MacPolitics: Downtown Montreal’s federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault Does Not Understand Nova Scotia’s Love Affair With The Politics of Pavement

• MacPolitics: Downtown Montreal’s federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault Does Not Understand Nova Scotia’s Love Affair With The Politics of Pavement

By Andrew Macdonald

As Ottawa’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the Trudeau administration going forward not provide money for large twinning projects, this is a story about Nova Scotia’s Politics of Pavement. The federal minister lives in Downtown Montreal – far removed from the rural Atlantic’s love affair with the politics of pavement.

In our weekend edition of The Macdonald Notebook, we did a journalism deep dive on the Trudeau regime’s decision to no longer fund highway twinning projects – those stories are in the Saturday and Sunday editions.

Today, we focus on politicos in NS – and their love affair with the Politics of Pavement to get votes.

In the 1980s, the historic four-term John Buchanan regime practiced the art of politics and paving to a tee.

At one point between 1978-1992, Tory Buchanan froze out any money for road building in the riding of Antigonish, because the voters there kept returning Liberal Bill Gillis to the NS Legislature.

Bill Gillis was Antigonish MLA from 1970 to 1998 – he was the first politico to warn that Tory premier John Buchanan was bankrupting NS between 1978-1992. (CBC image).

At one point in 1989, Gillis said the historic lack of road-building money in Antigonish was witness to roads crumbling and “dandelions growing up the middle of roads” in that region.

Monastery – Antigonish County raised Chad Bowie, now an Ottawa agency entrepreneur, who also provides paid campaign advice for Tory candidates across the country, says in this region the politics of pavement is a real thing, a reality.

“I think the federal Environment minister is probably going to find that out when he hears from his Atlantic colleagues,” Bowie tells The Macdonald Notebook.

“Is there a politics of paving in Atlantic Canada, and Nova Scotia, particularly? Of course, there is, it exists,” adds Bowie.

“With that being said, do I think at times it gets overblown for the sake of political gossip? Or for a joke, here or there. Yeah,” he admits.

“I think what is largely is, it is a reflection of the place that we live. We live in a province that is very rural. Outside the urban centres, we have communities that are dependent on quality roads and quality transportation infrastructure,” he explains.

“I think the politics of paving thing is something to talk about.”

Chad Bowie is seen in this 2017 file photo.

Then he says: “In reality, it is a reflection of the place, the rural nature of the province,” says Bowie.

The Politics Of Pavement – Iain Rankin’s Campaign Promise To Twin To Bridgewater & Canso Causeway Was About Vote-Rich Regions

Further to proof NS politicos understand and practice the politics of pavement, and that politics and pavement go hand in hand to get and generate votes, one needs to look at why the 104 HWY was twinned all the way to Antigonish, while the 103 HWY was not twinned all the way to Bridgewater.

The political intrigue that exists with the 104 HWY and the 103 HWY, is that Antigonish is the gateway to ten ridings – lots of voters to win over, while Bridgewater has only a handful of ridings in that region.

Former Liberal leader and premier Iain Rankin on the campaign trail in 2021. Rankin understood the politics of pavement and is seen here announcing twinning of roads to Cape Breton and Bridgewater. He is shown left to right with Fire Chief Joe MacDonald, the late Lloyd Hines and Randy Delorey.

I do believe twinning is the right thing to do, and former Liberal leader Iain Rankin promised to do just that on the 2021 election hustings – twin to Cape Breton and twin to Bridgewater.

While it is the right thing to do — and any politico who has the political fortitude and vision to end the high carnage on highways from Antigonish to Port Hawkesbury, and Hubbards to Bridgewater, should be commended — as a political journalist I would be remiss if I did not factor in the politics into Rankin’s bold promise.

There was pavement politics in the 2019 announcement by PM Justin Trudeau and MP Scott Brison in the 104 HWY twinning from New Glasgow to Antigonish, and it factors into the further twinning to the Canso Causeway, the gateway to Cape Breton Island.

It is fair to recognize the outspoken support for the twinning of the 104 HWY to Antigonish from New Glasgow, a 40 km route, came from Fire Chief Joe MacDonald, who crusaded to lower the highway’s high death toll.

Barney’s River Fire Chief Joe MacDonald, and his 16-member fire brigade advocated for twinned highways – his department pushed politicians to twin the dangerous 104 HWY. The Notebook photo.

