MST, this placed Canadian companies at a competitive disadvantage in their home market, and to compensate the government had levied tariffs on manufactured imports to maintain a level playing field. When the free trade agreement with the United States came into effect in 1989, the government could no longer levy tariffs on American imports, which led to furious complaints from Canadian industry about having to compete with American companies who did not pay the MST. To save Canadian industry and the jobs of those Canadians employed in manufacturing from being destroyed by American competition, the Mulroney government decided in late 1989 to abolish the MST and replace it with the 7 percent GST, whose costs would be borne by consumers. On the proposed GST, Chrétien was torn between his belief that the GST was economically necessary vs. his desire to score political points by opposing a proposed tax that most Canadians hated, and as such, he was initially vague about where he stood about the GST. It was only in September 1990 after months of vacillation did Chrétien finally make up his mind to oppose the GST. Chrétien's decision to oppose the GST in 1990 was taken for reasons of political expediency rather than for principle, namely that Chrétien needed an issue to oppose the government on that would allow him to connect with the public; sources close to Chrétien were later to claim that he had wanted to support the GST bill, but had been forced by his caucus against his will to oppose it. At a Liberal event in the fall of 1990, Chrétien stated that if he became prime minister "the Mulroney GST will disappear", going on to say: "I am opposed to the GST. I have always been opposed to it. And I will be opposed to it, always". To capitalize on widespread public dislike on the proposed GST, Chrétien ordered the Liberal-dominated Senate to defeat the GST bill in late September 1990, leading Mulroney on September 27, 1990, to appoint 8 Conservative senators to give the Tories a majority using a never-before-used section of the Constitution Act, the so-called "Deadlock Clause". At that point, Chrétien ordered the Liberal senators to filibuster the GST bill, reducing the Senate to scenes of chaos for the entire fall of 1990. On October 24, 1990, a poll revealed that the Liberals had fallen behind the New Democrats, which Chrétien