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My son texted me the news last night of the passing of Brian Mulroney.I vividly remember when he was elected and his service to Canada!
Rest in Peace Brian Mulroney!
I remember seeing him on TV with President Reagan. As far as I know, they got along well.
Him, Thatcher and Reagan were sort of like the 3 amigos in the 80s. All heavily responsible for the world’s transition to free trade and neoliberal economics. Important era, seeing the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union
Did the GST cause a recession in Canada, as some people claim?
I'd argue no. The US and other western countries went through recessions at the same time (1991) and they didn't have a new GST.
What the GST did was it allowed Canada to get out of budget deficits that it had been saddled with at least three straight decades or more without ever going into the black.
Mulroney left power not long after the GST was implemented but a couple of years later Canada started balancing its budget and by the latter half of the 1990s Canada was posting budget surpluses.
This lasted until the recession around 2008 where we dipped into the red again. (Stephen Harper also reduced the GST from 7% to 5% in spite of financial pressures on the government.)
Towards the end of his time as PM Harper did get Canada back in the black but in 2015 Justin Trudeau returned us to deficit spending, and said the famous phrase: "the budget will balance itself".
From modest beginnings, Brian Mulroney rose to transform Canada (link)
I woke up this morning. The first thing I sa was the obituary of Brian Mulroney. Until I read Stevie Cameron's excellent book about Brian Mulroney, On the Take, most Mulroney coverage was favorable. During the Reagan era he got rather good press. From what I gather from that book and talking to Canadians he was a mixed bag.
From modest beginnings, Brian Mulroney rose to transform Canada (link)
I woke up this morning. The first thing I sa was the obituary of Brian Mulroney. Until I read Stevie Cameron's excellent book about Brian Mulroney, On the Take, most Mulroney coverage was favorable. During the Reagan era he got rather good press. From what I gather from that book and talking to Canadians he was a mixed bag.
Still I'm sorry to see him go.
I’m a small l liberal. I’m not a fan of neoliberal economics and privatization so he wasn’t my favourite, but none of his successors have strayed too far from that path. That’s just the way the world economy is nowadays. I preferred Joe Clark’s style of conservatism but the PCs merged with the Canadian Alliance, the more populist right party in the early 2000s and that wing of the party is all but dead. The PCs had a massive defeat in the 93 election, but the 90s were a tough time economically for a lot of Canadians and more than anything we wanted a change in leadership. I don’t think he was a bad guy, just different political views. Being a Francophone Quebecer of Irish descent and a conservative he spoke to a lot of people and ultimately probably helped keep our country together during the height of Quebec separatism.
I’m a small l liberal. I’m not a fan of neoliberal economics and privatization so he wasn’t my favourite, but none of his successors have strayed too far from that path. That’s just the way the world economy is nowadays. I preferred Joe Clark’s style of conservatism but the PCs merged with the Canadian Alliance, the more populist right party in the early 2000s and that wing of the party is all but dead. The PCs had a massive defeat in the 93 election, but the 90s were a tough time economically for a lot of Canadians and more than anything we wanted a change in leadership. I don’t think he was a bad guy, just different political views. Being a Francophone Quebecer of Irish descent and a conservative he spoke to a lot of people and ultimately probably helped keep our country together during the height of Quebec separatism.
Joe Clark emphasized the “Progressive” in “Progressive Conservative”?
Unaccented yes, but Stephen Harper was very bilingual even if he had a big anglo accent.
Joe Clark was bilingual too but not as good as Harper.
Pierre Poilievre is in between Harper and Mulroney.
If I remember correctly Harper wasn’t always so bilingual but worked very hard to become so
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I started this as another thread
