The public hanging of Brian Mulroney

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney will probably be remembered as the most hated prime minister Canada ever had. A Prince Edward Island member of parliament said in the House of Commons in March 2008, "Let's get this Mulroney before the courts as soon as possible and hang him high." He had to apologize to the members of the House of Commons as such rhetoric isn't acceptable in such an august body of politicians. But I think his thoughts are widely accepted by the majority of Canadians. A number of years ago, before the turn of this century, I had the same thoughts in mind. What follows is a piece I wrote about the public hanging of Brian Mulroney.

The only thing more effective in getting the public's attention than a prime minister committing political suicide as a means of drawing to the attention of the voters that all is not right in our government, is a public hanging as a means of drawing to the attention of the citizens that all is not right in our streets.

The then prime minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney decided that there was a better way to fill up the government coffers with extra money. Many taxpayers looked upon the proposed GST as an alternative that would make even a vulture regurgitate because of the fact that the new tax would now be added to services rendered; something not federally done before.

The 'Goods and Services Tax' (GST) which began on January 1, 1991 created more public discussion and awareness of taxes than any other proposed tax in Canada's history. This is probably due to the dog fighting in the Senate which had been brought to the attention of Canadians almost hourly via the news media.

For a long time, Canadians had paid a hidden tax, the 'Manufacturer's Sales Tax' (MST) on every manufactured goods they had purchased. This federal tax had been hidden from the consumers because it was paid up front by the manufacturers themselves who then passed this tax onto the consumers without actually listing it on the price tag. In effect, the consumers had been paying 13.5 per cent over and above what the cost and profit of the manufacturer actually was.

The MST had been an accepted evil simply because of the fact that it had been unseen by the consumer. Then the federal government proposed that Canadians would not have to pay that kind of tax on manufactured goods any longer and was instead suggesting to the citizens that there was a palatable alternative.

One is forced to ponder what the savings really are when you consider the fact that although the previous tax on goods was halved, this new tax is added to every kind of service imaginable. The haircut in the barber shop increased from $11.00 to $11.77. The cab fare from the airport to downtown Toronto increased from $25.00 to $26.75. Four nights in a hotel at the present $299 per person costs an additional $20.93--the equivelant to two meals. The lawyer's bill for his or her services in court is increased from $1000.00 a day to $1070.00 a day. That additional $70.00 in taxes for the lawyer's bill for his or her services in court is more than a great many people earn in a day.

Under the previous system, if you earned between $25,000 and $35,000 per year, combining the MST and your income tax, the federal government would lay claim to 15.59 per cent o f your gross income. So if in fact you earned $30,000, the government would take $4,677. But under the present GST system, the federal government takes 15.88 per cent of your gross income. So if you are still earning $30,000, the government will take $4,764--an increase of $87.00 in deductions and payments under the new tax. That additional tax over a period of a year may not seem like much to someone earning $30,000 a year but coupled with the fact that it represents four tankfuls of gasoline for the car, sixty-eight trips on the TTC, approximately eighty litres of milk, haircuts for eight months--that additional $87 in increased taxes gives greater meaning to the words-- feeling the pain.

The present GST is a logistics nightmare for all businesses that sell goods or offer services, not to mention the federal government itself. Aside from listing the provincial tax of 8 per cent on the price labels, stores and other firms have to list an additional federal tax of 7 per cent towards the cost of the items or services they offer for sale. They have to separate the tax monies they receive from their customers and clients so that both governments get their piece of the action and the federal government must process thousands of GST forms daily at a cost of millions of dollars annually.

A suit which is listed at $150 will in fact cost an additional $22.50 in provincial and federal taxes. So what looks reasonable at $150.00 for a suit, will probably look unreasonable at $172.50. This will scare customers away when they realize that they have to pay 15 percent more than what the suit is actually listed for.

Proponents of the GST say that the price of the suit will drop from $150.00 to $129.75 because the 13.5 per cent MST won't be added to the cost of the suit. But at the same time, there is no guarantee that the seller won't simply jack the price of the suit up to $150 in any case, and then force the consumer to pay the additional 15per cent tax on top of the $150.00. The consumer will still be stuck with the additional tax burden, albeit it will be in the open and not hidden in the $150 asking price as before.

The Prime Minister then made another fatal flaw in his political career. He approved of the Free Trade Agreement which resulted in thousands upon thousands of Canadian workers losing their jobs because their employers were free to close down their businesses and open up in other countries where the labour was cheaper.

When Prime Minister Mulroney decided to hit Canadians with the GST, and sign the Free Trade Agreement, he must have surely known that it was political suicide for him to do so. But not even he could have forseen that his suicide was in fact going to be a public hanging. As he tried to sell the idea of the GST and Free Trade to Canadians, he was in actuality running up the thirteen steps leading to the platform of the gallows. If at this junction of his political career he decided to withdraw his GST and Free Trade ideas, Canadians per se, may very well have led him gently back down the steps of the gallows and given him a second chance.

