Canadian Leader Mulroney Quits After 8 Years

TORONTO —  Brian Mulroney said Wednesday that he will step down as prime minister and leader of Canada’s Progressive Conservative Party, ending months of speculation about whether he might make a long-odds bid at reelection later this year.

His decision marks the end of an era for Canada: He has been prime minister for 8 1/2 years and has led the Conservatives in Parliament for a decade.

His departure may also prove another milestone in the reversal of conservative ideological fortunes in North America and Europe, coming as it does on the heels of the exits of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in Britain and George Bush as President in the United States, both personal friends and political allies.

In a brief speech before friends, party fixtures and Canadian journalists in Ottawa’s neo-Gothic Parliament building, Mulroney made no apologies about imposing conservative economic policies on an increasingly resistant public.

“I tried to do what I thought would be right for Canada in the long term, not what I thought would be politically popular in the short term,” he said.

Mulroney said he will carry on as prime minister until the Progressive Conservative Party can choose a successor at a leadership convention, probably in mid-June.

He said he will keep his seat in Parliament until the fall, but he refused to say what he will do after that. Mulroney, formerly a labor lawyer and a business executive before his rise in politics, will be 54 next month and is in good health.

Canada must hold a national election by the fall, and public antipathy toward virtually all established politicians and major parties here is at high tide.

As prime minister, Mulroney has taken a far worse beating in public opinion polls than the leaders of the opposition parties. For two years, his approval ratings have been at about 20% or below, the worst showing of any Canadian prime minister in modern times.

In such a climate, many Tory strategists had been urging Mulroney to step aside in hopes that a new leader would improve the Progressive Conservative Party’s fortunes come the elections.

But in a nationally televised news conference that followed his speech, Mulroney belittled a suggestion that he was resigning to avoid an electoral disaster. Opinion surveys to the contrary, he argued that he could still have defeated his putative chief rival, Liberal Party leader Jean Chretien, if he had held on to power until election day. “I shall hand over to my successor a government and a party in very good shape,” he asserted.

The major source of Mulroney’s unpopularity has been his economic policies.

When he formed his government, in 1984, the Canadian budget deficit was thought dangerously large; his fiscal policy-makers set about cutting public spending and raising various taxes.

But unlike their American neighbors, Canadians tend to be unimpressed by scoldings about waste, fraud and abuse or the perils of big government. So when Mulroney began cutting treasured Canadian social programs, many here turned angry, and the predictions about Canada going the way of the United States--toward all-out laissez-faire capitalism, a tattered social safety net and disorder--were glum and frequent.

While in office, Mulroney’s government negotiated a watershed free trade pact with the United States, which has since grown into a three-way accord with Mexico.

Compounding Mulroney’s unpopularity has been his insistence that the country pay special heed to the wishes of the French-speaking province of Quebec.

Quebec has made a habit of threatening to pull out of confederation if it is not ceded more powers within Canada.

But however unpopular Mulroney may have been in his own country, he has proved a trusted ally to and friend of the United States, especially during the Persian Gulf War.

Whether Canada’s next prime minister will be as friendly and accommodating to Washington remains to be seen.

Some of the likely contenders for the Conservative Party leadership include Defense Minister Kim Campbell, Trade Minister Michael Wilson, Environment Minister Jean Charest and Communications Minister Perrin Beatty.