— Feature, Musings —09.04.2024 09:02 AM
Forty years ago today
FORTY YEARS.
September 4, 1984: 40 years ago today, I was on an Air Canada flight from Ottawa, heading home to Calgary to start law school. The pilot came on the blower.
“For those of you who are wondering, we are hearing that the Liberal Party has lost every one of its seats,” he said. “And we have a new Conservative majority government.”
The plane erupted in cheers and applause – lots of it. Having just said goodbye to many of my Liberal friends at Ottawa polling stations, and having just finished working for a Liberal cabinet minister on the Hill, I slid further into my seat. A woman beside me noticed I wasn’t as deliriously happy as everyone else.
“I take it your friends have lost?” she asked.
“You could say that,” I said.
On the ground in Calgary, my Dad was there to collect me. We silently listened to John Turner’s concession speech on the way back to my folks’ home on the Bow River. Near the end, Turner said: “The people are always right.’
“I’m not so sure about that,” I responded, but – on reflection – I reckoned that Turner was indeed correct: the people are always right.
And the people had chosen Brian Mulroney, in record numbers. More than seventy-five per cent of eligible voters turned out to give Mulroney an astonishing 211 seats. The Liberals were reduced to a paltry 40 – only ten ahead of the New Democrats.
So began the Mulroney era, and a decade in the wilderness for the Liberal Party of Canada. It was an extraordinary decade, a time of great change, and it is hard to believe it all started 40 years ago today.
Not many in the media marked Mulroney’s September 4, 1984 triumph, and that is a shame. He changed Canada – not always for the good, but not entirely for the bad, either.
Meech Lake, Charlottetown, and assorted ministerial resignations, are always cited as the principal failures of the Mulroney era. But the former Conservative leader had successes, too: free trade, which his Liberal successor – my future boss, Jean Chretien – refused to undo. So, too, some of his major economic reforms, which arguably helped return the federation to balanced budgets and surpluses.
To not a few of us, his most singular achievement was his unflagging opposition to South Africa’s evil apartheid system. This placed him squarely against his closest conservative allies, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and America’s Ronald Reagan. But Mulroney’s determination to end apartheid put him on the right side of history – and earned him the enduring friendship of Nelson Mandela.
Why does all this matter now, 40 long years later? Two reasons.
First, Mulroney extraordinary victory on September 4, 1984 – and the historic events that followed that day – should not be forgotten. Whether you approve of his tenure or not, Mulroney truly changed Canada.
The second reason really has nothing to do with Brian Mulroney at all. The second reason we should recall September 4 is this: when democratic political change comes, it sometimes comes in a way that is dramatic, decisive, and defining. It can be shocking.
That may be good, that may be bad. Depends on the team you belong to, I suppose.
One thing cannot be disputed, however:
As on September 4, 1984, as today, the people are always right.
It’s a funny coincidence that Singh just pulled the plug on the deal the NDP had with the Liberals.
Clearly the NDP caucus has seen the writing on the wall and is really to spin the wheel on holding on during an October 2024 election versus one in 2025 when things could be worse…much, much worse!
In theory, this is a shrewd move by a leader who effectively has nothing to lose. In reality, we’ve had most of a decade to see very clearly that Jagmeet doesn’t have the balls to actually stand up for what’s right, the way his predecessors did.
This SHOULD be an election cycle that, win or lose, the left vote coalesces around the NDP and abandons the Liberals entirely, as in 2011. But it won’t be, because Singh inspires nobody. Further, we all know that the NDP as a modern organization enjoys patting itself on the back for hiring a minority to the leadership, and will never show him the door no matter how much he’s allowed the Parliamentary presence and the party’s pocketbook to crumble. That was obvious when they axed Mulcair for losing half of Layton’s seats, but renewed Singh’s contract after he lost half of Mulcair’s.
The only thing standing in the way of the Conservatives getting 240+ seats in the next election is Pierre Poilievre. And Trudeau knows it.
I suspect the results will show the Liberals at around 65 seats, following the next federal vote.
Greater questions: the political chops of those Liberals elected, and the kind of opposition that they will deliver?
If the 65 are the current sitting MPs, there aren’t many that have the chops.
Brantford sure wasn’t right in 1984. We stayed NDP in 1984 and remained in the wilderness until 1993 when Jane Stewart won and we finally had a member that was with the party in power.
In the 1980s Massey-Ferguson had closed and White Farm Equipment had left. The unemployment rate hit 24 per cent.
The fact that we did not vote for Rick Sterne in 1984 was likely not helpful.
Its like publicly breaking up but still dating on the low. Support will exist so that the election date can be pushed back till those gold plated pensions are secured. Sorry no fall election folks.
Broadhurst quit.
I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I don’t miss Brian Mulroney. In my opinion, Stephen Harper was a much better PM. The Liberals under Jean Chretien were more fiscally responsible.