I don’t want our men and women in uniform to get there hopes up with a Majority Conservative government. Usually the numbers will increase along with new equipment but wages stay dormant with the conservatives.

For the Canadian Forces, the Mulroney years began with hope but ended with disappointment. Many proposed reforms, however, failed to occur, and according to historian J.L. Granatstein, Mulroney "raised the military's hopes repeatedly, but failed to deliver."

The first Conservative majority government in 26 years--and only the second in 49 years--was considered by many to be a breath of fresh air at first, but growing pains soon surfaced. Many of his ministers had little government experience, resulting in conflicts of interest and embarrassing scandals. Many Tories expected patronage appointments due to the long time out of government.[9] Indeed, Mulroney made a number of unscripted gaffes regarding patronage, including the reference to a colleague as "there's no whore like an old whore," and announcing "everyone up to the trough!" The new Prime Minister's handlers were concerned by his seeming unpredictability and rumours of drinking.

On paper, Mulroney entered office in a very formidable position. No other party crossed the 50-seat mark, and he could have theoretically taken Canada in any direction he wanted. His position was far more precarious than his parlimentary majority would suggest. His support was based on a "grand coalition" of socially conservative populists from the West, Quebec nationalists, and fiscal conservatives from Ontario and the Maritimes.

Mulroney's second term would be marked by an economic recession. He proposed the introduction of a national sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), in 1989. When it was introduced in 1991, it replaced the Manufacturers' Sales Tax (MST) that had previously been applied at the wholesale level on goods manufactured in Canada. A bitter Senate battle ensued, and many polls showed that as many as 80% of Canadians were opposed to the tax. Mulroney would have to use Section 26 (the Deadlock Clause), a little known Constitutional provision, allowing him in an emergency situation to ask the Queen to appoint 8 new Senators. Although the government argued that the tax was not a tax increase, but a tax shift, the highly visible nature of the tax was extremely unpopular, and many resented Mulroney's use of an "emergency" clause in the constitution.
The Meech Lake Accord would also meet its doom in 1990. It was not ratified by the provincial governments of Manitoba and Newfoundland before the June ratification deadline. This failure sparked a revival of Quebec separatism,[14] and led to another round of meetings in Charlottetown in 1991 and 1992. These negotiations culminated in the Charlottetown Accord, which outlined extensive changes to the constitution, including recognition of Quebec as a distinct society. However, the agreement was overwhelmingly defeated in a national referendum in October 1992. Many blamed the GST battle and Mulroney's unpopularity for the fall of the Accord.
In 1990 Mulroney nominated Ray Hnatyshyn, an MP from Saskatoon and a former Cabinet minister, to be Governor General (1990-1995).
The worldwide recession of the early 1990s further exacerbated the government's financial situation. His inability to improve the government's finances, as well as his use of tax increases to deal with it was a major factor in alienating the western conservative portion of his power base. Canada also suffered from the "Made in Canada Recession," in which the Bank of Canada experimented with a zero inflation policy. With Mulroney's permission, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates, exacerbating the hardship experienced by Canadians. The Bank of Canada was the only central bank in the industrialized world to attempt to reach zero inflation and the experiment was an abject failure, which saw many ordinary people lose their jobs.
Mulroney supported the United Nations coalition during the 1991 Gulf War and when the UN authorized full use of force in the operation, Canada sent a CF18 squadron with support personnel and a field hospital to deal with casualties from the ground war as well as a company of the Royal Canadian Regiment to safeguard these ground elements. In August he sent the destroyers HMCS Terra Nova and HMCS Athabaskan to enforce the trade blockade against Iraq. The supply ship HMCS Protecteur was also sent to aid the gathering coalition forces. When the air war began, Canada's planes were integrated into the coalition force and provided air cover and attacked ground targets. This was the first time since the fighting on Cyprus in 1974 that Canadian forces participated directly in combat operations.
For the Canadian Forces, the Mulroney years began with hope but ended with disappointment. Most members of the CF welcomed the return to distinctive uniforms for the three services, replacing the single green uniform worn since unification (1967-70). A White Paper proposed boosting the CF's combat capability, which had, according to Canadian Defence Quarterly, declined so badly that Canada would have been unable to send a brigade to the Gulf War had it desired to. The CF in this period did undergo a much-needed modernization of a range of equipment from trucks to a new family of small arms. Many proposed reforms, however, failed to occur, and according to historian J.L. Granatstein, Mulroney "raised the military's hopes repeatedly, but failed to deliver." In 1984, he had promised to increase the military budget and the regular force to 92,000 troops, but the budget was cut and the troop level fell to below 80,000 by 1993. This was, however, in step with other NATO countries after the end of the Cold War [1]. The Mulroney government would undertake a defence policy review, publishing a new statement in late 1991, but political considerations meant that no comprehensive policy for the post-Cold War era was arrived at before the government's defeat in 1993. According to Granatstein, this meant that Canada was not able to live up to its post-Cold War military commitments.
The decline of cod stocks in Atlantic Canada led the Mulroney government to impose a moratorium on the cod fishery there, putting an end to a large portion of the Newfoundland fishing industry, and causing serious economic hardship. The government instituted various programmes designed to mitigate these effects but still became deeply unpopular in the Atlantic provinces.
The environment was a key focus of Mulroney's government, as Canada became the first industrialized country to ratify both the biodiversity convention and the climate change convention agreed to at the UN Conference on the Environment. His government added significant new national parks (Bruce Peninsula, South Moresby and Grasslands), and passed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

stop spamming, that's like 10 straight "news" links.