney’s Good Intentions
June 10, 2010 | 6 Comments
It’s hard to gauge a person’s intentions. Not only is it difficult to figure out what someone’s intentions actually are but it is just as difficult to determine whether those intentions are good or bad.
But in the case of Brian Mulroney, I am confident that he had good intentions in each of the four major pillars of his prime ministership.
First, on the economy, his controversial decisions to adopt the G.S.T. and to bring Canada into a free trade agreement with the United States were both intended to elevate Canada onto stronger financial ground. And they achieved just that. Score one for Mulroney’s good intentions.
Second, on the environment, Mulroney made Canada a global leader in fighting climate change and acid rain. For his commitment to environmental sustainability, Mulroney was recently declared the greenest Prime Minister. Score another for Mulroney’s good intentions.
Third, on foreign policy, Mulroney lead the charge in imposing sanctions against South Africa, hoping to squeeze its apartheid regime into submission. Along with the other freedom-loving people of the world, Mulroney stood tall against oppression and ultimately helped win a great victory for humanity. Score yet another for Mulroney’s good intentions.
Finally, on domestic policy, Mulroney sought to calm Canada’s constitutional waters. In the aftermath of the adoption of the Charter of Rights & Freedoms in 1982, Quebec was left on the outside looking in. Mulroney sought to redress this constitutional imbalance by finding a way to welcome Quebec back into the constitutional family. Although Mulroney did not succeed on this front, his intentions were nonetheless honourable. Score a final point for Mulroney’s good intentions.
That’s four for four. Pretty impressive.
All of which is to suggest that the recent troubling revelations about Brian Mulroney should not obscure his formidable record as Prime Minister.
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6 Responses to “Brian Mulroney’s Good Intentions”
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June 10th, 2010 @ 8:08 am
Mulroney’s legacy is certainly greater than his popular reputation might indicate. However, it seems incomplete to discuss Mulroney’s economic policy and not mention the horrendous deficits he spawned.
Further, although his environmental record was quite good, I’m hesitant to attribute all those gains to him.
Nonetheless, I agree with your final point.
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June 10th, 2010 @ 8:24 am
I guess I don’t know enough about the man. In the lush coastal rainforests of Nova Scotia where I was raised if Mulrooney had popped out of a cake in red devil pajamas waving and poking MP’s with a pitchfork then all the adults around me would have nodded sagely and said “ah hah, I knew it all along”.
But the substantive points sound good. What then is your reason for the historic landslide against the Tories right after Mulrooney hurriedly exited the stage? I mean was the entire electorate deluded or something? I’m not being facetious, most of this was really before my time and I have a certain anthropological interest since we’re talking about Tories who effectively don’t exist anymore at the Federal level.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Hey, I’ll take a couple of quick stabs at the reasons for the Tory fall:
1. The GST. I’m a big fan of consumption-based taxation vs. income-based taxation, but the GST was a tough pill to swallow. The very nature of it made it unpopular. Whatever benefits we had, the electorate reacted harshly against it.
2. The economy. Taxation reform and trade liberalization were great, but there was a big downswing in the economy in the early 90s. Some of this could probably be attributed to Mulroney’s massive deficits.
3. Meech Lake/Charlottetown. These were polarizing and grossly unpopular. They made heroes out of Elijah Harper and Clyde Wells. Much of the country (at least outside of Quebec) saw them as sops to Quebec.
4. Free Trade. More popular than all the constitution stuff, it was still polarizing. Not only that, it greatly affected the manufacturing sector and caused some short term upheaval. Looking back now, most people support the deals (even Buzz Hargrove came out in favour of it a few years back), but it was hard for some to see the potential benefits at the time.
5. The Reform Party. This goes hand in hand with the deficits and the contstitutional stuff. The Reform Party was a big reaction against those things. This not only drained a lot of support from the PCs, it also meant the PCs had to defend their left and right flanks.
6. Mulroney’s fragile coalition/The Bloc. Not only did the Reform Party drain votes, Mulroney also lost his Quebec contingent. The PCs didn’t have a natural cohesive national base (like the Liberals). It was an unstable mixture of Red Tories, Western populists, traditional conservatives, small government types and Quebec nationalists. These groups were not going to get along forever.
7. Kim Campbell/the 93 PC campaign. Campbell’s famous gaffe, “election campaigns are not the time to discuss issues” (or something like that), though somewhat true (come on there’s little substantive debate during a campaign), was a pretty idiotic thing to say. However, part of the reason is because the Tories didn’t have a policy document heading into the campaign (compared to the Grits’ Red Book), so they threw something together at the last minute.
On top of that, the campaign team fell apart – or just hated being there. Allan Gregg, a senior campaign advisor (he might have been the campaign manager) was nicknamed “Waldo” because no one knew where he was. Apparently, he was more interested working with The Tragically Hip than working for Campbell (and who could blame him). I should say, this is just what I heard. I didn’t actually have access to the senior campaign leaders.
8. Mulroney. People just didn’t like him. And really, he wasn’t that likeable. He seemed a little smug. There was an air of corruption. He did some things that people really didn’t like. Parties that are in power that long tend to get a little arrogant. Arrogance is not attractive. Few people (probably no one) would have been able to succeed following Mulroney. I think a lot of this was also self-enforcing. Once he started to get unpopular, it became more and more popular to dislike him. No one wants to support a party that is soooo disliked, so a dip in the polls can cause an even bigger dip in the polls.
I’m sure there’s more – and of course a lot people had substantive policy issues with the Tories in ’93, though they probably hadn’t been Mulroney supporters before that – but that’s what I’m able to offer off the top of my head.
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North Reply:
June 10th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Great stuff, sounds believable. I remember how much my Liberal and NDP parent celebrated the end of the Tories. Now though the one parent who is left sure wishes we had a pragmatic moderate right party to run the country while the Liberals sleep off their hangover instead of Harper and his posse of right wing loons.
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June 16th, 2010 @ 1:26 pm
Dear Mr. Albert,
A delusional post on Lyin’ Brian’s tenure as PM.
I’d like some of that acid you’re taking.
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Jonathan McLeod Reply:
June 16th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Anne,
Care to rebut the substance of the post?
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