Macdonald Or Mulroney: The Conservative Crossroads

Do you remember when Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister? We mostly remember him now for the introduction of GST, and those little pins that everyone would wear to protest against it. But there is a part of Mulroney’s legacy that is rather overlooked in the public retrospect of Canadian history, and that is his continentalism.

In 1854, the United States and the British North American Colonies signed the Reciprocity Treaty in order to allow free trade between the two countries. However, in 1866, after the United States became embittered against Britain over the Civil War, they abrogated the 1854 treaty. One year later, in 1867, Confederation would occur and Canada would become a singular country. 

Of course, as we all know, Confederation was spearheaded by Sir John A. Macdonald. His chief objective when he assumed the premiership of the newly founded country was to create economic independence from the United States. This was the purpose and effect of the Canadian Pacific Railway, protective tariffs, among other economic and infrastructure policies under Macdonald’s National Policy. It is for this reason that he is now often referred to as a ‘Red Tory’.

What is a Red Tory? I’m sure we have all heard the term before, but these days it is usually used to mean a Conservative who rubs elbows a little too closely with the Liberals. People like Joe Clark and Jean Charest. However, Benjamin Woodfinden defines the word more specifically in his 2020 article Future of Conservatism Series, Part I: The Enduring Appeal of Red Toryism:

“Canadian Red Toryism retained the ‘Tory touch’ of the old High Tory tradition, but its outlook was shaped to the size and youth of the Canadian nation. In practice this meant that a protection of Canadians’ shared history, values and sense of nationhood often required nation-building projects that involved using the powers of the state, including its financial power.”

This definition of Red Toryism seems to be more apt than our common understanding of the word – especially when referencing Prime Ministers like Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Robert Borden, and John Diefenbaker, who are often labelled with the term these days. The last, Diefenbaker, was the inspiration for the massively influential 1965 book by George Grant, Lament for a Nation. George Grant – although personally rejecting the title – was quite often called a Red Tory, especially by Gad Horowitz, who coined the term in the 1960s.

Between 1867 and 1963 there were six Canadian Prime Ministers who we could satisfactorily call ‘Red Tories’ according to the above definition:

• Sir John A. Macdonald with his National Policy.
• Sir John Thompson with his opposition to the Continental Union Association alongside the protection of Canada’s resources from foreign interests.
• Sir Charles Tupper with his support of the industrial development of Canada as Minister of Finance.
• Sir Robert Borden with his staunch opposition to continentalism and maintenance of the economy under wartime pressures.
• Arthur Meighen, who, although not in power for long, used the power of the state to protect Canada during the Great Depression.
• John Diefenbaker, one of the most famous examples of a Red Tory Prime Minister in the modern era.

That being said, nearly any of the Conservative Prime Ministers prior to the disassembly of the National Policy by the Liberal Party in the 1940s and 1950s could be called Red Tory in principle.

So what does this have to do with Brian Mulroney? Well, Mulroney was the second Prime Minister in Canadian history that would fall under the definition of a ‘Blue Tory.’ As opposed to a Red Tory, Blue Tories are more focused on the American style of Conservatism: fiscal responsibility, personal liberty, and limited government.

This set of priorities far more aligns with the American motto of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” as opposed to Canada’s more traditional inclination towards “Peace, Order, and Good Government.” Ironically, despite the reputation that Red Tories align with Liberals, the ideology for which Blue Tories fight is called Economic Liberalism.

Mulroney’s only Blue Tory predecessor was Prime Minister R.B. Bennett, who is often flaunted as a champion of laissez-faire economic policy during the Great Depression. Yet, even this was actually done in opposition to the Americans, since at that time Washington was pressuring the Canadian government to adopt Roosevelt-esque policies, characterized by state intervention in the economy. In the end, R.B. Bennett would capitulate to the American proposal in the face of rising economic uncertainty, but at the expense of his Premiership.

This is why Mulroney was such a significant departure for Conservatives: his continentalism was the first of its kind in the Party. A perfect contrast for his continentalism would be Sir John A. Macdonald’s staunch defence of protectionist policy in the free trade election of 1891, during which he uttered the monumental quote that still exists in the Canadian consciousness to this day: “A British subject I was born, a British subject I shall die.”

In 1911, the Liberal Party passed (but failed to ratify) a free trade agreement with the United States, the first of its kind since the Reciprocity Treaty in 1854. Seeing how flippantly the Americans had treated Canadians before, this was a deeply unpopular platform for them to take. Initially, the Liberals thought that it would ensure their fifth consecutive victory and extend their fifteen-year term. Instead, they lost in a massive landslide that was celebrated nationwide. Of course, the party that won was the Conservative Party, which had run purely on a platform of anti-Americanism.

The same scene was set in 1963 between incumbent Conservative John Diefenbaker and Liberal Lester B. Pearson. Canada was a member of NORAD and NATO, and trying to eke out our defence commitments to them. We attempted and failed to pursue alternative independent avenues for military development, such as the Avro Arrow.

