Brian Mulroney was a people person. Even when his party had plummeted in popularity, he was able to keep the caucus united thanks to his awesome interpersonal skills. Though we were political adversaries, we remained friends long after he left politics.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on March 7, 2024.

OTTAWA—This year is the 40th anniversary of the election of Brian Mulroney.

The right honourable prime minister would have loved to celebrate the largest victory in Canadian history, but time robbed him of that opportunity.

Instead, a state funeral will be held to honour his life, and Canadians will revisit the accomplishments of a remarkable leader.

The prime minister and I were elected on the same day: Sept. 4, 1984.

But we sat on opposite sides of the House. Mulroney was leading 211 Conservatives, most of whom were elected in that sweep, while I was one of only 10 new Liberals.

Our party had been decimated, and political pundits were predicting the Liberals would disappear to be replaced by the New Democrats. It was widely predicted that Canada would follow an international trend of the political right and left in constant battle with nobody in the centre.

Mulroney was the leader of the Progressive Conservatives. He was a centrist prime minister who believed in the power of government for positive change.

Current Conservatives say it is the job of government to get out of the way, and let people run their affairs with no collective responsibility.

But Mulroney understood that government could be an instrument of positive change. He was born in Baie Comeau, a small mining town in northern Quebec, and he understood the need for government.

He was also the first Conservative leader to really understand Quebec, and its need for distinctiveness.

It was that understanding that paved the way for a massive Progressive Conservative majority back in 1984.

But it was also his wish to get Quebec’s signature on the Canadian constitution that eventually fractured the party in favour of a western-based equivalent of the Bloc Québécois.

In 1987, the Reform Party was formed under the leadership of Preston Manning. Fatigued by the Meech Lake debate, Reformers believed Progressive Conservatives were too focused on the East, especially Quebec.

Their platform called for a Triple-E Senate: equal, elected and effective. An elected Senate was supposed to counterbalance the influence of the House of Commons, dominated by Members of Parliament from Eastern Canada.

Some Reformers also held negative views towards women, minorities, and homosexuals. Built on a strong Christian base, the party blurred the separation between church and state that had been the foundation of Canadian politics.

But in the 1988 election, Reformers only managed to garner two per cent of the vote while the Progressive Conservatives sustained a second majority with their promise of a free trade agreement.

Mulroney believed in an activist government. He negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement in the face of considerable opposition from the manufacturing heartland of Ontario.

He also introduced the goods and services tax, another initiative that opposition Liberals opposed.

That tax replaced a 13.5 per cent manufacturers’ sales tax, but—unlike the former—it was not embedded in the price of goods, but was added at the cash register.

While it was wildly unpopular, the tax set the stage for fiscal stability as it has generated billions of dollars annually for federal coffers. Last year, it produced more than $16-billion in revenue and, in 2022, government collected $21.5-billion in GST.

Mulroney also loomed large on the international scene, setting the stage for an end to apartheid in South Africa by working within the Commonwealth to impose sanctions.

Mulroney had to fight Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and American president Ronald Reagan on that move, as both opposed the sanctions that ultimately broke the back of the South African government.

Above all, Mulroney was a people person. Even when his party had plummeted in popularity, he was able to keep the caucus united and motivated, largely because of his awesome interpersonal skills.

Even though we were political adversaries, we remained friends long after Mulroney left politics.

Whenever I would call him, his first question would be about my family.

Mulroney had every reason to despise a former Liberal rat-packer, but he never made politics personal. He understood we all had a job to do. While we were adversaries, we were never enemies.

The centrist party Mulroney led no longer exists.

Instead, anti-government former Reformers have taken centre stage in the Conservative movement.

Perhaps it is a reflection of the direction of the country. The notion of collective responsibility has largely been replaced by rabid individualism with an emphasis on the word “rabid.”

Mulroney understood that there was no place in politics for hate.

His prime ministerial legacy changed Canada. May he rest in peace.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

OTTAWA—President Donald Trump’s free-range press conference last week simply confirmed the obvious.

He suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder that distorts reality and creates his own alternative truth.

The first sign of a potential disorder was his claim that world leaders were laughing with him when he told the United Nations that he was amongst the greatest presidents in the history of his country.

That claim prompted a collective guffaw from an astonished audience, to which the president sheepishly remarked that he did not expect that reaction.

