"An Unusual Country"

Tired and hoarse, but visibly elated from his election-night triumph, the Prime Minister-elect left his home town of Bale Comeau the next day aboard Manicougan I, the Boeing 727 that served as his traveling campaign headquarters. As the plane sped west toward Ottawa, TIME Correspondent Marcia Ganger talked with Mulroney about the campaign, the economy and his vision for Canada's future.

On the Campaign. It was 53 days long. The hardest part is to get up every morning and put in a 19-hour day and do it with efficiency and good humor and not get too alarmed if your staff makes mistakes or if things don't go perfectly, because that's human nature. I told our people when this thing began, "Lookit, we're eleven points behind, we're running against a celebrated new Prime Minister. Keep your nerve, keep your sense of humor and we're going to be sitting in 24 Sussex [the Prime Minister's residence] by Labor Day."

On His First Priority as Prime Minister. In general, it is to begin the process of restoring Canada. First, we have to civilize our conduct of internal relations. We've had guerrilla warfare going on in various levels of government. An example? For 15 years the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador have been trying to negotiate an arrangement with Ottawa for the development of the extraordinary Hibernia offshore oil and gas resources. They've been unable to do so because of the Liberal contention that either you develop it Ottawa's way or you don't develop it at all. Second, we have to create opportunities for growth, to attract job-creating equity capital.

On Foreign Investment. Well, there are two symbols of the problem, the Foreign Investment Review Agency and the National Energy Program. As a result of these gestures, Canada has lost that very valuable infusion of job-creating capital we need. Now add to that what has always struck me as a dismayingly perverse dimension of Liberal policy, which was to hector and harass our friends and allies, including the U.S. My position is always that we should give our friends the benefit of a doubt. I think a lot of people in the U.S. are concerned about some of the things that Canada has been up to, and they have responded in kind.

On the U.S. One of the first things we will do is refurbish that excellent relationship of trust that must exist between the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. is our greatest friend, neighbor and ally, period. Now, that relationship doesn't suggest any degree of compliance or servility. The fact of the matter is, if I were the President I would wake up every morning and say, "Thank God for Canada. Now what can I do for Canada?"; Can you imagine having a neighbor on your border like Canada? This is an extremely valuable relationship back and forth. But like all valuable relationships, it must never be taken for granted.

On the $23 Billion Budget Deficit. The way out of this massive deficit that we've inherited is not by any little cuts or cosmetic changes. The way out -the only way out -is by economic growth, by creating new wealth, by unfettering the private sector, by some dimension of deregulation and by federal-provincial cooperation.

On His Vision for Canada. The election serves as a reminder to Canadian leaders that this is a country of tolerance, of protection of minorities, of civility in the Progressive Conservative tradition. On the social side, we believe very firmly in the maintenance of the universal social programs designed to care for those in our society who require assistance. That is in the Progressive Conservative tradition. On the economic side, there is in my judgment a role for government that is less interventionist than that of the Liberals and the socialists, a role that creates a climate in which the entrepreneurial genius of the private sector can do what it does best, namely create new wealth, new possibilities of employment. So there is no contradiction in terms. Progressive Conservative is an unusual party name, but this is an unusual country.