Not quite true. Free trade was at best a marginal issue, Mulroney was pure sleaze, after two terms of it people got sick of him, his party and the green slime dripping from their mouths. Even under a new leader they went from being a government party (180 odd seats out of just under 300, WAG), to losing official party status with just 2 seats in one night. One of the few elections in the last 25 years here I actually enjoyed watching*.
His party, the Progressive Conservatives (yes, that oxymoron has been the longest standing joke in Canadian politics. That and our non-elected senate) never recovered. In fact, they're probably going through death spasms right now and one of the people doing the twitching is a devout anti-free trade Tory, David Orchard who's suing his own party leader.
Barring a full scale economic collapse we're stuck with NAFTA and its peculiar version of free trade. The Liberal government in place since 1993 has not changed or challenged NAFTA in any significant way.
PC
* favorite election night memory was a comedy troupe sketch late in the evening with a reporter standing outside a bathroom door supposedly talking to the conservative leader (Kim Campbell) and saying 'Kim honey, it's not THAT bad, are you sure you want Dr. Kervorkian's number?'.
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