But in a subsequent effort to explain away the embarrassment, he claimed that the group was actually laughing with him.

It was as though they were sharing a joke together, but instead they were laughing at him because the incredible pomposity of the president of the United States has made him a joke on the international stage.

He obviously believes his alternative truth. Trump has spent so much of his presidential energy preaching to the converted that he may have no idea of the negative world reaction to his bluster.

Politicians usually spend too much time in cocoons of their own making. The closer you get to the top, the less you are exposed to comments from those who disagree with you. Power has a way of shutting out genuine dissent, as people usually tell a leader what she or he wants to hear.

But a good politician will try and stay close to the people. In Trump’s case, that means the same people that got him into the White House.

Hillary Clinton referred to them as a “basket of deplorables.” That comment probably cost her the presidency but there is truth in the characterization of certain alt-right, neo-Nazis who support the president.

Trump’s press performance did not stop there. He moved on to personally attack key Canadian negotiators of the North American Free Trade Agreement. His focus zeroed in on Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. He reiterated his annoyance by deliberately snubbing the prime minister at the UN luncheon.

The awkward moment when Justin Trudeau tried to shake Trump’s hand, was caught on camera. Trudeau tried to make the best of a bad situation, explaining away the obvious slight as simply a preoccupation with the papers Trump was reading. But the president’s continued personal attacks on Canada belied Trudeau’s calm exterior.

Trump holds most of the cards in the NAFTA game. And while public bravado is the only tack the Canadian team can take, internally the team must be roiling about the possibility of economic fallout from the absence of a deal.

Trump made a vocal threat to impose heavy excise taxes Canadians autos. That move would definitely send the Canadian economy into a tailspin.

But to hear Trump publicly attack Canada, at the same time he is extolling his relationship with Kim Jung Un is simply too much.

Trump’s numerous late-night tweets are vicious but short, but the press conference last week laid bare the thinking of a president who really does like North Korea more than Canada.

During the press conference, Trump said he would continue to support the Kurdish people because they fought side by side with Americans in Iraq.

But Trump’s knowledge of history must be limited. Canada fought beside the United States in two world wars, and has been a greater friend to that country than any other partner.

In addition, our defence forces have worked side by side in Afghanistan and other hot spots around the world.

As far as Trump is concerned, that pales in comparison to cows.

Trump has made it very clear from the beginning that the farmers in Wisconsin are waiting for a return on their election investment.

The Americans have their own forms of agricultural protectionism but they see Canada’s system of supply management as a NAFTA hill to die on.

Trudeau and Freeland will be loathe to ignore the signals. Their commitment to the Canadian dairy industry stands firm, but they certainly cannot afford to throw the rest of Canada’s economy under the bus.

So while the public posture is firm, negotiators need to put something on the table that will allow Trump to boast about his alternative win.

That may not be too hard to do. He has consistently claimed victory with North Korea even though most observers see little progress on the denuclearization front.

It is frightening to see Trump’s alternative truth exposed on the world stage.

But that is the world he lives in.

By Sheila Copps

First published in The Hill Times on September 10, 2018.

OTTAWA—Culture is a hill that the North American Free Trade Agreement should die on.

And those naysayers who have piled on to criticize the prime minister’s decision to hold firm on culture simply don’t know what they are talking about. The growth in cultural jobs doubled that of the overall economy, accounting for more than 650,000 jobs.

Our intricate system of cultural supports, subsidies, and licence requirements is an economic driver for the country. According to Statistics Canada, the cultural GDP in Canada totalled $53.8-billion in 2016, a 1.5 per cent increase from the previous year.

Culture also accounted for 2.8 per cent of Canada’s overall GDP. The importance of culture varied considerably across provinces and territories, ranging from a share of 1.3 per cent of GDP in Saskatchewan to 3.5 per cent in Ontario.

At the national level, cultural jobs were on the increase in most domains, led by sound recording with an increase of more than seven per cent.

The only decrease was in the publishing of written works which declined for the fourth consecutive year.

The audio-visual sector is certainly an important part of the cultural landscape but it is by no means the only sector influenced by a robust, and differentiated Canadian cultural policy, Canada’s intricate support framework is a job creator. But, more importantly, it is also the only way that Canadians can create and share their own stories.

The biggest cultural fight with the United States had nothing to do with television. The so-called “Magazine Wars” were actually about the written word.

