Next after PM Pierre Trudeau’s retirement amid a flurry of controversy, Mulroney was able to capitalize on the situation leading the Conservatives to the first majority since John Diefenbaker’s run as a right wing savior of the country. (Remember the Avro Arrow controversy when Canada lost credit for producing the best fighter plane ever developed to that time).

After Mulroney’s election came the introduction of the hated GST that brought the governments of all political stripes the claim to massive surplus budgets by creating jobs and the expert handling of Canada’s economy while in power. Even the massive profits from the surge of oil and mineral manufacturing would pale beside the cash flow created by the introduction of the GST on everything Canadians consumed except food, the cost of which is affected by GST on transportation costs and other needed services.

Then NAFTA surfaced under Mulroney, purported to be an agreement with Canada’s largest trading partner that would give us long term gain for some short-term pain. As it turned out NAFTA gave our American counterparts the long-term gain. It seems recent problems related to the auto sector, forestry, agriculture, beef, pork and many other cross border industries have reversed the original premise, and we are now experiencing long-term pain for short-term gain.

Mulroney’s collapse as Canada’s eighteenth Prime Minister did not come in an orderly fashion with the opposition parties squeezing his Conservative government out of power. It came with an explosion of voter anger that reduced one of Canada’s largest ever majority governments to a mere two seats. Mulroney’s years in power devastated the once proud Progressive Conservative party leaving it broken and bleeding and prey to the recent Reform/Alliance party takeover under present PM Stephen Harper.

It is a known fact in politics as in most other circles that where there is smoke there is usually fire. A betting person would probably avoid placing their fortune on Brian Mulroney escaping just retribution for past performance. Bags of cash to pay for goods and services usually bring on the wrath of government tax collecting agencies unless the cash transaction is illegal and beyond the scope of those inspectors. Maybe the RCMP needing a face-saving victory such as finding fault with the Mulroney-Schreiber affair to offset the taser mishap at the Vancouver airport will find the true facts in a re-opened Mulroney investigation