as furious over the free trade agreement. He could not see any advantage of this agreement. Plus as he pointed out much of the Canadian public opposed such a deal with the Americans. Free trade was never a discussion during elections so the people of Canada never had the chance to decide on the outcome. In a press release Mel pleaded with Canadians to demand a federal election by saying:If necessary, the liberals and NDP members of the House of Commons must disrupt the business of the house and force an election, as Conservative leader Robert Borden did before defeating Wilfred Laurier in the reciprocity election of 1911. Brian Mulroney has no mandate from the people of Canada to take this unprecedented step. When he campaigned for the leadership role of the Conservative Party he spoke out strongly against free trade. He was not elected to sell out our country ... few Canadians understand what the government is doing. This is no free trade agreement this is a giant step towards union with the US... It’s a “leap of faith” into oblivion for Canada. (p. 296)As Mel himself states many times in this book, Canada’s relationship with the United States is too close and it was only made closer through the signing of this agreement.Mel Hurtig4Another of Mel’s friends was Walter Gordon. Walter was a friend of Lester Pearson and when he became Prime Minister, Walter became minister of finance. He believed that the problem with foreign ownership could be solved with a simple measure, a thirty percent takeover tax. He was however forced to remove it from the budget because of the huge uproar it caused from big businesses. Many of which were owned by Americans or had American interests. Mel believed this was a good idea because he could see that foreign ownership was a big problem. Foreign owned firms has most of Canadians wealth but created a large number less of new jobs for Canadians as opposed to Canadi...