That battle happened when the Americans tried to do an end-run around the cultural exemption Canada had negotiated in the initial free trade agreement with the United States.

The Americans went to the World Trade Organization to accuse Canada of unfair treatment because our tax system offered enhanced advertising credits exclusively for Canadian magazines. The Yanks wanted Time Magazine to get the same support as Maclean’s.

The WTO found in favour of the United States, taking the view that magazines are a commodity just like bananas or pork bellies. It ruled that no country could use the tax system to favour their own creative vehicles, like books, music, magazines, or film.

That decision so outraged Canada that we initiated a new world convention under the auspices of UNESCO. The 2005 Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions was a direct result of the magazine battle between Canada and the United States. It effectively replaced the WTO as the platform to arbitrate cultural disputes.

The United States was blindsided in their attempt to block the convention. Notwithstanding a full court press that included the intervention of then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the final UNESCO Convention vote was 148 in favour and two against.

The only countries who voted against were the United Nations and Israel. Australia, Liberia, Nicaragua and Honduras abstained.

But the overwhelming majority of countries agreed on an important world precedent. They argued successfully that culture must be treated in a unique and different way from other commodities when it comes to the rules governing international trade.

Trudeau needs to stand firm on this position at the NAFTA talks. To do anything else would be folly for a country that shares the world’s largest border and a common language with the United States.

Can you imagine a Canadian broadcast landscape where Howard Stern and Fox News dominate the agenda? Under our system, Stern’s radio show lasted only weeks in Canada because his brand of misogyny violated our broadcast laws.

The cultural exemption ensures that we will have space and support for our own stories.

Canadians need shelf space for creations in print, music, museology, audio-visual and performance arts.

Each of those elements is an important part in defining who we are. Of course, some stories are universal.

A film version of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale resonates in the global market. But her strength as a writer and creator was nurtured through multiple Canadian policies that should not be compromised.

Copyright laws, book publishing support, public lending right payments, international travel investment in the arts and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have all played a part in Atwood’s impressive global trajectory.

The Handmaid’s Tale would not have been written without a strong Canadian cultural policy.

Some think that the cultural exemption is only there to support the few.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Trudeau needs to stand firm on this.

A NAFTA without the cultural exemption is not worth signing.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published on Monday, August 14, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Canada’s effort to include climate change in the North American Free Trade negotiations is worth a try.

But it is likely to get the same kind of reaction from American President Donald Trump that he levels to all climate comers.

In Trump world, climate change is in the same category as the real media world of fake news. It is part of a hidden agenda by political elites to ignore the wishes of ordinary people and Trump will have none of it.

A 700-page report on climate change, co-authored by 17 United States government agencies that have been tasked with writing the National Climate Assessment for the past quarter century, will have no influence on the president.

Their scientific analysis, prepared for presidential review, is unequivocal.

Excerpts of the unanimous report were published in The New York Times last week.

At first, the newspaper was claiming the scoop of a leaked document, but two days later, a correction clarified that the material had been publicly available since last January. The White House jumped on the false claim, as the president correctly identified an opening for his ongoing allegations about fake news, including claims about climate change.

But the global warming report was not a media product. It was the result of scientific research by multiple American government agencies that concluded the long-term link between climate change and human activities is “unambiguous.”

“There are no alternative explanations, and no natural cycles are found in the observational record that can explain the observed changes in climate,” the report says, drawing its conclusions from thousands of studies. “Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans.”

Trump will respond to the substance of the report next week, but it is unlikely that he will embrace any conclusions.

The Canada government’s plan to replicate the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement inclusion of climate change in the NAFTA is ambitious, popular and likely doomed to failure.

Unlike the United States, the European Union has been leading the charge on greenhouse gas reductions for years. German Chancellor Angela Merkel authored the precursor to the Kyoto Accord when she served as Germany’s environment minister and chaired the first United Nations Climate Conference in Berlin in 1995.

Germany has been at the forefront of greenhouse gas emission reductions, far outstripping commitments made and delivered by Canada in the last two decades. The CETA template is definitely worth copying, but it is unlikely to get any traction in trade discussions with neighbours south of the border.

Trump will be hard pressed to embrace science, given he has long characterized the climate change claim as a hoax. He will simply dismiss the report, characterizing it as a product of the very Washington swamp mentality that he is trying to drain.

