The Quick and the Dead: Brian Mulroney, Big Business and the Seduction of Canada

Edelgard E. Mahant is a political sciences professor at Laurentian
University.

McQuaig tells us that her book is “about the new business agenda . . .
how that agenda was put in place, why it was put in place and who is
benefiting from it [as well as] how the Canadian public was seduced into
accepting the unpopular new set of policies.” She does in fact tell
the reader how free trade, globalization, the GST, and high interest
rates form part of a package of policies that are supposed to make
Canadians leaner, meaner, and more competitive (and the rich, not
incidentally, richer). Along the way, she uncovers some interesting
facts, such as how the idea for the Free Trade Agreement began on the
American side, or why the Agreement had such an easy time sailing
through Congress (though her explanation is superficial). She also,
toward the end, produces one interesting new idea of her own. In a
democracy, she writes, people may actually have more control over their
lives if they have a government that guides economy and society than if
they try to survive as rugged individualists in a society in which are
all interdependent but refuse to acknowledge that fact.

But for the most part, the book consists of ideas that are hardly new,
such as Gad Horowitz’s thesis about the Tory tradition in Canada or
Seymour Martin Lipset’s about the differences between Canadian and
American political culture (the latter unacknowledged). Worse, the
central thesis feels incomplete and unsatisfying. How could Brian
Mulroney and his friends in the American and Canadian business community
fool millions of Canadians? Are we that stupid? Are our other leaders
(the opposition parties, the unions, the intellectuals) so ineffective
that we would not listen to them? Perhaps a nation of people can be
carried away by the sentiments of the moment, as Americans were when
they supported the Gulf War, but can this process continue over four to
eight years?

McQuaig’s book is also marred by an excess of anecdotal
material—pages of stories about the life of James Robinson III, the
chief executive officer of American Express, and William Loewen, the
head of a payroll accounting firm in Winnipeg, that contribute little to
its substance. The writing is too cute by far, often with no apparent
purpose. The chapter on international business, for example, is entitled
“Tequilas and Group Sex,” on the specious excuse that these are what
some people believe international tycoons enjoy (though McQuaig is the
first to admit that this is not the case).

The book lacks both a bibliography and references. This is no doubt
meant to give it popular appeal, but is in fact just sloppy and
frustrating. If McQuaig mentions that she used a report by Neil Brooks,
why not give the title and publisher, so that the reader can get more
details if he or she so wishes? It would also be interesting to know
whom she interviewed.

McQuaig covers much of the same ground as did Mel Hurtig in the
Betrayal of Canada and Bruce Doern and Brian Tomlin in Faith and Fear,
but her book is both less interesting and less informative than either
of the others.