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Mulroney's sell-out of Canada
Compiled by The Canadian book staff
When On the Take: Crime, Greed and Corruption in the
Mulroney Years by Stevie Cameron came out in 1994, it
made author Stevie Cameron a household name in Canada.
Her book's revelations about the rampant corruption
and petty greed of Brian Mulroney's decade in the
prime minister's office reverberated for many years in
the Canadian political landscape and helped destroy
his Progressive Conservative Party. That party, one of
Canada's most venerable, (that had inspired the
Confederation of Canada under the leadership of former
Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald) never recovered
from Mulroney's stewardship and eventually merged with
the Canadian Alliance Party.
Cameron, one of the country's leading investigative
reporters, was one of the few reporters to
consistently question and probe the corruption of the
Mulroney years. She has a wonderful ear for
storytelling, which helps make On the Take a
page-turner. Cameron seems to rejoice in recounting
the numerous unseemly episodes of the Mulroney
administration and depicting all its seedy characters
and hangers-on. Mulroney comes across as having been
most comfortable in a powerbroker's backrooms,
surrounding himself with dodgy bagmen and devious
lobbyists. Cameron suggests that the country was "open
for business," with a "for sale" sign on the front
lawn. She writes that even in their final official
act, as the Mulroneys departed from office in disgrace
amid record-low popularity ratings, they tried to
stiff taxpayers into buying their used furniture.
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