You had an option, sir

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"You had an option, sir" (sometimes remembered as You had a choice, sir) was a phrase used by Brian Mulroney against John Turner during the English-language leaders' debate in the 1984 Canadian federal election.

Pierre Trudeau retired as Prime Minister of Canada in June 1984 after polls showed that he would almost certainly be defeated by Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives in the next election. Trudeau's Liberals chose Turner, a former Cabinet minister under Trudeau and Lester Pearson, as their new leader. Turner called a general election for September, even though he was not obligated to call one until 1985.

Trudeau had outraged the country by recommending several patronage appointments to Governor General Jeanne Sauvé in his last days in office. Turner had the right to recommend that Sauvé cancel the appointments, and Sauvé would have been obligated by convention to follow this advice. However, Turner not only did not do so, but also made several more appointments per an agreement with Trudeau.^[1]

Ironically, Turner had planned to attack Mulroney over the patronage machine that the latter had set up in anticipation of victory. He launched what appeared to be the start of a blistering attack on Mulroney by comparing his patronage machine to that of the old Union Nationale in Quebec. However, Mulroney successfully turned the tables by pointing to the recent raft of Liberal patronage appointments. He demanded that Turner apologize to the country for making "these horrible appointments." Turner replied that "I had no option" except to let the appointments stand. Mulroney famously responded:

“

You had an option, sir. You could have said, 'I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.' You had an option, sir--to say 'no'--and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party. That sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Canadians.

”

Turner froze and wilted under this withering riposte from Mulroney and could only repeat, "I had no option." Mulroney called Turner's admission "an avowal of failure" and "a confession of non-leadership." He told Turner, "You had an option, sir. You could have done better."

The exchange led most of the papers the next day, with most of them paraphrasing Mulroney's counterattack as "You had an option, sir--you could have said 'no.'"

Mulroney later claimed to journalist Peter C. Newman that he did not know his "You had an option" response would be positively received as he was speaking it. He claimed, "At this point, I know there's been a dramatic, historic exchange, but I wasn't sure whether I had helped or hurt my case. I really wasn't. As the debate ended, I could see from the New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent's attitude that I had scored heavily."^[2]

Many observers believe that at this point, Mulroney clinched the election for the Tories, as it made Turner look weak, indecisive, and a carbon copy of Trudeau. The incident is considered one of the great "knockout blows" in the history of political debate. In the September election, the Tories won the biggest majority government in Canadian history, while the Liberals lost 95 seats--the worst defeat at the time for a governing party at the federal level in Canada.

Some commentators have seen the incident as redefining the expectations for a leader's debate in Canada, with the leaders looking for opportunities to score a similar knockout punch, possibly to the detriment of substantive debate.^[3] Accordingly, "You had an option, sir" has become a byword for a knockout punch in a leaders' debate.

[edit] See also

List of political catch phrases

[edit] References

^ Gordon Donaldson, The Prime Ministers of Canada, (Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, 1997), p. 320.
^ Peter C. Newman, The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister. Random House Canada, 2005, p. 81.
^ http://wordpress.xdroop.com/archives/2006/01/441