There is also the political reality that 10 of the 55 provincial constituencies in Nova Scotia are served by the 104 HWY.

Voters in Pictou, Antigonish, Guysborough, Inverness, Richmond and Cape Breton County now drive over the twinned route.

Barney’s River 104 HWY Fire Chief Joe MacDonald advocated a twinned highway to save lives since beginning his crusade in 2014. The Notebook photo.

And, let’s not forget, the two former Liberal highways ministers are from constituencies reached by the 104; Lloyd Hines, who died last fall, used to travel the road to his Shiretown home in Guysborough, and Geoff MacLellan, the former highways minister who got the ball rolling on twinning, once travelled the route to get to his residence in Glace Bay.

Another bit of intrigue with the 104 twinning is that twinning the route was a high priority for Peter MacKay, the former MP from Pictou.

For sure, twinning the 104 was a high priority for Central Nova Conservatives, so perhaps Brison-Trudeau wanted to give Liberal MP Sean Fraser a fighting chance for re-election in Central Nova when they announced $365 million to twin from New Glasgow to Antigonish.

The twinned highway to Antigonish opened last summer. The roadwork was handled by a historic partnership involving John Nova’s son Donald Chisholm and Chester’s Carl Potter.

Northern Construction had the third most NS government work in 2020, billing NS for $22M. Dexter Construction invoiced $176M in NS last year. (Northern Construction photo of a paving project).

Twinning the South Shore’s 103 from Hubbards to Bridgewater also was promised by Iain Rankin – a promise which was expected to generate Liberal votes as the route services voters in six provincial ridings.

Politics & road building

The first blacktop in Nova Scotia was laid in the 1930s when highways minister A.S. MacMillan began an ambitious program to build asphalt on roads under the then visionary premier Angus L. Macdonald.

While it would be unheard of today, back in the 1930s, MacMillan actually called up a losing bidder on a road in Arichat.

Early roadbuilding, 1930s, Department of Highways, Nova Scotia Archives

“How bad do you want that job, Colin R?” asked MacMillan over the telephone. “If you want that job, you had better get in your car and re-bid the work, and here is the price you have to beat.”

Colin R ended up getting that Richmond County road work. I know because Colin R was my grandfather, who began his road-building firm in 1925, back when road builders in deployed teams of horses to do the heavy lifting.

A. S .MacMillan was the first Highways minister to introduce pavement to NS roads in the 1930s. He was from Antigonish Coounty and served in the Angus L. Macdonald regime and himself later a premier.

Today, the provincial government’s bidding process is on the up and up; there is no such thing as a highways minister calling a losing bidder to submit a new bid.

But the politics of road building and paving continue to go hand in hand with contemporary political life.

John Buchanan, premier from 1978 to 1992, only paved roads where Tories had been elected. For the popular premier, vote-getting was part of how he spent his road-building budgets.

In 2018, before he died at age 88, Buchanan told The Macdonald Notebook his government over four terms paved more roads than any previous regime (or since).

The golden age of road-building came during the Buchanan regime, and Nova Scotia’s road builders began to retreat from work in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and concentrate on their home terrain in NS.

John Buchanan once told me he paved more roads than any other government in the history of Nova Scotia. He was a Tory premier from 1978 to 1993. (Halifax Herald photo).

In 1988, Buchanan built a highway cutting through the remote Lorne/Trafalgar Game Sanctuary.

Opposition and political journalists quickly named the highway from Stellarton to Sheet Harbour the ‘Road to Nowhere’, but with the help of a pot full of money from Mulroney minister Elmer MacKay, the road was built.

Elmer MacKay once recalled to The Macdonald Notebook how British Columbian politicians condemned the highway, which just happens to have been built through the vast timberlands assembled by MacKay’s father.

Still, that highway today is a vital economic generator and a boon to the port in Sheet Harbour.

More politics of pavement got practiced under Richie Mann, a very active hands-on highways minister in the Liberal government of John Savage.

Mann was so powerful, he took $10 million in federal funding earmarked for the death trap Wentworth Valley highway and redirected it to a new highway in an isolated and remote part of his Richmond, Cape Breton riding.

Instead of $10 million for the Wentworth Valley, Mann created the Cobequid Pass highway with its $4 toll.

