Topics

On This Day in Canada’s Political History: Commons ratifies the Free Trade Agreement

  • Arthur Milnes

  • December 22, 2020

Our past Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, is no stranger to salty language (as are many of the prime ministers I have gotten to know).  And today’s political history anniversary allows us to demonstrate Mr. Mulroney’s use of swear words at its finest. So, it was on December 22, 1988, that the House of Commons ratified the Free Trade Agreement with the United States.  Despite the fact that Mr. Mulroney and his Tories had clearly won the general election on the issue, held only a month before, the Opposition fought the agreement right down to the final vote, putting on a partisan show that brought no credit to them at all. Here's a little anecdote to which I later became privy to.  In the middle of the ruckus, Liberal MP Brian Tobin crossed the floor (literally, not figuratively) and sat next to Prime Minister Mulroney.  I’ll let the 18th Prime Minister’s own words from his best-selling Memoirs (full disclosure, I was Mr. Mulroney's assistant on Memoirs) describe what came next.

“(Tobin) asked me privately whether the government would, as usual, be providing and organizing planes to take all the members home for the holidays,” Mulroney wrote. “I was stunned at his request, considering the abuse we were taking from his side of the Commons, and was momentarily speechless.  I quickly recovered.  ‘Get your own fucking plane,’ I told him.  And Merry Christmas to you, too.”

A classic exchange I would argue. And, before signing off for the day, I would be remiss if I did not note that it was, sadly, on this day that John Diefenbaker’s beloved wife, Olive, passed into history.  Perhaps the only person Dief fully trusted, Mrs. Diefenbaker was the anchor in the hurly-burly world that was John Diefenbaker’s. caption id="attachment_181642" align="aligncenter" width="620" Brian Mulroney/caption Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also proudly served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel. 

Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.