Increasing evidence that forest fires and floods are directly linked to warming climate need not disrupt Trump’s obstinacy.

He cares little of the study’s claim that even if humans stop spewing heat-trapping gases today, the world will warm another 0.3 degrees Celsius over today’s temperatures.

So the chance of incorporating the report into an American government strategy on climate change is slim to none.

There is another factor that puts the Canadian desire to include climate change in NAFTA at risk.

Mexico, which has a heavily petroleum-based economy, is not likely to be a great supporter of climate change inclusion either.

An American refusal to embrace climate change could also negatively impact the Canadian government’s aggressive carbon pricing targets and greenhouse gas reduction plan.

Business leaders have been notoriously slow to recognize the reality of climate change economic costs, notwithstanding domestic examples of severe storms, fires and floods.

They will plead their case that the integration of the two economies is so intertwined that a weakening of the American commitment will necessitate a similar move by Canada.

Ironically, an integrated NAFTA approach would actually be the most successful way to tackle common climate problems in a shared air space.

That proposal has been hanging around since the creation North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation back in 1994. The trilateral Commission for Environmental Cooperation was launched as a result of the first NAFTA agreement.

Almost 25 years ago, the CEC explored the possibility of having trilateral air agreement that would regulate automobile emission standards and shared air sheds.

Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were unable to reach a consensus then. It is unlikely the three amigos will change their minds.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published on Monday, August 7, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Hopefully NAFTA’s ark won’t spring a leak.

The ship of state that will be guiding the country through the treacherous Trumpian waters of North American free trade is anything if not inclusive.

The 13-member advisory council announced last week by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland crosses party lines, regional divisions and market divides.

From Quebec farmers to the labour movement, from auto parts makers to aboriginal leaders, the NAFTA advisory council is broadly representative of the sectors that stand to be affected by the negotiations.

One missing voice is that of the Liberal Party. That statement may seem counterintuitive, given the leader of the country and the lead minister on the file are both Liberals. At the end of the day, the chief negotiator for the deal also reports to the prime minister so the government will definitely have the final say.

But in the delicate world of trade, the cabinet is there to knit together a broad national consensus while ordinary caucus members have a duty to identify specific constituency pitfalls.

It would be folly to think that former Conservative leader Rona Ambrose, former minister James Moore, or former New Democratic leadership candidate Brian Topp would act as party mouthpieces in these negotiations. All nominees are capable, independent thinkers in their own right and they are definitely not there to toe the party line.

But just as the Union of Agricultural Producers can be counted on to protect Quebec farmers’ interest, which do not always coincide with those of Ontario or Albertan farmers, neither Topp nor Ambrose will throw their respective former parties under the bus. They can also be expected to reflect their lifetime political perspective and to keep party friends in the loop.

The absence of a specific Liberal appointee would not have been missed if the advisory group had been limited to sectoral experts. But with two high-profile Tories and a New Democrat on the 13-member group, ordinary Liberals will be miffed to have missed their opportunity to influence the council.

International negotiations always involve domestic give and take. What is good for one part of the country does not always satisfy the other.

Initial free trade negotiations with the United States split the Liberal Party on geographic and demographic lines back in the election of 1988. Quebec members, basking in the glow of Quebec Inc., and sensing a potential international market for surplus electricity, were huge free traders.

Ontario Liberals, were largely opposed, believing that trade liberalization with the United States would be akin to a mouse sleeping with an elephant. Prime minister Pierre Trudeau first made the rodent comparison. But his reflection is obviously not shared by his son.

At a speech last month to the United States National Governors annual meeting, the prime minister distanced himself from his father’s famous elephant to mouse analogy.“Canada is a confident, creative, resourceful and resource-rich nation. We are a wealthy and influential country by world standards. But we are also a country of 35 million people living next door to one roughly 10 times our size and the world’s only superpower. My father, prime minister Pierre Trudeau, once compared this to sleeping next to an elephant. While you, my American friends, may be an elephant, Canada is no mouse. More like a moose—strong and peaceable but still massively outweighed.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s confidence is palpable. It instils pride and confidence in Canadians. But when the rubber hits the road, there will be huge negotiating splits, not just between Canada and the United States, but also within our own country.

The success of a made-in-Canada automotive sector was one of the results of the Auto Pact. That agreement, signed in 1965, guaranteed an integrated North American automobile production model, which greatly benefited manufacturing in southern Ontario. That integration was incorporated into the Canada-United States free trade agreement.

