Brian Mulroney divided and reformed Canada through free trade with the US

Brian Mulroney first led the Progressive Conservatives to power when I was early in my career as a journalist. But his political life was never something I discussed in any detail. His decision to negotiate a free trade agreement with the United States changed Canada’s economic history, but consumed much of my working life for years.

Mr Mulroney died on Thursday at the age of 84 in a Florida hospital after falling at his home there. Alan Cowell has written an extensive obituary of Mr Mulroney, documenting his many significant achievements, as well as the allegations of financial misconduct and influence peddling that followed his tenure. Those accusations tarnished his reputation, even among former supporters, and contributed to the eventual demise of the federal Progressive Conservative Party.

[Read: Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister Who Led Canada Into NAFTA, Dies at 84]

I mainly reported on the free trade negotiations from Washington. Unlike Canada, where it often seemed as if every molecule of political and public debate was being consumed by the talks, the negotiations there barely registered.

Nothing in my professional experience has polarized Canadians as much as Mr. Mulroney’s move toward closer economic integration with the United States. Whatever the economic benefits of free trade, Canadian industry at the time consisted largely of often inefficient branches that produced a limited range of products to escape import tariffs as high as 33 percent on industrial goods. The workers in those factories, and the communities that depended on them, were rightly concerned that supplies from their parent companies’ larger and more efficient American factories would wipe out their jobs under free trade.

(The auto industry was the exception. In 1965, Canada and the United States entered into an agreement allowing American cars to enter Canada tariff-free in exchange for continued production in Canada, most of which was then shipped to the United States.)

Mr Mulroney’s decision to pursue free trade was a reversal of the Conservative Party’s legacy. Early in Canada’s history, tariffs were relatively low and primarily intended to raise money for the government. In an era without income taxes, tariffs were essentially a sales tax on imported products. But John A. Macdonald, the Conservative leader and the country’s first prime minister, successfully campaigned in the 1878 election for something he ‘ the National PolicyA key element of that was imposing high tariffs to create an invisible wall around Canada to protect its industries. It hung around for more or less a century until Mr. Mulroney arrived.

One of Mr. Mulroney’s sales pitches for a free-trade deal was the possibility that it could end seemingly perennial trade disputes, such as the one over Canadian softwood lumber exports to the United States.

Although Mr. Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan publicly demonstrated their friendship, the talks did not go smoothly. When I gathered with a group of reporters in an ornate conference room in the U.S. Treasury Department building on a Sunday morning in October 1987, it was far from certain that an agreement would be announced. But a deal had been struck, and it included a system for resolving trade disputes, the main sticking point, even if it was not exactly what Mr Mulroney had promised.

The following year, the federal election was fought over free trade, and Mr. Mulroney prevailed.

The later addition of Mexico to create the North American Free Trade Agreement – and the subsequent globalization of trade after the deal that created the World Trade Organization lowered many tariffs around the world – left the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the shadows of history behind.

But the initial free trade agreement had profound effects, both good and bad, on the Canadian economy. Jobs disappeared. A 2001 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that within the Canadian industries affected by the largest tariff cuts, jobs fell 15 percent between 1989 and 1996. During that same time, imports from the United States of products previously blocked by high tariffs soared 70 percent.

On the plus side, at least in economic terms, the study found that within industries once protected by tariffs, labor productivity – the amount factories earned for each hour of work – rose at a significant compound annual rate of 2. 1 percent. Higher productivity generally helps lower prices for consumers and naturally benefits factory owners and investors.

Canada did not become, as Mr. Mulroney’s critics feared, the 51st post-free trade state. But the pact fell short of some of its promises. The dispute over softwood lumber continues decades later. And not every community benefited from the recovery of jobs and factories that ultimately benefited the economy as a whole.

[Read: This City Once Made Much of What Canada Bought. But No More.]

Furthermore, as Alan describes in Mr. Mulroney’s obituary, free trade and several other major changes he brought to Canada during his time as Prime Minister were ultimately cast aside in the public’s memory. The trigger was a story directly involving Mr. Mulroney that I did cover: his acceptance of, as one investigation found, “cash-filled envelopes” during three meetings with a German arms and aviation lobbyist.

Trans-Canada

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Once-secret documents released in partially redacted form detail how two scientists working at Canada’s top microbiology laboratory became entangled with institutions in China and indicate that one of them posed a “realistic and credible threat to Canada’s economic security ” formed.
Amid a surge in asylum claims from Mexicans arriving in Canada, the federal government has reintroduced a visa requirement for most people traveling from that country.
An unopened box of more than 10,000 hockey cards that turned up in Saskatchewan has sold for $3.7 million. But, reports Amanda Holpuch, that doesn’t necessarily mean the packages will be opened now.
Eight members of Canada’s figure skating team who competed in the team competition at the 2022 Olympics have filed a case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, demanding they be awarded bronze medals in the event. Russia was relegated from gold to bronze after a member of its team was given a four-year ban for doping.
Anne Carson, a Toronto-born writer usually described as a poet, is the subject of an unconventional profile in The New York Times Magazine.
Kenneth Mitchell, a Toronto-born actor who appeared in the series “Star Trek: Discovery” and the film “Captain Marvel,” has died at the age of 49.
Chris Gauthier, who grew up in Armstrong, British Columbia, and had a prolific career as an actor, appearing in more than 20 films and several series, has died. He was 48.
Magda Konieczna, a lecturer at Concordia University in Montreal, told my colleague David Streitfeld that North America has entered a “dystopian future” when it comes to local news.
In the Watching newsletter, our television critic Margaret Lyons writes that “Moonshine,” a comedy series about a family running a resort and dealing drugs in Nova Scotia, is “bright and exciting.” (In Canada yes available on CBC Gem.)
Simon Winchester, in his review of “The Darkest White,” which tells the story of an avalanche in British Columbia’s Selkirk Mountains that killed seven people, writes that it is “probably the most relentlessly exciting nonfiction book I’ve read in have come across for years’.

Ian Austen, born in Windsor, Ontario, educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has been writing about Canada for The New York Times for 20 years. Follow him on Bluesky: @ianausten.bsky.social.

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