In developing broad opposition to government policy such as the massive tax grab built into the MacEachen Budget of November 1981, the first task is to explain publicly that as an organization, we are non-partisan. That even if the budget was written on "tablets", it would still be opposed. Our political opposition and one-liners must then be followed by technical support material to show we know what we are talking about.
The real job, however, is building support amongst the opposition in Ottawa and the provinces. A substantive meeting was first held with Joe Clark, the Leader of the Official Opposition, and his new finance critic, Michael Wilson. Pat Johnston, our VP Legislative Affairs, and Jim Bennett, our Director National Affairs, are in the photo. 
We soon started a swing out West and our first meeting was with Premier Howard Pawley of Manitoba. The Premier had been well briefed and fully understood that the federal government was trying to do what it failed to do with the Benson White Paper and that is, use tax reform as a vehicle for tax increases.
A visit with Premier Lougheed of Alberta was of special importance because it was a province that collected its own corporate income taxes and a failure to harmonize its system with that of Ottawa's would create intolerable complexity. I was surprised after our visit just how knowledgeable he was about the complex changes Ottawa wanted to make. In those days Ontario and Quebec also collected their own corporate taxes.
And of course, a trip out West always required a visit to the capital in Victoria and a meeting with Premier Bennett. And like Premier Lougheed, he had a background in business and was fully informed by his advisors about the complexity of the 160 proposed changes in the MacEachen budget. He said he was continuously astounded by the anti-business proposals being offered by the federal government, but he did not feel it was any kind of political conspiracy, just bureaucratic insensitivity. He had a great sense of humour, and I remember him saying, "You require enormous competency and organizational skill to pull off a conspiracy.”
Did I forget the media attention we received during our fight against the MacEachen budget? Well, besides the traditional newspaper, radio and TV coverage, Canadian Business gave us our second magazine cover story.
Any time CFIB has coordinated broad-based political opposition to government policy we cement great friendships amongst all the opposition parties at the federal and provincial level because they all lack research funds and expertise. Almost all of their substantial questions in the federal and provincial parliaments were based on our research material.