PRIME MINISTER’S FIRST STEP BACK TO POPULARITY: RESIGNING
IT WORKED FOR MULRONEY AND HARPER. FOR TRUDEAU, HOWEVER, THE LIFTING IS A LITTLE HEAVIER
The secret to lasting political popularity is to lose an election, then retire. As Brian Mulroney once pointed out, it was all downhill after he won 50 per cent of the popular vote in 1984.
Eight years in office later, his approval rate was just 12 per cent.
In 1992, he forecast a personal comeback that would “do honour to Lazarus.” It may have taken more than 30 years, but he has been proven right.
A new poll by Sparks Advocacy, in the wake of the former prime minister’s death, says 83 per cent of Canadians feel he did a good job in office.
His signature policies received overwhelming support from Canadians of all ages: free trade with the U.S.; the agreement on acid rain; being a leading voice against apartheid; and the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax.
Free trade split the country down the middle in the late 1980s but is now viewed positively by 85 per cent of respondents. Even efforts that did not succeed — such as the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords — won approval for the spirit behind them, according to Bruce Anderson, Sparks’ chief strategy officer.
The outpouring of affection for a man who was so controversial while in office raises the question of whether public rehabilitation is inevitable for even the most unpopular of prime ministers.
The answer, I would argue, is a resounding “yes.”
The Angus Reid Institute (ARI) conducted a survey last May that looked at the history of prime ministerial approval after eight years in office. It found that Justin Trudeau’s approval rate of 40 per cent (it has since fallen to 32 per cent) was higher than his father’s, Pierre (32 per cent), Mulroney (12 per cent), and Stephen Harper (36 per cent) after eight years of being prime minister.
Only Jean Chrétien, at 54 per cent eight years after being elected, was higher.
Arguably, that reputational healing is already happening with Harper. When he left office, another ARI poll suggested only around a quarter of Canadians thought he was an outstanding or above-average prime minister. Nearly one-third believed history would judge him as average and 43 per cent felt his performance was poor or below average.
His legacy is certainly less consequential than Mulroney’s; cutting the GST by two points was ranked as Harper’s greatest achievement in the ARI poll.
But nearly nine years after leaving office, there is a greater appreciation of what he did, and perhaps more importantly, what he prevented from happening.
Had he not been elected in 2006, brewing regional resentments in the West and in Quebec, not to mention a testy relationship with the Bush administration in Washington, may have boiled over.
Harper, like Chrétien before him, was not a prime minister who made decisions he didn’t have to. For both men, good government was boring government.
But he did provide pragmatic leadership during the financial crisis of 2008-09, going against type by buying a stake in GM to preserve auto jobs and inspiring confidence in Canada’s future when it was in short supply.
He initiated trade deals in Europe and Asia, and began the process of Indigenous reconciliation with his emotional apology on the floor of the House of Commons for the residential school program in 2008.
After the financial crisis subsided, he had a plan of fiscal restraint and stuck to it, creating a stable environment for business. Critics argue that the lacklustre performance on jobs and growth was not helped by austerity and shrinking the size of the public service, and they have a point.
But by his penultimate year in power, he had shrunk government to a size he was more comfortable with: program spending as a percentage of GDP was 13.2 per cent in 2013-14. And he returned more money to taxpayers: Tax Freedom Day, when theoretically Canadians start working for themselves, fell two weeks earlier than it had in 2005.
What of Trudeau? There are few achievements to compare with Mulroney’s, or even his father’s repatriation of the Constitution.
But there are policies that will survive his time in office, for which he deserves credit.
Gender equity in cabinet and the Supreme Court are here to stay, and future governments are unlikely to reverse the intent of Indigenous reconciliation, even if they cut into spending on the file, which has doubled since Harper’s day.
It is unlikely that the passage of time revises the impression that this is not a prime minister who successfully implemented the policies that he sold to Canadians. Just this week the auditor general, Karen Hogan, noted that the federal government has failed to meet its housing policy commitments to Indigenous people, calling the lack of improvement in the percentage of First Nations homes that need repair or replacement since 2015 “a distressing and persistent pattern of failure.”
The Indigenous Services minister’s case for the defence was that the department had increased funding for housing by 1,100 per cent.
The legalization of pot hasn’t worked out as advertised, at least in terms of public health outcomes or the death of the black market, but it is hard to see future governments outlawing cannabis again.
The same cannot be said of Trudeau’s consumer carbon tax, which increasingly appears doomed.
The Liberals’ signature legacy is the safety net of benefits that was built early in their mandate: a child benefit that has helped reduce child poverty to record lows, an enhanced Canada Pension Plan, more generous Old Age Security and a bolstered low-income workers’ benefit.
In effect, the Liberals created a guaranteed annual income for seniors and low-income parents with kids.
That is a choice the Trudeau government made: to be more interventionist and spend more of taxpayers’ money on those on the poverty line. This is reflected in the percentage of GDP spent on programs last year: 15.9 per cent, compared to 13.2 per cent in Harper’s penultimate year in office. In constant 2024 dollars, program expenses of $446.6 billion are nearly 30 per cent higher.
Part of that growth is reflected in a 28 per cent increase in the size of the federal public service since 2014, even though the population has grown by just 10 per cent.
The real problem with such largesse is that the government has consistently spent more than it has received in revenue. As a result, the federal debt has doubled over the past eight years — a trend that started before, and was accelerated by, the pandemic.
The debt burden is unlikely to be forgotten or forgiven quickly when Trudeau’s legacy is being considered.
Time might not heal that wound, but it is likely to cover it with scar tissue. One day, after Trudeau has long retired, Canadians will, as is their generous nature, focus solely on his positive attributes and achievements.