As he described himself, was Mulroney really "the best since sir

[geoffrey]

You can make that claim all you want, but back in the late 70s/early 80s I remember hearing about regular appointments Trudeau made to various crown corporations and/or departments. (And do you remember that last flury of patronage appointments following Trudeau's retirement, that probaby did more than anything else to sink Turner's chances of winning the election?)

Maurice Strong as Chair of PetroCan?

[Figleaf]

Believe it or not, the civil service was already politicized.

No, it wasn't.

You can make that claim all you want, but back in the late 70s/early 80s I remember hearing about regular appointments Trudeau made to various crown corporations and/or departments.

Leaders of crown corps are not part of the civil service, and indeed have long been politically appointed. I was not refering to them.

Senior leaders (DMs) of the civil service are also political appointees. Many of them under Trudeau were merit appointments nonetheless.

But it was under Mulroney that we saw politics reaching deeper down the ladder into the civil service.

If you're going to blame anyone, why don't you give at least part of the blame to Trudeau, who brought in a constitution that Quebec didn't sign (thus causing resentment between Quebec and English Canada in teh first place)?

Separatism predated the repatriation of the constitution. Rene Levesque's first referendum was in 1980 and Trudeau's government was quite successful in resisting it. The new constitution was not brought in until 1982 and at first it was driven partly by the hope it too would redress Quebec's resentments. There is no rational basis for assigning any blame to Trudeau for inspiring, rejuvenating, or cossetting separatism.