Brian Mulroney was always the kind of politician who’s easier to like when he’s out of office than in. I remember meeting him on two occasions before he won the leadership of the old Progressive Conservative Party.
The first time was his visit to the University of Alberta, during his first run at the party leadership (won by Bob Stanfield).
I really can’t remember what he said, but the headline we wrote for The Gateway student newspaper read something like: “Brian’s a smoothie.”
The next occasion was here in Red Deer. Gordon Towers, Red Deer’s MP at the time, was point man in this region for Mulroney, and his leadership campaign was going full steam at this local stop.
There was plenty of access for press and public, and you couldn’t help but notice how he worked the room. If anyone showed any flamboyance in his presence, Mulroney would up both the volume and the amperage, to make sure he stayed the centre of attention.
On the stump, he was fun to watch.
In office, Mulroney made his mark. His top three accomplishments: winning back-to-back Tory majorities; he introduced free trade with the U.S. and, of course, he gave us the GST.
For those last two accomplishments, Canadians hated him. So much so that his first accomplishment may never be repeated by a Tory.
Oh, there was this Karlheinz Schreiber thing, too. And the legacy of the Meech Lake Accord.
As they say, epic fail.
But now that we’ve lived with the GST for 20 years (and him retired quite nicely on a former PM’s pension), Mulroney can come out once again with his trademark smugness.
That Canada survived the last two recessions as well as it did has much to do with the strength of our resource and manufacturing sectors selling into the U.S. via free trade.
That Canadians live in a regime of relatively fair and equitable taxation is in part a legacy of the GST.
Like it or not.
In fact, the widening gap between rich and poor in our society, the increasing imbalance of resources held by the top two or three per cent of income-earners versus the rest of us, is made easier by recent tax tampering by the current Tory party.
We all know that consumption taxes hit lower income-earners harder than they do the rich.
That imbalance is checked by the fact that we have a blend of income and consumption taxes to at least address fairness.
The GST is balanced by a refund to low-income people. You can argue it’s too little but at least it’s there. A lot of university students and single moms buy groceries with it.
You can also argue that the levels at which income taxes begin to be paid, and the points at which the rates change, are too low.
In Canada, at least you can have that discussion. In the U.S., you can’t. They have no federal tax on goods and services, and likely never will.
And they repealed a scheduled tax increase for the richest of the rich — while the revenue it was to provide for the government was spent 10,000 times over.
In office, in power, Mulroney’s Irish/French bonhommie was grating. You just knew he wasn’t telling you the whole truth.
His was the only ego in Canada bigger than Pierre Trudeau’s.
And it caused him to make grand political gestures, the best of which caused him more political ruin than his failures.
Go ahead, hate the GST. Hate that free trade has made Canada an American branch plant, if that’s your viewpoint.
But Canada’s current national stability has much to do with both.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.