“There’s no whore like an old whore,” said Brian Mulroney of former Liberal cabinet minister and porkbarrel patronage devotee Bryce Mackasey.
My longtime friend Brian Mulroney’s cutting assessment of the Liberal character came back as I pondered our former prime minister’s battle for his life in a Montreal hospital.
Unlike charges of sexism hurled after Belinda Stronach crossed the House of Commons floor, no one accused Mulroney of that during the 1984 federal election campaign when he tackled Mackasey, a partisan Liberal who, knowing nothing at all about the airline industry, was given the plum patronage job of president of Air Canada.
One guesses the Lib-Left feminists have different rules of decorum, one for their own ilk, one for anyone else.
Brian, one of the wittiest politicians ever, has been on my mind a lot these weeks. He entered hospital March 15 to have a benign lesion removed from his lungs, encountered pancreatic trouble and returned home April 21. He stayed in seclusion until May 20 when he returned to hospital for surgery to remove liquid that had accumulated near his pancreas.
A close friend, a former MP, confided despite the optimistic announcements about Mulroney’s health, everyone is privately terribly worried. Apparently, they had good reason to be.
Now I know Mulroney is not popular across much of Canada—actually, reviled by many—but looking at his three successors and judging his accomplishments fairly, by any objective assessment he’s head and shoulders above the likes of Kim Campbell (vacuous), Jean Chretien (thuggish and truth-challenged), and Paul Martin (ditherer and unprincipled).
What have any of these three individuals accomplished that come close to matching Mulroney’s legacy? Think as long as you like, and you’ll come up with nothing.
Mulroney’s greatest feat was the free trade pact with the U.S. and Mexico. He saw a rising tide of protectionism in the U.S. threatening to keep our manufactured goods out. The pact safeguarded our access forever.
Today, 80% of our exports go to the U.S., and 50% of our jobs depend directly or indirectly on those exports. Without the pact, Canada would now be an economic wasteland.
Just two or three years ago on a visit to Europe, Chretien, who swore he would tear up the pact upon being elected in 1993, proudly boasted to a top-level audience he had fathered it! It’s true, the Liberals now regard it as akin to motherhood.
An offshoot is not only can you buy all kinds of mail-order goods from the U.S. without the hassle of customs forms and duties, but on a trip to the U.S. you can bring in up to $750 in goods duty free, rather than the $200 limit. It may seem just a little item, but think about the huge benefits it can bring.
Every time I meet Harvie Andre, the former Calgary MP, who held several cabinet posts under Mulroney, including Postmaster-General, I praise him for his outstanding work and vision in that portfolio. Harvie chuckles and asks, “Is that all I’ll be remembered for?”
But, friends, recall this—before Andre took over the post office you could only buy stamps, money orders or whatever at official post offices, Monday to Friday, and only in regular business hours. Now, shopping malls and convenience stores have postal outlets open seven-days-a-week and at night, too.
The metric system: Under Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals radio and TV stations were banned from giving temperatures in Fahrenheit. Mulroney changed that. Radio and TV stations can use both measurements. Since I’ve never learned metric—likely you haven’t either, this too is a bonus.
Look at what happed when Tory MP Perrin Beatty was put in charge of what is now the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. He told the tax collectors to operate from a stance all Canadians could be trusted to file honest tax returns. No more browbeating us without solid proof. That’s why any correspondence you get from the CRA these days is polite and you are given every option to freely appeal their rulings.
Our relations with the U.S. are now rock bottom and we all know it. Under Mulroney, Canada got first-class treatment from both President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush Sr. The White House doors never slammed in our faces.
I could go on, and on. Canada under Mulroney was far more healthy than it is today. That’s why we should all wish him a full and speedy recovery from his ordeal.
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