Read the book On the Take by Stevie Cameron.
Then come back and try to tell me Brian Mulroney deserves a statue. It’s required reading if you really want to understand the rot behind the rhetoric.
You want to know how deep the fracture between East and West goes?
Start with Meech Lake.
In 1987, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney tried to pull off a constitutional miracle. He wanted Quebec to finally sign onto the 1982 Constitution—something it had refused to do. The price?
- Recognizing Quebec as a “distinct society”
- Giving more power to provinces (on paper, anyway)
- Doing it all behind closed doors
It looked like unity.
It was branded as healing.
But for Western Canada, it felt like a handshake made behind locked doors.
The West didn’t get more say.
The West didn’t get stronger representation.
What we got was a deeper sense that we were there to be managed, not heard.
🧨 When Meech Collapsed, the Damage Was Already Done
The Accord died in 1990—not because the West rejected it, but because Newfoundland and Manitoba did. But by then, the damage had metastasized.
- It gave rise to the Bloc Québécois, born out of Lucien Bouchard’s protest exit from Mulroney’s cabinet.
- It poured gasoline on the fire that would ignite the Reform Party.
- It confirmed what Western Canadians already suspected: Ottawa never really saw us.
“Unity,” we learned, was just a rebranded word for compliance.
🤝 Mulroney’s Legacy: More Division, Not Less
Where was Mulroney when the smoke cleared?
Still clinging to the illusion that power could be balanced…
if you just gave Quebec more than everyone else.
You’re not wrong.
Meech Lake was a warning shot.
It missed the East, but hit the West straight in the chest.
There We Are Then 