The oil economy, with the current exception of Newfoundland and Labrador, is largely a western economic engine.

What happens when clashes occur between those often warring factions of oil and auto. What about the competitive divisions between electricity and natural gas exporters? Will beef farmers from Alberta be prepared to sacrifice anything for Quebec dairy cousins?

The Canadian horse-trading, before we can present a united front, will be a big part of the work of the advisory panel. With no Liberal in the working group, the government obviously opted for political correctness. When the group is united, that works.

But if divisions erupt, how will Liberal backs be covered?

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

By SHEILA COPPS

First published on Monday, May 22, 2017 in The Hill Times.

OTTAWA—Like it or not, we are back in the free trade debate.

But chances are, it won’t be as divisive as the one we experienced in the election of 1988.

This time, there will be a fair bit of unanimity around the big issues. But be prepared for a few Canadian sacred cows to be sacrificed in the process. When I speak of sacred cows, I am of course not referring to the beasts themselves, but rather what they produce.

U.S. President Donald Trump has his sights squarely set on the abolition of the supply-managed Canadian dairy system.

Trump believes that Wisconsin carried him to the White House, and in so doing, it brokered a favour and secured a champion to open northern borders to state milk.

Canada can trot out all the data it wants to prove that the United States is getting as good as it gives in the North American Free Trade Agreement. The figures prove it.

But in the alternative Trump truth, what matters is politics. And he has supply management in his crosshairs.

It is also true that support for this unique made-in-Canada solution to dairy productions has been facing mixed reviews at home for years.
 
The latest politician to line up against the dairy farmers is none other that the likely future leader of the Conservative Party, Beauce Member of Parliament Maxime Bernier.

The strongest political support for the existing system comes from Quebec, but the loudest voice to kill it belongs to Bernier.

Ontario dairy farmers are not as vocal but they are equally political, with strong lobbying efforts in Ottawa, and direct contact with every Member of Parliament in rural Canada.

Those members punch above their weight. But given the vocal opposition of Bernier, if the government is forced to sacrifice supply management, it will be less politically damaging.
 
Most Canadians are too young to remember when supply management was introduced into Parliament. The system was the brainchild of a former minister in the Pierre Trudeau government, colourful Windsor-area Eugene Whelan, whose signature green Stetson was recognizable across the country.

Whelan left politics after an unsuccessful run against John Turner for the Liberal leadership back in 1984.

But his unique contribution remains to this day, and the beauty of the system is that the government offers no direct subsidies but, instead, controls the supply of milk to secure better financial yields for farmers.

The unique process drives most economists crazy and opponents often cite the high cost of Canadian milk to justify eliminating the tool in every international trade negotiation.

It survived several rounds of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiation, it survived the Free Trade Agreement and its’ successor NAFTA. It survived the Trans Pacific Partnership, despite fierce opposition from dairy-rich New Zealand. It even survived the recent Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) signed with the European Union.

But it may not survive Trump’s bombast. Dairy farmers and their cooperatives have been preparing for the end for years. They have been economically savvy in developing and marketing their own value-added milk products, through companies like Agropur, which is tapping into the burgeoning yoghurt market, and producing other dairy-based foods.

If the Canadian government is forced to put supply management on the chopping block, the blow could be softened with some value-added transformation financing, like that offered to the grape growers during the first round of bilateral trade agreements almost 30 years ago.

The reopening of NAFTA may offer opportunities in other sectors.

With the United States facing a world backlash based on some of Trump’s protectionist, wall-building pronouncements, Canada can actually become a stronger North American business hub.

In the growing fin-tech, creative and service sectors, our country could pick up where the United States is leaving off.

Certainly, Trump’s diminishing political capital in Washington may blunt his negotiating force.

As we saw during the recent British Columbia election, Canada has a few weapons of our own, when it comes to Canada-United States trade disputes.

Any border blockage of resource-rich materials actually wreaks havoc with manufacturing facilities down south that are dependent on raw product for transformation.

The reality for both countries is that a seamless North American border is a sine quae non to confront the onslaught of Asia-Pacific competition. From China to India, the world economic poles of influence are changing. Like it or not, Europe and North America are no longer privileged players.

America needs seamless northern borders as much as we do.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.