But then, Mulroney thinking that he would be rescued before he stepped on the trapdoor of the gallows, ran pell mell to that particular fixture of the gallows with his chin up high for all to see him for the courageous man he was. There was no rescue.

As he began reaching for the hangman's rope suspended above him, he told Canadians that with refundable sales tax credits, all families earning under $30,000 would be better off after the GST reforms and further extolled the virtues of Free Trade. Alas, his pleadings to the multitude which had gathered about to watch his public hanging, screamed and roared and invariably drowned out his voice.

They were well aware that this Prime Minister, who handpicked many of his cabinet ministers from the depths of the public cesspool, was not that much better than his cohorts who had been hanged from the gallows earlier.

Mulroney knew that the mob screaming for his blood would show him no mercy. He knew that if his gang didn't come to his rescue, his political life would come to a disgraceful end. There was only one way in which Mulroney could save himself. He had to enlarge his gang, for without an increase in the number of members of his gang, he was outgunned.

Mulroney invoked section 26 of the Constitution; which allows a prime minister to appoint up to eight extra senators to break up the vigilantes in the senate that were screaming for his blood. If the vigilantes outgunned the Prime Minister and his gang, then the GST would die right along side the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister was desperate--in fact he was so desperate that he pulled out of the local cesspool, a recently retired premier who was being investigated by the town marshall for wrongdoings. When Mulroney chose this gallow's bait as a Canadian senator,some of the vilgilantes clambered up the steps of the gallows and began helping the executioner tie the hangman's knot at the end of the rope.

The Liberals in the senate began to feel the pressure as Tory appointees began squeezing into the Senate. Some must have wondered why Canadians in 1908 didn't follow the liberal slogan of that year; Reform the Senate.

As the new Tory appointees entered the red chamber, some may have pondered the words of Sir Charles Metcalfe (Governor General of Canada) when he wrote to Sir Alexander Galt in 1843; "You may rest assured....those who support me, I will support."

As sure as day follows night, the eight Tory appointees came to the rescue of the Prime Minister. The vigilantes screamed and rang bells but with the independants and the new gang members pulling out their guns, the vigilantes had to retreat behind the bastiens of the law.

The political situation hadn't changed. The Prime Minister placed the hangman's rope around his neck and was ready for the big drop. But no matter what was to come, it was academic whether the trapdoor was sprung by the sheriff, the crowd or whether the Prime Minister remained on the platform of the gallows with the rope around his neck until the end of the day; for as far as the screaming mob at his feet was concerned, politically speaking, he was a dead man.

Widespread public resentment of the Goods and Services Tax, an economic slump, the dilapidation of his political coalition, and his lack of results regarding the Quebec situation caused Mulroney's popularity to decline considerably during his second term. Finally, the crowd could wait no longer.The grumbling and then the screaming increased.

Mulroney entered 1993 facing a statutory general election. By this time, his approval ratings had dipped into the teens, and were at 11% in a 1992 Gallup poll, making him one of the most unpopular prime ministers since opinion polling began in Canada in the 1940s. When Mulroney announced he was stepping aside as leader of the party, his standing was 21% in the latest Gallup Poll in February 1993.

A number of his own gang members crept up the steps of the gallows and approached their leader. They yelled in his ear that unless he jumped on his own accord, the crowd would come after them also and lynch the lot of them. They told him that he had to sacrifice himself for the good of his gang.

The day had been a long and hot one and was now coming to a close. The Prime Minister knew that his followers were right. It was nobler to jump into the gaping hole in the platform than be lynched by the masses at his feet.

As he cried out to the angry populace below him, exhorting his virtues, some of his own men nudged him closer to the edge of the hole. The time had come. Then he cried out, "I did my best!" and having said that, he jumped into the hole in the platform amidst the crowd's inevitable roar; and as Canada's prime minister; he existed no more.

As the sun was setting, his gang members cut him down and as they headed out of town with the body of their politically dead leader, they praised him for his virtues to any of the lingering townspeople who cared to listen.

John Dafoe said it best in 1922 when he said, "A Prime Minister under the party system as we have it in Canada is of necessity an egotist and autocrat. If he comes to office without these characteristics, his enviroment equipts him with them as surely as a diet of royal jelly transforms a worker into a queen bee."

Brian Mulroney will be remembered in Canadian politics as a worker who feasted on royal jelly and was transformed into a queen bee and while reigning the hive as the queen bee, he was finally kicked out of the hive; and rightly so. History will also show that the hive was destroyed so that he and his fellow bees could forever be referred to in the past tense.