In 1963, the Liberals came out in support of stationing American nuclear armaments on Canadian soil. Conservatives, and Diefenbaker more specifically, fought hard to repel this proposal. Despite that (and due in part to certain American influences), in April of that same year, an election would be called and the Liberals surmounted the Conservatives.

This defeat – not only of the Conservatives, but more broadly of Canadian military independence writ large – was the inspiration behind George Grant’s Lament for a Nation, published in 1965. We can see a clear trend throughout this history of Conservative versus Liberal politics. The Conservatives were willing to try anything in their power to repel American influence, whereas the Liberals were enthused to draw themselves closer to the US.

Which, again, brings us back to Mulroney’s continentalism. He was the first Conservative to adopt the Liberal stance of drawing Canada closer to our neighbour to the south. On the 2nd of January, 1988, he signed the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement.

It is fitting that this first true Blue Tory signed the free trade deal that betrayed the cause for our Confederation: “reciprocity would be the first step in the direction of [annexation].” It is also ironic that Canada’s free trade deal with the US did not even establish friendlier relations in the long run – the United States has behaved nearly identically in recent times to how they did over 150 years ago. 

Of course, during the 1988 election, which centred on the issue of Canada-US free trade, there were dissidents to the position taken by Brian Mulroney, namely John Turner – a Liberal.

So, in the twenty years between the 1963 election in which Diefenbaker fiercely stood up to the US, and Mulroney first becoming Prime Minister in 1984, what happened to the Conservatives? Where did our nationalistic Red Tories go?

In political science, we often call opposition to left-wing, ‘radical’ beliefs ‘reactionary.’ This name is an indictment against the character of conservative ideology, intentional or not. There’s a number of quotes which I commonly see spread around by those of conservative disposition to define the ideology of conservatism:

“What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?” – Abraham Lincoln

“To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss.” – Michael Oakeshott

There are many more along these lines, but they seem to pervade the political philosophy of conservatism. A critical flaw exists in the logic presented by this line of argumentation, however. It is entirely passive. In this conception of the ideology, all that matters is whether or not something has been tried. There is no framework with which to evaluate the efficacy or desirability of ideas – merely whether or not they are acceptable in the discourse of policy.

It is this attribute which comes to define the way that conservatives behave politically, and the nature of Blue Toryism as demonstrated by Brian Mulroney. There’s a few more quotes which encapsulate this idea well:

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out, the conservative adopt.” – Mark Twain

This is what I mean when I say the title of ‘reactionary’ is an indictment against the ideology; it is mere reaction, it is the application of medicine for an illness which could have been prevented beforehand. Plato, in The Republic, speaks on how the medicine of his age had degenerated from the time of Asclepius (the inventor of medicine). He says that those who fall chronically ill are not in need of any medicine, but a realignment of regimen. 

When faced with the potentially disastrous ideas of a radical, a reactionary will often, as Plato would put it, “Take up the medicine which is a slave to disease.”

Once the Liberals defeated Diefenbaker in 1963, Canada lost its military independence. This was the ‘defeat of Canadian nationalism’ which George Grant lamented. In the following twenty years of Liberal hegemony, a major restructuring occurred in the Conservative Party. 

In opposition to the more traditional Red Tory disposition which had hitherto defined the Conservatives, the Liberals under Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson had taken great efforts to Americanize the country, and this Americanization extended to their political opponents in the Conservative Party.

They adopted an American conservative mentality, at the expense of authentic Canadian Toryism. Once upon a time, Canada was unafraid of flexing its muscles: building trans-national infrastructure projects, braving and then taming harsh wilderness, and charging headlong into battle in defence of the Empire. Now Canada is unable to even build a pipeline.

If you remember when Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister, I bet you remember a time from before he was Prime Minister. If you do, then you are one of the lucky few who can remember a time before Canada’s disastrous immigration policies, before we sold ourselves out to the United States, and before the death of Red Toryism.

If you are a fan of Canadian literature, you are probably familiar with Robertson Davies. When I see the Blue Tory conservative landscape of today, I cannot help but think of a quote by him:

“Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.” – Robertson Davies

Canadian nationalism is on the rise, and our people feel unrepresented and discontented. If the Conservatives want to survive this climate, they need to do away with the failing political strategy that began under Mulroney. 

Canadians need politicians who will advocate for Canadians, and if neither party can succeed in doing that, then the stage will be set for a massive political shakeup akin to Reform in the United Kingdom.

Conserving Canada is more than just conserving its GDP; it is about conserving its institutions, its independence, and its identity. To do those things, we need to use the state. Instead of taxes funding propaganda in schools that defames Canadian history and identity, we can use the power of the state to strengthen and unify the nation. Mulroney does not need to be the legacy of conservatism in Canada. A rich Red Tory tradition predated him, and we should draw from it once more.

“We are a great country, and shall become one of the greatest in the universe, if we preserve it. We shall sink into insignificance and adversity if we suffer it to be broken.” – Sir John A. Macdonald