Editing Brian Mulroney (section)

== Opposition leader (1983–1984) ==
Joe Clark led the Progressive Conservative party to a minority government in the [[1979 Canadian federal election|1979 federal election]], which ended 16 years of continuous Liberal rule. The government fell after a successful no-confidence motion over his minority government's budget in December 1979. The PCs subsequently lost the federal election held two months later to Trudeau and the Liberals. Many Tories were also annoyed with Clark over his slowness in dispensing patronage appointments after he became prime minister in June 1979. By late 1982, Joe Clark's leadership of the Progressive Conservatives was being questioned in many party circles and among many Tory members of Parliament, despite his solid national lead over Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in opinion polls.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lotz |first=Jim |title=Prime Ministers of Canada |publisher=Bison Books |year=1987 |isbn=0-86124-377-3 |location=London |page=139 |language=en}}</ref>
[[File:Mulroney 1983.jpg|left|thumb|275px|Mulroney on the floor of the 1983 leadership convention]]
Mulroney, while publicly endorsing Clark at a press conference in 1982, organized behind the scenes to defeat him at the party's [[leadership review]]. Clark's key Quebec organizer, Rodrigue Pageau, was, in fact, a double agent, working for Mulroney, undermining Clark's support.<ref name="ReferenceA" /> When Clark received an endorsement by only 66.9 percent of delegates at the party convention in January 1983 in [[Winnipeg]], he resigned and ran to regain his post at the [[Progressive Conservative leadership convention, 1983|1983 leadership convention]]. Despite still not being a member of Parliament, Mulroney ran against him, campaigning more shrewdly than he had done seven years before. Mulroney had been criticized in 1976 for lacking policy depth and substance, a weakness he addressed by making several major speeches across the country in the early 1980s, which were collected into a book, ''Where I Stand'', published in 1983.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

Mulroney also avoided most of the flash of his earlier campaign, for which he had been criticized. Mulroney was elected party leader on June 11, 1983, beating Clark on the fourth ballot, attracting broad support from the many factions of the party and especially from representatives of his native Quebec. Pundits noted that a poll of delegates on the final ballot showed that Mulroney had won a bare majority of Clark's home province of Alberta and that Clark had won a bare majority in Mulroney's home province of Quebec.{{sfn|Martin, Gregg, Perlin|p=237}} Mulroney's strong showing amongst Ontario delegates (65 percent to 35 percent) seemed to account for most of his margin of victory.{{sfn|Martin, Gregg, Perlin|p=237}} A ''New York Times'' article from 1984 argued that Mulroney was elected from "the right-wing elements" within the party.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/06/world/man-in-the-news-a-modern-centrist-in-canada-martin-brian-mulroney.html|title=Man in the News; a Modern Centrist in Canada: Martin Brian Mulroney|date=September 6, 1984|work=The New York Times|access-date=November 26, 2019|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=August 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200828202859/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/06/world/man-in-the-news-a-modern-centrist-in-canada-martin-brian-mulroney.html|url-status=live}}</ref>   [[Tasha Kheiriddin]], writing in ''La Presse'', argued that "Brian Mulroney's injuries to Joe Clark in 1983 took more than 15 years to heal, as various factions continued to compete for leadership roles in the field and youth wings."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/47bc0cb5-ead9-4989-8f3a-ea08a0017b56__7C___0.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729143132/https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/47bc0cb5-ead9-4989-8f3a-ea08a0017b56__7C___0.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 29, 2020|title=Le Parti conservateur n'ira nulle part avec Scheer|date=November 7, 2019|website=La Presse+|language=fr|access-date=November 25, 2019}}</ref>

Two months later, Mulroney entered Parliament as the MP for [[Central Nova]] in Nova Scotia, winning a by-election in what was then considered a safe Tory seat after [[Elmer MacKay]] stood aside in his favour. The Progressive Conservatives only had one seat in Mulroney's home province of Quebec at the time.<ref name="plamo">{{cite book |last1=Plamondon |first1=Bob |title=Full Circle: Death and Resurrection In Canadian Conservative Politics |date=2014 |publisher=eBookIt.com |isbn=9781456623166 |author-link1=Bob Plamondon}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Patriquin |first=Martin |date=May 29, 2015 |title=The amazingly malleable MacKay |url=https://macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-amazingly-malleable-mackay/ |access-date=February 29, 2024 |work=[[Maclean's]] |archive-date=September 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230924025027/https://macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-amazingly-malleable-mackay/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Maloney |first=Ryan |date=August 8, 2018 |title=Jagmeet Singh Follows Path Of Other Leaders By Seeking Seat Far From Home |url=https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/jagmeet-singh-burnaby_ca_5cd55f5ce4b07bc7297780a6 |access-date=February 29, 2024 |work=HuffPost Canada |archive-date=October 4, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004201648/https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/jagmeet-singh-burnaby_ca_5cd55f5ce4b07bc7297780a6 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Throughout his political career, Mulroney's fluency in English and French, with Quebec roots in both cultures, gave him an advantage that eventually proved decisive.<ref name="ReferenceA" />