Richie Mann was a John Savage Highways minister. He built the 1997-opened Cobequid Toll Highway.

The toll existed for 20 years, until in 2021, Tory Premier Tim Houston eliminated the toll for Nova Scotian drivers. Out-of-province drivers still pay that toll.

The Cobequid HWY was built in 22 months over 45 miles of virgin terrain, with 12 overpasses and structures. Rankin also promised to remove the toll for motorists this fall if re-elected premier. More politics of highways with that toll removal, eh?

The late road-building legend John Nova Chisholm and New Brunswick’s Tidewater Construction built that toll highway. In a later conversation, John Nova would go on to tell me his biggest road-building regret was selling out his toll equity at the time the route was built and opened in 1997.

John Nova said he would have made more had he kept his toll equity and collected revenue from the $4 a vehicle toll.

John ‘Nova’ Chisholm as seen in a 1990s photo taken at the 1997 built Cobequid Toll By-Pass.

And, there you have it, some of the intriguing politics of road building in Nova Scotia.

Having said all this, twinning to Cape Breton and Bridgewater is the right thing to do but it does have the politics of pavement as an election backdrop.

Tim Houston Tories On Politics Of Pavement

It is worth noting the Tim Houston Conservatives have come out with a gravel road policy for rural Nova Scotia.

With the Tories strong in rural Nova Scotia, and with HRM said to be a Liberal- NDP fortress, the Tories issued their road-building platform during the election campaign in 2021 – and it is heavily focused on rural roads, particularly the dirt and gravel roads.

File photo of Premier Tim Houston officially opening the Eureka Mills Bridge, which 400 vehicles are expected to cross each day. Tim Houston understands the politics of paving. (NS Gov photo).

For the record, here is the Houston rural road and gravel road policy. This is a verbatim statement from the Houston campaign team’s spokesperson:

“Here is our road commitment – In order to be a modern province that is able to support our jobs and people, we need to have safe, reliable and efficient transportation in our communities. Community safety is paramount.

To ensure the safety and reliability of our roads, we have to look at areas that are in greatest need of repair – predominantly, our rural communities.

Two budgets that largely impact rural roads that will require further investment:

(1) Gravel Road Reconstruction Program.

This program was created to capitalize on gravel road work. Local transportation managers needed a budget to rebuild old, neglected roads.

The current budget is $20,000,000. Our PC government will double this investment to $40,000,000, which will allow us to do twice the roads, or about 25-30 kilometres of gravel roads each year in each rural constituency. This fund will include ditching, culvert replacement, brush cutting and a reconstruction of the road base with eight inches of gravel.

(2) Rural Impact Mitigation Fund (“RIM”).

This program “buys time” for roads that require work, but the funds are not available to properly fix them. RIM funding can be applied to all non-100 series roads, but primarily focuses on local roads to address improvements needed in rural areas. This funding can help to proactively rebuild roads to improve the structure and drainage, resulting in longer-lasting roads, improved safety and reduced maintenance costs.

There is approximately $11,000,000 budgeted towards the RIM fund for the current fiscal year.

Our PC government is committed to expanding on this work and recognizing the important need for improving and growing our rural roads. We will update RIM to make it the largest road plan dedicated towards rural growth that we have had in Nova Scotia. This fund will also be doubled to a total of $22,000,000 that will be dedicated to rebuilding and repairing roads that have continually been left off the repairs list.

Funding to each constituency will be determined based on the percentage of kilometres of roads and the work needed. Each area will then prioritize roads for each work type, based on maintenance needs and consultation with the local MLA.”

Our plan is heavily focused on rural roads as most urban roads fall within municipal purview. However, funding for municipal roads will be an item of discussion while renegotiating the Memorandum of Understanding with the municipalities. While we are revitalizing rural roads, we will gladly examine what funding is available to help support municipalities do the same.”

• • The above is the official Tim Houston Conservatives rural road policy.

During the 2021 campaign, Houston’s PC candidates on the NS Southshore and Northeastern NS criticized Iain Rankin’s promise to twin all the way to Bridgewater & all the way to the Canso Causeway.

On the campaign trail in 2021, Tim Houston Tories issued a blistering attack on the Rankin plan, even though Rankin was addressing a serious safety issue on these dangerous two-lane highways. For instance, on the 103 HWY, 26 fatalities have been recorded since only going back to 2009.

