The Conservatives want it, the Liberals need it, and a healthy Canadian democracy depends upon it.

When Brian Mulroney rode a rising conservative tide to the biggest majority government in Canadian history 25 years ago, he was lauded for finally breaking the Liberal deadbolt on the gates to 24 Sussex. Not since John Diefenbaker's triumph in 1958 had the political right formed a majority government.

But Mulroney's election was not as much a victory for him or his party as it was for Canada and our democratic institutions. Today, with an election looming on the horizon, the best argument for a Conservative majority is neither that Stephen Harper wants one nor that the Conservative Party has earned one, but rather that Canada needs one.

Say what you will about Brian Mulroney – and we can certainly find much to critique in his record as prime minister – but his political acumen remains unrivalled among modern conservative politicians. That he managed to fashion an improbable coalition among conservative liberals, liberal conservatives, libertarians, soft nationalists in Quebec, and reformers in the west – an unlikely fusion of interests that he sustained for nearly a decade – is a testament to his deft touch.

Mulroney's unprecedented majority election in 1984 and re-election in 1988 had three important consequences for democracy in Canada.

First, it made Canadian federal politics competitive. Having grown accustomed to winning and taken to calling itself Canada's natural governing party, the Liberal Party governed Canada for all but 20 of the 88 years from 1896 to 1984. Mulroney brought an end to the reign of undisputed Liberal supremacy.

Second, Mulroney's election humbled the Liberal Party. Devastated and having won merely 40 seats in 1984, the Liberal Party was relegated to the political wilderness, where it turned to the hard work of rebuilding itself, its structure and its brand, and most importantly to reconnecting with Canadians whose support it had for too long taken for granted.

And third, Mulroney's election rewarded conservatives for their toil and labour over the years. There is nothing more dispiriting than investing time, energy, and emotion in a contest whose outcome is determined even before the puck drops. That was the lamentable fate of Conservative activists prior to 1984. But not with Mulroney at the helm.

The great paradox of Mulroney's tenure as prime minister is that he reshaped the Canadian political landscape both when he entered the scene as when he exited it. The decimation of the Progressive Conservative Party, the rise of the Reform Party, the creation of the Bloc Quebecois, and even the renewal of the Liberal Party – Mulroney was the catalyst for each of them.

And though she could have been a great prime minister, Kim Campbell inherited a poisoned chalice from Mulroney that hangs as an albatross around her neck to this day.

Years later, Conservatives have finally returned to power after a long journey. But their work is not quite done because much of Canada still operates under the assumption that the Liberal Party should govern by default. According to the conventional wisdom, Canadians did not vote affirmatively for the Conservative Party in 2006 but rather to send the Liberal Party to the penalty box.

A similar narrative is thought to explain the 2008 election: the Conservative Party did not earn the trust of Canadians but was nevertheless re-elected only because the Liberal Party was not yet ready to return to its rightful role as Canada's majority governing party.

In short, the baseline premise in Canada, throughout history and today, is that it is wrong to vote for the right.

A Conservative majority government would go a long way toward showing that we in Canada have progressed beyond the simple shorthand that insists that right is wrong.

By returning the Conservatives to Ottawa with a majority, we would put the Conservative Party on the same footing as the Liberal Party, both would be seen in the eyes of Canadians as viable governing parties, and we would finally be able to cast aside the flawed presumption that there is indeed such a thing as a natural governing party in Canada.

Whether you wear Conservative blue or Liberal red, the next election is an opportunity unlike any other to finally return competitive balance to Canadian politics.