Thread by @SustainableSong

As with other monsters, Brian Mulroney's death has been met with efforts to declare him a heroic champion of Canada rather than a monster, so let's take a look at some of his monstrous legacy.

🧵1/

Mulroney gave Canada NAFTA, the first trade agreement to allow foreign investors to bypass the courts & use ISDS to overturn laws created in the public interest to maximize foreign corporate profits at the expense of citizen safety & the environment. 2/

ourcommons.ca/Content/Commit…

When NAFTA was negotiated, the Mulroney government prevented any details from being revealed to the public so Canada entered blind. Tear gas, a chemical weapon banned in warfare, was used on protesters who wanted to know what was being signed. 3/

cbc.ca/news/opinion/o…

During a deep painful recession, Mulroney made Employment Insurance harder to quality for, kicking many unemployed Canadians off the rolls & slashing benefits for the remainder. As welfare needs skyrocketed, he ended federal contributions to provincial welfare programs. 4/

Despite running on reducing deficits, Mulroney massively reduced government revenues by cutting corporate tax rates a full 8%. He carved out new tax exemptions for capital gains of the rich. He guaranteed more money in the pockets of the wealthiest. 5/

huffpost.com/archive/ca/ent…

It was the beginning of the end for wealthy corporations paying their fair share in Canada, the first step along the road to today’s completely unsustainable breaking point.

Trickle down never ever trickled down. 6/

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

While eliminating tax burdens on millionaires & billionaires, Mulroney shifted them onto ordinary citizens instead, most notably through the Goods & Services Tax, or GST.

Far bigger than the carbon tax, btw.

So the rich could pay less, all others needed to pay more. 7/

Income taxes are progressive, taking more from those with deep pockets who are better able to pay. Capital gains are rich $ making more $, not $ from actual work.

GST instead magnifies the tax burden on poor families who can't simply avoid needing to buy basic necessities. 8/

Mulroney cut national funding for railways, dealing a blow to Canada's train network from which it has never recovered.

He also massively cut postal services, leading small towns to lose their post offices. 9/

cbc.ca/archives/when-…

As we face today’s widespread housing crisis, we should remember that Mulroney massively cut federal finding for affordable housing, beginning total federal abandonment on the housing availability issue. 10/

cbc.ca/radio/sunday/f…

Where the costs of health care & higher education used to be shared 50-50 between the feds & the provinces, Mulroney dumped most of them onto provincial shoulders, throwing provincial budgets into disarray while hospitals rapidly lost beds. 11/

Mulroney created a ministry of privatization to speed the sale of profitable crown corporations like Petro Canada & Air Canada to help private cronies profit.

Such privatizations have never benefitted the public. Ever. 12/

cipp.on.ca/wp-content/upl…

Let's also not forget that Mulroney illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars handed to him in the form of cash-stuffed envelopes. So conservative corruption was as common then as now. 13/

cbc.ca/news/canada/mu…

As an individual, Mulroney was rude, cruel, and quick to blame & denigrate others. Sound familiar? Nothing much has changed in the quality of Conservative leaders since then. Cruel & quick to blame & denigrate is 90% of the CPC brand by this point. 14/

theguardian.com/world/2005/sep…

Mulroney sent a massive military force, a full brigade with armoured vehicles & helicopters, to subdue small indigenous communities for trying to stop a golf course being built on a sacred cemetery ground. Oka began our era of militarized policing. 15/

hcn.org/articles/indig…

The Mulroney government's contempt for indigenous rights was matched by contempt for the rights of women. Today's glowing tributes don't seem to mention his efforts to decriminalize abortion with minimum 10 year sentences, for example. 16/

rabble.ca/columnists/bri…

While facing the lowest PM approval rating in history, Mulroney dumped his problems in Kim Campbell's lap just before an election so that he could angrily blame the collapse of party support he personally caused on time she spent with her boyfriend rather than his policies. 17/

If Mulroney's toxic legacy at all seems burnished today, it's mainly by the fact that he at least acknowledged the importance of a healthy environment by doing things like creating the Environmental protection Act.

Today's CPC won't even admit the climate's an issue. 18/

So in summary, Mulroney

helped the rich, hurt the poor
attacked the indigenous & women
hurt health care, transportation, social supports
cruel, belittling, corrupt
helped corporations screw the whole country for decades

yet still loads better than Poilievre. 19/

And we can see that Canada's conservatives have been magnifying inequality, attacking rights, abrasive & cruel for generations, but that in retrospect, their monstrous leadership today are so awful they help the monsters of yesterday look good by comparison. 20/