When Brian Mulroney announced his retirement from office in February 1993, his personal approval ratings were in the teens and his majority Progressive Conservative government had the support of less than 20 per cent of voters.
Mulroney would insist those numbers had nothing to do with this decision to leave but when he did, in the early summer of that year, the party’s fortunes under his successor Kim Campbell immediately began to improve and as the 1993 federal election got underway late that summer, the PCs started in a statistical tie with Jean’s Chrétien’s Liberals.