By the start of 1984, as Mulroney began learning the realities of parliamentary life in the House of Commons, the Tories took a substantial lead in opinion polling. It was almost taken for granted that Trudeau would be heavily defeated by Mulroney in the general election due no later than 1985. Trudeau announced his retirement in February and [[1984 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election|was succeeded]] as Liberal leader and prime minister by his former finance minister, [[John Turner]], in June. The Liberals then surged in the polls to take a lead after trailing by more than 20 percentage points. Only four days after being sworn in as prime minister, Turner called [[1984 Canadian federal election|a general election for September]]. But the Liberal election campaign machinery was in disarray, leading to a weak campaign.<ref>''The Insiders: Government, Business, and the Lobbyists,'' by [[John Sawatsky]], 1987</ref>

In the early days of the campaign, Mulroney made several gaffes regarding patronage, including the reference to Ambassador [[Bryce Mackasey]] as "there's no whore like an old whore".<ref name="mackasey">Hamovitch, Eric, Rae Murphy, Robert Chodos. ''Selling Out: Four Years of the Mulroney Government'', 1988. p. 115.</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Martin |first1=Douglas |title=Leader of Tories Takes Campaign to Quebec |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/07/world/leader-of-tories-takes-campaign-to-quebec.html |website=New York Times |access-date=July 8, 2022 |date=August 7, 1984 |archive-date=July 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220708194243/https://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/07/world/leader-of-tories-takes-campaign-to-quebec.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Most of the campaign is best remembered for his attacks on a raft of Liberal patronage appointments. In his final days in office, Trudeau had controversially appointed a flurry of [[Senate of Canada|senators]], judges, and executives on various governmental and [[crown corporation]] boards, widely seen as a way to offer 'plum jobs' to loyal members of the Liberal Party. Upon assuming office, Turner had been under pressure to advise Governor General [[Jeanne Sauvé]] to cancel the appointments—which convention would then have required Sauvé to do. Turner did not, instead appointing several more Liberals to prominent political offices per a signed legal agreement with Trudeau.<ref>Donaldson, p. 320; Newman, p. 71.</ref>

Ironically, Turner had planned to attack Mulroney over the patronage machine that the latter had set up in anticipation of victory. In a televised leaders' debate, Turner launched what appeared to be the start of a blistering attack on Mulroney by comparing his patronage machine to that of the old [[Union Nationale (Quebec)|Union Nationale]] in Quebec. Mulroney successfully turned the tables by pointing to the recent raft of Liberal patronage appointments.<ref name="Secret7172">Newman, pp. 71–72.</ref> He demanded that Turner apologize to the country for making "these horrible appointments." Turner replied that, "I had no option" except to let the appointments stand. Mulroney famously responded:

<blockquote>[[You had an option, sir]]. You could have said, 'I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.' You had an option, sir—to say 'no'—and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party. That, sir, if I may say respectfully, is not good enough for Canadians.<ref name="Secret7172" /></blockquote>

Turner froze and wilted under this withering riposte from Mulroney.<ref name="Secret7172" /> He could repeat only, "I had no option." A visibly angry Mulroney called this "an avowal of failure" and "a confession of non-leadership." The exchange led most papers the next day, with most of them paraphrasing Mulroney's counterattack as "You had an option, sir—you could have said 'no.'" Many observers believe that at this point, Mulroney assured himself of becoming prime minister.<ref name="Secret7172" />

On September 4, Mulroney and the Tories won the second largest majority government (in terms of percentage of seats) in Canadian history, winning 74.8 percent of seats in the House of Commons (behind the Tories' [[1958 Canadian election|1958 landslide]] in which they won 78.5 percent of seats). They took 211 seats, three more than their previous record in 1958 and the highest number of seats ever won by any party in Canadian history. The Liberals won only 40 seats, which, at the time, was their worst performance ever and the worst defeat for a governing party at the federal level in Canadian history. The Progressive Conservatives won just over half of the [[Representative democracy|popular vote]] (compared to 53.4 percent in 1958) and led in every province, emerging as a national party for the first time since 1958. Especially important was the Tories' performance in Mulroney's home province, Quebec. The Tories had only won the most seats in that province once since [[1896 Canadian federal election|1896]] – the 1958 Tory landslide. Largely out of anger at Trudeau and Mulroney's promise of a new deal for Quebec, the province swung over dramatically to support him. The Tories had only won one seat out of 75 in 1980 but took 58 seats in 1984.<ref>{{Cite web |agency=The Canadian Press |date=February 29, 2024 |title=Former prime minister Brian Mulroney dead at 84 |url=https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/02/29/news/former-prime-minister-brian-mulroney-dead |access-date=March 1, 2024 |website=Canada's National Observer |language=en |archive-date=March 1, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240301030036/https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/02/29/news/former-prime-minister-brian-mulroney-dead |url-status=live }}</ref> Mulroney yielded Central Nova back to MacKay and instead ran and won in the eastern Quebec riding of [[Manicouagan (electoral district)|Manicouagan]], which included Baie-Comeau.<ref name=":0" />

In 1984, the [[Canadian Press]] named Mulroney "[[Newsmaker of the Year]]" for the second straight year, making him only the second prime minister to have received the honour both before becoming prime minister and when prime minister (the other being [[Lester Pearson]]).<ref>{{Cite news |date=December 19, 2023 |title=The Canadian Press Newsmaker of the Year: from 1946 to 2023 |url=https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/12/19/the-canadian-press-newsmaker-of-the-year-from-1946-to-2023/ |access-date=February 29, 2024 |work=[[CityNews]] |agency=[[The Canadian Press]] |archive-date=December 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226124149/https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/12/19/the-canadian-press-newsmaker-of-the-year-from-1946-to-2023/ |url-status=live }}</ref>