and financial bid.
The decision by the Mulroney government was not just about economic development for Quebec; it was hardball politics. Politicians from Quebec had lobbied Mulroney, who wanted Quebec to be happy. In the five elections before 1984, Conservatives had won only 12 out of 372 seats contested in Quebec. Mulroney wanted to show that electing 58 Tories from Quebec in the 1984 election had made a difference. With no political roots in Quebec, the Tories were anxious to build something that would last into the next election and beyond. Shaun Masterson worked in the Prime Minister’s Office at the time. “It was clear from the discussions that this would be controversial. But our coalition in Quebec had no roots, and we were trying to build something that would be sustainable.”
Mulroney knew a “Quebec Round” of constitutional talks lay ahead. One of his key election planks was to have Quebec sign the Canadian constitution with honour and dignity. If he was sensitive to Quebec’s need for economic development, the constitutional talks might go that much easier.
Mulroney was mindful of the large number of companies that had fled Quebec in 1976 when the sovereignist Parti Québécois was elected. He wanted to reverse that trend and be able to point to some success stories that would spark the attachment of Quebecers to Canada. He argued that his decision to award the contract to Canadair was in the national interest because the technology embedded in the CF-18 contract would be used by Canadair to create manufacturing jobs in Canada. According to Don Mazankowski, “The guys in Winnipeg had no use for that technology. The issue that the government had to wrestle with was what became of the technology; who could make best use of the technology. Most public servants in the Defence department said it was the right decision in terms of insuring that the technology could be utilized in the most effective way.”
Mulroney concedes his government suffered from the CF-18 decision because of a tremendous failure to communicate effectively the reasons for the decision. As a consequence, the feelings of western resentment towards Quebec, which had until then been kept just below the surface of public discourse, were legitimized. Preston Manning could capture and exploit the anger over the CF-18 decision to build the movement he had been hoping to lead.
Communication specialists in the Prime Minister’s Office knew the decision was trouble. “I was very much in the minority in warning anybody who would listen about the hugely damaging consequences of the CF-18 decision,” said Geoff Norquay.
The process by which the government made its decision was never explained, but it would be logical to conclude that Mulroney made the call on his own. Norquay recalls, “I went to the Priorities and Planning Committee and to full cabinet for four years and I don’t recall any discussions about the CF-18 issue.”
When one region of the country feels it has been harmed by a government decision, the government often tries to help in other ways. “Little is known about the CF-5 contract that went to Winnipeg that same year. It was a bigger dollar figure than the CF-18 contract,” said Mazankowski.
But Mazankowski was also realistic about what the CF-18 decision meant. “I knew it would be trouble. I knew it would be a difficult sell.” Speaking of its impact on Preston Manning’s ability to build and mass forces with the Reform party, Mazankowski said, “The CF-18 decision didn’t help. That was an issue that gave Manning’s movement momentum.”
So Quebec might have been happy, but the West was outraged. Some groups, such as the Western Canada Concept, talked openly of separation. “That is just one of many insults to the West which can- not be effectively answered by the present federal political parties which are directed from Central Canada. The Canadair contract was a billion-dollar bribe to the voters of Quebec and demonstrated once again that Western separatism is justified.”
The CF-18 decision reaffirmed what many Canadians thought about federal politicians: they favoured Quebec over other parts of
Canada. In a late 1986 poll by Environics Research, 67 per cent of those surveyed expressed the view that the federal government favoured one region and did not treat all regions fairly. In the West, 83 per cent held this view, and Quebec was identified as the number-one beneficiary. The poll also revealed a serious decline in Tory support in Western Canada. The poll pegged Conservative support at 35 per cent, well below the 69 per cent the Tories had received two years earlier from Albertans in the general election. Westerners were saying that not much seemed to have changed between Liberal governments of the past and the Conservative administration of the present.
Manning knew that the CF-18 decision was a gift:
It was a significant contract in its own right, but it was the symbolism of it all. The West felt the Liberals always bent over backwards to accommodate Quebec and didn’t even hear what the West was saying. Here were the new guys, the different guys, the different guys who were going to do it different, doing exactly the same thing. They made a big thing about having western guys in the cabinet, but then they send [Manitoba MP and minister of national health and welfare] Jake Epp back to Winnipeg to try to convince Winnipeg that this somehow was in the national interest. This just added insult to injury. I think there were enough other ingredients [to launch Reform]. The CF-18 thing had its biggest impact in Manitoba, although it was seen as a symbol across the West. I think the biggest driver was still the fiscal thing. But the CF-18 was icing on the cake.
David Angus thought the reaction of Manning and others in the West to the CF-18 was excessive:
Mulroney was focused on separatism in Quebec and he told the western group to run the country. Mazankowski was the chair of the cabinet operations committee, which was a new thing that Mulroney had invented. No matter what Mulroney did to help the West, all they would remember was the CF-18 decision. We were getting out of that business. Canadair had been disadvantaged because they had to swallow de Havilland. They were the beginning of Bombardier Aerospace. But it was a symbolic thing. We gave Manitoba way more compensation for not getting the contract. Why was it that the CF-18 decision became the only thing? They said we were anti-west and that was just plain wrong.
While few can recall how the CF-18 decision was made, or discussing it beforehand, the announcement certainly caused a commotion in the Tory caucus. Gerry St. Germain was PC caucus chair at the time: “I don’t recall much discussion about CF-18 before the decision was made, but it definitely caused an uproar in caucus. It was the symbolism of the thing, another sop to Quebec at the expense of western Canada. It was the only time I ever agreed with Norman Atkins. We both told the prime minister at the time that it was the wrong decision.” St. Germain believes the CF-18 decision was historic. “I knew most of the founders of the Reform Party, many of them former RCMP. I asked them, ‘What was the one factor that caused you to join Reform?’ CF-18 comes up ten times out of ten.”
There had been talk of separation in western Canada before. Various attempts had been made in the 1970s and early 1980s to launch western-based protest parties; most of the attempts used Pierre Trudeau as their punching bag. Many promptly flamed out, usually because of their extreme positions or because of the suspicious characters involved in their formation.
Manning would have nothing to do with these protest movements. He sought a far-reaching and overwhelming populist wave of discontent. Also, significantly, he did not argue for separation: he wanted a “New Canada.” Why did Manning, a man of clear conservative persuasion, not seek to enlighten Mulroney and his western cabinet ministers of the error of their ways? Why, with Mulroney in office for only a few short years, did Manning not seek to reshape the Progressive Conservative party? Because this approach ran counter to his political strategy. Manning wanted to work from the outside. He was more comfortable protesting and agitating than governing. He wanted to lead a grassroots mainstream protest party that would shake up the political elite. Timing was critical to the launch of his new venture, and it took patience: “... rather than getting on the tail end of the populist movements produced on the Canadian prairies during the depression, I would wait for the next one. By 1986, there were signs that another populist movement was in the making in western Canada.”
It is ironic that Manning, a conservative, had to wait until the Progressive Conservatives were in power for his protest party to take hold. Trevor Harrison, a professor