“Old-style politics from Rankin Liberals about saving seats, not twinning highways,” said Antigonish PC candidate Michele Thompson that election year.

Thompson and Guysborough-Tracadie PC candidate Greg Morrow “say the big-ticket promise from Rankin is a clear sign he’s worried that voters want a change from Liberal cabinet ministers Randy Delorey (Antigonish) and Lloyd Hines (Guysborough-Tracadie),” said a press release from the Tories led by Tim Houston.

“After eight years of broken Liberal promises, including a doctor for every Nova Scotian, and a worsening crisis in health care, the Rankin Liberals will say anything in hopes that voters will forget the Liberal record,” said Thompson, a registered nurse and long term care facility CEO.

“Voters are a lot smarter than Iain Rankin gives them credit for.”

The speechwriter for the Tories used the same opening paragraph for the Antigonish and Guysborough candidates when another news release said “(The) promise from Liberal Leader Iain Rankin to twin Highway 103 to Bridgewater is all about saving his South Shore cabinet minister.

“Lunenburg PC candidate Susan Corkum-Greek says Rankin’s old-style election promise about highways shows he’s clearly worried about Suzanne Lohnes-Croft’s re-election chances,” the PC campaign stated.

“Iain Rankin doesn’t want Lunenburg voters to be asking his local cabinet minister why there still isn’t a doctor for every Nova Scotian as the Liberals promised eight years ago,” said Corkum-Greek. “That’s why Iain Rankin went old school and dug out the old political trick of an election highway promise. Voters know better.”

As I reported that year, Guysborough-Tracadie Liberal incumbent Lloyd Hines replied to the Tory criticisms and said the twinning announcement to Bridgewater and Cape Breton was about good government and suggested his Tory challenger is not about to recognize a great policy because he wants to rev up his Tory base in the election.

In the end, Thompson and Morrow were elected, as was Corkum Greek. They now all sit in Houston’s cabinet.

Last year, Houston said his government, if it gets elected a second term in 2025 would twin to Chester & Afton, Antigonish County.

Former Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil & Highways Minister Lloyd Hines very much understood the politics of pavement

Remembering When ex-Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil & Lloyd Hines Ushered In Golden Era For NS Road Building – A Title Once Given John Buchanan

In the 1980s, ultra-popular John Buchanan, who never lost an election as premier from 1978 to 1988, was considered the architect of the Golden Era For NS Road Builders.

Prior to the 1978 arrival of Honest, It’s John, road builders in Nova Scotia often had to dispatch work crews to other parts of the Maritimes.

As the son and grandson of NS road-building proprietors, my dad and my grandfather would go to far-flung places such as Grand Manan & Murray Harbour, in NB and PEI.

Now Murray’s Harbour is the Capital of Moonshine making in the region.

With the arrival of Buchanan as NS premier from 1978 to 1992, the Tory premier presided over the Golden Era for NS Road Building.

Routinely, each construction season, Buchanan would direct $100 million toward building new roads, highways and overpasses and bridges.

Such was the work to the NS Highways budget, NS road builders during the 13-year tenure of Buchanan ended the practice of bidding on work in NB and PEI – and had enough NS work.

The benefit was enormous to the road-building crews, who were able to be closer to their homes and family.

Before he died, Buchanan told The Macdonald Notebook proudly: “My government built more roads than any other government before our time and even more than future governments”.

The spend-free premier – who could never be accused of spending tax dollars parsimoniously, was such a great friend of NS road builders, he would have a front-row seat each January when the competitive road builders put aside their rivalries to celebrate their industry at the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Road Builders Association – where the drinks flowed freely and copiously.

But, in recent modern times, former Premier McNeil and his Highways minister Lloyd Hines presided over a modern-day Golden Era for NS Road Builders.

Former Transportation Minister Lloyd Hines, with former Premier Stephen McNeil.

Such is the budget for road building under the Liberals, New York bond rating agency Moody’s recently described Hines as presiding over a “multi-year, multi-billion dollar” road-building budget.

For my last news chat with John Buchanan, here is an encore presentation:

Further to the last Golden Age of NS Road Building, before he died, The Notebook had a 2018 conversation with ultra-popular four-term Tory premier John Buchanan.

