Canada

By Peter Stoler/Ottawa

Getting excited is a Canadian habit at budget time. So it was hardly surprising last week when people from Newfoundland to British Columbia stopped everything to discuss how the government's new $92 billion budget would affect their pocketbooks. In his budget message in Ottawa's Neo-Gothic House of Commons, Finance Minister Michael Wilson announced an 8.4% decrease in Canada's $24 billion national deficit, crowed about the country's improved economic outlook and promised a tax-reform program that would lower personal taxes. Wilson had barely finished announcing the good news when most Canadians yawned and turned their attention back to the question that has really preoccupied them lately: How much longer can Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his scandal-ridden Conservative government hold out?

In 1984 Mulroney and the Progressive Conservative party capitalized on public disillusionment with the Liberal government of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to score the greatest victory in Canadian political history, capturing 211 of Commons' 282 seats and sending the Liberals into opposition. Since then, Mulroney's star has plummeted steadily. Many Canadians now predict that the Prime Minister, who must call national elections by September 1989, will be swept from power in a defeat every bit as dramatic as his earlier triumph. "I don't doubt for a moment that we will be defeated in the next election," said a gloomy Tory backbencher last week. "My only concern is that we will be destroyed as a party."

After three years the Mulroney government has yet to demonstrate it can ! effectively lead the country, run the government or keep its promises to curb the kind of corruption that helped finish off the Liberals. Mulroney, 47, has surrounded himself with friends chosen for loyalty rather than expertise. He has never developed or articulated a national agenda for Canada or shown himself to have a tight grip on the reins of government. Although Canada's growth rate of 3.3% for the past two years is second only to that of Japan, the government has problems. Time after time, major decisions, like a highly publicized promise to restructure Canada's tax system, have been delayed.

Mulroney has been unable to convince Canadians, who are skeptical about U.S. intentions toward their country, that he enjoys a "special relationship" with President Reagan. The Prime Minister disappointed Canadians when he returned to Ottawa from the 1985 Shamrock Summit in Quebec City without a U.S. commitment to help clean up acid rain. Though he managed last spring to get American agreement to discuss a free-trade treaty between the two countries, many Canadians feel that both he and his government have been too quick to knuckle under to the U.S. on matters such as lumber and steel exports. In short, they question whether Reagan, who will meet the Prime Minister in Ottawa in April, takes Mulroney seriously.

What has hurt Mulroney the most has been a steady stream of scandals involving members of his government. Mulroney had barely taken office when then Defense Minister Robert Coates was forced to resign after an Ottawa newspaper revealed that he had visited a West German strip club and shared a drink with an "exotic dancer." Eight months later Mulroney's Fisheries Minister was forced out for allowing tainted tuna to be sold to Canadian consumers. Mulroney's Communications Minister resigned from the Cabinet while the Royal Canadian Mounted Police looked into irregularities in his campaign spending, then returned after he was cleared.

The improprieties have continued. Early last month Junior Transportation Minister Andre Bissonnette became the sixth member of Mulroney's Cabinet to resign under fire, quitting after he was implicated in a land deal that saw the value of a piece of Quebec real estate triple in eleven days. A fortnight ago several Quebec Conservatives were implicated in an influence-peddling case involving government contracts. A seventh Cabinet member, Minister of State Roch LaSalle, resigned last week after it was revealed that he had been the guest of honor at a dinner at which guests paid $5,000 apiece for the privilege of meeting him. And Mulroney has been accused of violating his own guidelines for avoiding conflict of interest by complaining about a lawsuit against one of his advisers in a call to his lawyer.

The Liberals and the minority New Democratic Party have turned the daily question period in the House of Commons into an opportunity to attack Mulroney. Says Liberal M.P. John Nunziata: "This government has lost the moral right to govern." Still, the Liberals, led by M.P. John Turner, have no program of their own and are struggling to find one. The Prime Minister has attempted to play down the seriousness of some charges by saying, "Everyone knows the Liberals did worse." He has also lashed out at the parliamentary press corps. "The press is chasing its tail every day . . ." Mulroney charged recently. "By God, don't let the facts get in the way of a better story."

Mulroney's fighting words have not reassured party regulars, many of whom see disaster ahead. A survey conducted earlier this month by Angus Reid Associates in Toronto suggests there is ample reason for concern. Mulroney's Conservatives now enjoy the backing of only 23% of Canadian voters, compared with a 50% favorable rating just before the September 1984 election. If an election were to be held now, the Liberals, with 42% support, would form Canada's next government, and the New Democrats, with 33%, would become the opposition. Mulroney, who is expected to conduct a second shuffle of his Cabinet and a purge of some of his closest aides within the next few weeks, may yet be able to stop the slide and turn the Tories around. But the Prime Minister and his party are plainly on the run.