Sitting around the office last Monday, I soon found
myself with more to do than grind my way through unmarked essays.
Suddenly Brian Mulroney was not going to get his day in court
and, on an otherwise slow news day, the media wanted to know how
he might fare in the ultimate appeal court, History.
The callers refused to accept the classic answer-"it
all depends"-or the correct answer-"I don't know".
What other answer could I defend?
Assuming that we now know almost everything worth
knowing about Mulroney's time in office, history will almost certainly
be more respectful of Mulroney than most of his contemporaries.
Unless we are fixated on the micro-history of bee-keeping in Bellechasse,
most of us look out for major trends, and the people who start
them. Historians are more likely to remember Richard Nixon for
ending the war in Vietnam and opening a door to China than for
Watergate. Like her or hate her, Margaret Thatcher changed British
politics and economics.
And Brian Mulroney changed Canada's direction more
than he ever expected. Armed with the report of the Macdonald
Commission and Ronald Reagan's 1980 pledge to integrate North
America's three economies, Mulroney tore down Canada's southern
wall. Almost simultaneously, he switched the balance of the federal
tax system from income to spending. By leaving Canada's deficits
to soar, he forced his successors to destroy public programs and
institutions Tories had helped create and neo-conservatives now
deplored. Love him or hate him, the only two-term Conservative
prime minister of this century left an indelible mark.
In time, most Canadians turned against Mulroney,
but his second term in 1988 would have been impossible without
substantial public confidence and even affection. What happened?
Whatever their ultimate consequences, free trade
and the GST hurt a lot of Canadians. Was the 1990 recession a
consequence or a coincidence? No matter: it was the worst since
the 1930s. And like the Great Depression, it reached deep into
the middle class, wiping out executive, managerial and information
jobs. Victims and frightened neighbours were furious. With his
conspicuous affluence, sleazy political associates and put-on
sincerity, Mulroney made an obvious villain.
Tragically, the chief victim of his unpopularity
was potentially Mulroney's greatest achievement. The constitutional
formula he wrested from the provinces in 1987 with all his fabled
negotiating skill might have reconciled most Quebeckers to Confederation.
Instead, both the Meech Lake Accord and its successor were contaminated
by the profound distaste for the prime minister and his government.
An opportunity to save Canada a generation of conflict was lost.
Mulroney has a predecessor. In the Great Depression,
another Tory was in charge. Richard Bedford Bennett was a rich
corporation lawyer who also defended victims of wartime conscription.
He was a brilliant administrator. He also doubled the national
debt to feed the poor and rescue desperate farmers. No matter.
R.B. Bennett, with his portly figure stuffed into a morning coat
and striped pants, remains "Bennett of the Iron Heel",
crushing the poor as well as the radicals who pleaded their case.
His pledge to use tariffs to blast Canada's way into the markets
of the world is ridiculed-though by 1935, Canada's economy was
back to 1929 levels. Canadians reviled him, wiped out his government
in 1935 and cried no tears when he left to live as an English
viscount.
No one ever accused Bennett of theft. His private
wealth floated the Tory party for almost a decade. But no one
has reversed Bennett's status as the most hated Canadian prime
minister of the century, with the possible exception of Mulroney.
In the depth of the Depression, another Montrealer
went to court to defend his reputation. Sir Arthur Currie, McGill's
Principal and Canada's wartime commander had been accused by an
Ontario hack journalist of throwing away his soldiers' lives on
the last day of the war. It was a popular charge at a time when
a best-selling book by a veteran was titled "Generals Die
in Bed". Many thought Currie foolish to submit his reputation
to a jury in Cobourg. The strain of the trial affected his health
and the costs almost ruined him, but Currie won. He came home
to Montreal a hero and, for the first time, veterans of the Canadian
Corps welcomed him as their leader in peace as well as in war.
Without a trial, how long will it take before we know the real
Brian Mulroney?