As I referenced Buchanan’s largesse to NS road buildings in the above story, here is an archived story from  2018 year as published in The Notebook – it’s worth a read!

Published: 2018: The Notebook:

Former Nova Scotia Premier John Buchanan. Now deceased, made a confession in 2018 when I phoned him up at his Spryfield home to talk politics.

The former Progressive Conservative premier, won four historic back-to-back majority governments between 1978 and 1992.

Former Tory premiers John Buchanan, left, and Roger Bacon were featured guests at aptly named Cumberland South Tory contender Tory Rushton’s PC rally in 2018. Buchanan died in the fall of 2019, at age 88 – he has been considered Tory Royalty in Nova Scotia. He never ever lost an election.

During our 20-minute chat in 2018, I asked Buchanan whether he had trouble saying no to Nova Scotia voters during his long 13-year political regime.

With some laughter, he quipped, “Yes. I am going to be honest with you.”

He recalls former deputy minister, Harris Miller, said exactly the same thing, when he was a Buchanan senior ranking civil servant.

“On his birthday, when he turned 85 years old, I was a special guest at his birthday party at his home in the south end of Halifax, and I presented him with a government certificate, and when I finished speaking he said, ‘Oh, I am glad you finished talking. You have two problems in your political life’.

“I asked him what was that doctor? He said, ‘You talk too much when you are making speeches and you never had the ability to say no.”

The conventional wisdom is that Buchanan took over a debt of $500,000 in 1978 and at the end of his government in 1992, that debt had ballooned to $12 billion.

Buchanan was defensive about that figure, suggesting media of the day inflated the total. He told me he has financial papers at home showing the debt only grew to $4.5 billion during his 13 years as premier.

In fairness to Buchanan, other premiers in other provinces during the same period also racked up significant debts.

“Let me tell you something, you better check your facts. When I left office in 1992, the debt of Nova Scotia was $4.5 billion. The media guys built it up and up, but it was never any $10 to $ 12 billion, not anything close to it. I have all the documents from the finance department.”

The Buchanan era was a real golden age for Nova Scotia road builders, however, because the annual road-building pot would top $100 million.

Prior to 1978, Nova Scotia contractors routinely bid on work in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

But, with the arrival of Buchanan as premier, the road builders were able to concentrate on only Nova Scotia work, something road crews enjoyed because they were often closer to their homes.

The media of the day were critical of Buchanan’s road building largess, and when Buchanan built a road through the wilderness of Liscombe Game Sanctuary to connect Stellarton to Sheet Harbour, journalists during that era dubbed it ‘The Highway to Nowhere’.

Buchanan’s annual road-building pot of $100 million in 1988 was followed by Liberal premier Russell MacLellan who spent only $39 million on new roads.

Today, the Houston highways department has a robust $400 million road budget.

Buchanan always had a seat at the head table each January when contractors gathered for their annual Nova Scotia Road Builders gala, long held at the Westin Nova Scotian Hotel.

“I knew all the road builders. I never missed one of their big banquets in Halifax,” he recalls. “We built more damn roads during the 13 years I was premier than any other premier before or after me.”

There are now 42 hospitals and health clinics in Nova Scotia, including in small communities, largely because they were built during the significant spending spree heydays of the Buchanan regime.

Buchanan has a long winning streak at the polls, making him the envy of most other politicos. He began political Tory work in 1963 and then ran for office and won in 1967.

“I won eight elections in Halifax Atlantic. I won four big majority governments and I was the third longest-serving premier in the history of Nova Scotia,” he proudly recalls.

One Liberal politician who constantly raised alarm bells over the Buchanan spending ways was Antigonish MLA Bill Gillis, his party’s Finance critic.

“We tried in six elections to defeat Bill Gillis. We could never do it,” recalls Buchanan now.

Gillis was a major thorn and nemesis for Buchanan, who ensured there was no paving of any kind for Antigonish over the 13 years of his government since they continued to send a Liberal to Halifax. It was a total riding freeze-out.

Gillis, who owned his Antigonish seat for 30 years, retired from politics in 1998 and is now dead.

Buchanan explains to The Macdonald Notebook why he could never get rid of Gillis at the polls because he says Gillis was a people politician who attended every wake and funeral and wedding of his constituents, and who sent out cards in the mail for graduations, new babies and other life milestones.

