The Secret Tisdall Tapes:

I have been warned. From now on I only post in dark green or black. Or if I'm really mad I can highlight one word. In red. But, only one. They're serious. Really. Okay on with the show.

Bought and read the Secret Mulroney Tapes today. Oddly enough I now have more respect for Brian Mulroney. The GST was put in a rational light for me, and I get the point about having Quebec sign the constitution. I still have great reservations about Meech, Charlottetown, and FTA/NAFTA. But, I do understand where he was coming from and how many times he told his good buddies, to whom he was supposedly so subservient, to pound salt, in the nicest possible way of course. But there still remain some glaring mistakes that defined his government, and more that I hadn't thought of entirely. I shall go on to define the major themes of the book in Point/Counterpoint fashion.

Point: Brian Mulroney was a cynical, vengeful man, look at what he did to Julian Porter, denying him the chief justice of Ontario, because his wife published the Claire Hoy book, "Friends in High Places"

Counterpoint: Sean, you ignorant slut, Brian dished dirt on his friends and enemies because that's what he needed to do for Newman to be able to write a truly honest portrail of the man warts and all. It became obvious during the book that he was much like the PM in H2O telling the nation what he felt it had to hear as evidenced by this line:

I put the country up to a mirror and I said, "Here's what you look like and here's what we have to look like in ten or fifteen or twenty years." They couldn't swallow it; they couldn't take it. Now does that mean I was wrong? We'll have to see. I don't think so. That's what a leader has to do.

Point: Speaking of the mirror, a fundamental part of Mulroney's image was Canada as a nation enriched by getting in on the global economy early in the game and protecting its identity through wealth.

Counterpoint: Sean, you ignorant slut, that's a good point. If you're a Canadian nationalist and you take power what would you do with the economy to ensure more Canadian control over our economic destiny? Well first you'd like to ensure as many economic condidtions as you can. Hence FTA. Mulroney though he could guarantee the Canadian economy secure access into the American economy in exchange for giving away something that Canadians didn't much want in the first place: Their excess energy production. Or course as Hnatyshn put it, "Free trade in energy with the Americans is like wife swapping with a bachelor." So now you've opened up the economy. In an open economy there's not much reason to prime the pump as Mitterand found out. Most of your capital can leave the country when it's spent on subsidy, so as Coyne reccomended you start moving your fiscal balance more and more into the black.He didn't do a good job of this, but Crow ends up taking up most of the slack with higer interest rates and a recession gobbles up his tax base and balloons his UI payments. Paul Martin however brings down the nuclear budget that had to follow Free Trade, otherwise why bother? The main advantage of free trade is that you can start underspending the other guy and free ride off of his deficits. That's why Canada's rolling in it now. The Americans are gutting themselves and Canada with it's higher interest rates and strong surplus is lapping it up. So now American capital is crowding your style, you say you want more Canadian ownership? Great encourage savings. You have part one down by choppng spending. Now you need a tax on consumption so that households don't pick up the slack. Hence the GST. A sales tax doesn't tax savings. More Canadian savings, more Canadian investment, more Canadian capital. But while Mulroney was in office the Debt/GDP ratio balooned, so these policies were effectively masked by the fact that the man who could roll the dice with the country didn't have the balls to take a big wet bite out of the budget's ass when he had the chance. Don't de-index the pensions, freeze them for 2 years and then start indexing them again (8% cut) raise taxes your first year. GST immediately and make it 10% Cut interest rates by a point the moment any sector wobbles and apply the savings against the debt. Cut every budget by 10% to start and then begin to follow inflation instead of outstripping growth. Bring in the hard budget quick and the public will have caught its breath by '88. You're out of a recession, don't wander into a boom that will precipitate another recession.

Point: Mulroney needed to be more bashful about his patronage sprees.

Counterpoint: No. Mulroney needed to acknowledge and accept patronage. He needed to be more balanced about it for sure, but patronage is important. It mobilizes people into the political process. It allows you to get bright people who are willing to work with you into positions in which they can aid your government. Some of the best advisors a government has aren't retained as advisors. They are senators, citizenship judges, governors of crown corporations. They know enough about their job to be trustees and they provide a link between government and civil service that otherwise wouldn't be there. Without patronage, only the wealthy can afford politics.

Point: He never really respected his peers did he?

Counterpoint: Ignorant slut, blah, blah, He loved his peers. But yeah, he thought they were idiots.

P: He was a bullshitter.
C: Who believed his own bullshit. That makes him an honourable man, even if wrong.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode when you'll hear Sean say:

"Will that be for de pickup or de delivery, Mr. Danza?"