Pierre Trudeau owns a dragon!

Brian Mulroney, perhaps the most unpopular man in Canada even though he has not been Prime Minister for fourteen years, has a bone to pick with Pierre Trudeau, his almost predecessor (there was a forty seven day interval of John Turner.)

It is hard to say what Mulroney is so unpopular for. In his day, he was unpopular for the NAFTA free trade agreement, whose predecessor he brought about with Presidents Reagan and Bush. Nobody is upset about NAFTA today, but he remains unpopular for the GST, a Federal sales tax that replaced an earlier hidden value added tax.

Trudeau was himself deeply unpopular, but his reputation has been healed by time. Mulroney, on the other hand, remains very unpopular. I remember when Mulroney had an episode of ill health a few years ago; rather than hearing sympathy from people, I remember reading a snarky letter to the editor, "I hope they charge GST on his funeral!"

So I suppose it is not surprising to see one unpopular Prime Minister target another. I suspect he resents the fact that history is turning out to be kind to one and not the other.

(In case you are wondering about the topic title, that's a bit of insider Canadian humour.)