Buchanan says he got to work closely with Gillis’s son Dr. John Gillis when Buchanan as a lawyer would send automobile accident victims to see Dr. Gillis at Dartmouth General Hospital, where he specializes in pain medicine.

Dr. Gillis is past president of the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, and a household name in these parts for his medical show on Eastlink, and regular appearances on Rick Howe’s Rogers Radio show.

Buchanan was dubbed by the media of the day as Teflon John because political scandals could never do him down in the eyes of the electorate. He is still the consummate people’s politician, with an uncanny ability to recall every face and name of voters he has met over his eight decades on earth.

Up until he died, Buchanan still went to Tory campaign events, including a Tory event in 2018 to nominate Tory Rushton, now in Houston’s cabinet.

“I’ll go to any party event they ask me to go to, but the reason I went to Springhill, I was so happy to go because of Tory Rushton—what a name. They named him Tory because his mother’s father was George Hanley, who of course was in the legislature with me in 1967 and he was there in ’63, and he was in my cabinet for many years until he retired and didn’t run in the 1988 election.”

Buchanan always looked the voters in the eye and offered a firm handshake. He also had a habit of glancing into the TV camera, when the normal practice is to look the reporter in the eye; his style meant he was also looking the voter in the eye on television newscasts.

“A good politician must be a people person. You must be able to walk into a room of 100 people, and shake hands with them. Don’t be phony. If you know them, tell them so, if you don’t, ask their names.

“I’ve seen too many politicians walk into a room, and they’d say, ‘You know me’ and the politician says, ‘Oh certainly’. Then the voter says ‘What is my name’ and he wouldn’t know the person’s name. That is a no-no. If you don’t know their name, ask them, if you do know their name, tell them because if you’re a people person who can’t sound phony.”

Buchanan’s government has never written about into a book on his tenure as premier – so the only book that remains to chronicle his 13-year rule, is the rather scathing account Bagman, in which Don Ripley recounted some of the scandals during the Buchanan years.

In 1988, the Buchanan Tories were scandal-plagued and tired, but Buchanan ran in that election incredibly re-branding his government as the New PCs and remarkably won his fourth majority mandate.

“My god, people are after me all the time to write a book. I have at least over 1,000 pictures which could go into a book. It would have to be a thick book to publish all the pictures,” he says.

“Where else in life could you meet presidents of the United States, prime ministers of Canada, all the members of the Royal family, who we entertained here in Halifax and foreign dignitaries? There is no other profession where you can do all that,” he says.

Buchanan came to his education in Nova Scotia public affairs at an early age. In 1944 in Cape Breton, he was a Sydney Post paperboy.

In 1978, Nova Scotia Power rates were skyrocketing, and Buchanan used that issue to defeat the two-term Liberal government of Gerry Regan.

I asked the popular former premier to explain what current two-term Liberal premier Stephen McNeil needs to do in order to win a third term since McNeil once vowed he would run again for a third term.

Buchanan replies: “I will make one comment. Look after the people. Be a people person as far as being a politician, and I am going to put it this way, be a Progressive Conservative as I always was with (policies).”

Buchanan says he practiced the Progressive Conservative definition to formulate government policy with an explanation given to him and once espoused by former Tory prime minister John Diefenbaker—‘Dief The Chief’.

“I asked John Diefenbaker once, ‘What the dickens is a Progressive Conservative? When I ran for office in 1967 I had no idea what a PC was then,” recalls Buchanan.

“He said because you have to be ‘progressive’ and change with changing times, and always be sure to look after the people as far as social services are concerned—education and health.

“He said as far as the ‘conservative’ side, you also have to be conservative, save the money of the taxpayers and look after the economy—and then you are (in power) for a good time as a ‘progressive conservative’.

Buchanan would later become a controversial GST senator appointed by Brian Mulroney, a call he accepted to go to the Red Chamber, appointed solely to shepherd the then-hated consumer tax through Parliament.

Nova Scotia Liberal senators like Antigonish’s John B. Stewart, a former St. Francis Xavier University political science professor, did all within their power to torpedo the tax.

But, privately, Stewart told his supporters the Mulroney-designed GST was a pure brilliant policy move, bound to significantly grow Ottawa’s coffers. When the Chretien Liberals took power in 1993, they kept the tax they said they’d abolish during their stint in Opposition.