The image is nearly two decades old, but it is still indelibly graven on Liberal memory banks.
Brian Mulroney, en route to a landslide Conservative election victory, jabs a finger at a hapless then-prime minister John Turner and accuses him of participating in a patronage orgy.
"You had an option, sir," Mr. Mulroney declared during the debate that became the defining moment of the 1984 campaign. "You could have said 'I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canadians.' "
The incident sealed Mr. Turner's and the Liberals' doom in that election.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien is determined to ensure that the Grits don't suffer the same public-relations disaster as his time in office dwindles toward conclusion.
That doesn't mean there will not be plenty of rewards for party faithful before the Prime Minister steps down next February.
Nor does it mean his successor - almost certain to be former finance minister Paul Martin - will not make appointments of his own as he clears the decks for the general election expected next spring.
But the Liberals will be taking pains to avoid the all-out spree that marked the handover of power from Pierre Trudeau to Mr. Turner
"I don't have any reason to believe there's going to be a repeat of what happened in 1984," said Senator David Smith, a longtime Chrétien confidant.
"I just don't sense that's likely - if for no other reason than that you learn from history. That wasn't well received."
Mr. Chrétien said as much himself when the subject came up during an interview in May with the Global television network.
"There will be some appointments as we have every year," he observed. "There will be nothing that will be packaged at the last minute as it was, say, in 1984."
Just as the campaign was about to begin that year, the outgoing Mr. Trudeau and the incoming Mr. Turner combined to appoint no fewer than 23 Liberal MPs - one sixth of their parliamentary caucus - to the Senate, judgeships, ambassadorial posts and a host of Crown corporations, boards and agencies.
Mr. Mulroney was quick to make it an issue, even though his own devotion to the patronage principle became legendary.
A year before he was even elected, Mr. Mulroney promised his party he would not put a Liberal on the federal payroll until "there isn't a living, breathing Tory left without a job in this country."
When Mr. Mulroney eventually left office in 1993 the Liberals pointed ruefully to more than 500 federal jobs handed out during his final six months in power.
The Tories, however, were more sophisticated about it than the Trudeau-Turner team. Mr. Mulroney's end-of-term appointments came in a quiet, steady trickle rather than a single, loud torrent.
Mr. Chrétien has apparently learned the lesson.
"He doesn't want to create a huge controversy with a flurry of appointments when he leaves," one associate said, insisting on anonymity. "I think that means he will be more careful about stringing them out - but also that he won't be provocative about the kind of appointments he makes."
More objective observers are skeptical, suggesting Mr. Chrétien will be just as eager as his predecessors to pay off old political debts and reward faithful service.
"I can't imagine for a minute it will be any different," said David Docherty, a political scientist at Wilfrid Laurier University. "He is as old-school a politician as it gets."
Mr. Martin probably wouldn't be sorry to see some Chrétien loyalists in cabinet pensioned off to other jobs, allowing the new leader to start his reign with an infusion of fresh blood.
Liberal insiders commonly list Transport Minister David Collenette, House Leader Don Boudria and Human Resources Minister Jane Stewart as potential candidates for patronage postings - although none of them have said publicly they want out of politics.
Mac Harb, a backbench MP for Ottawa Centre and candidate for the federal party presidency, is also rumoured to be in line for a Senate seat. That would please at least one Martin backer, veteran party backroomer Richard Mahoney, who has long coveted a chance to run in Mr. Harb's riding.
Mr. Martin could also have non-parliamentary appointments in mind for a few of his supporters, if only as consolation prizes because he cannot elevate them all to the charmed circle of senior ministers.
"He's got a lot of people to please, and he won't be pleasing them all with cabinet seats," Mr. Docherty said. "So he's going to want some of those (patronage positions) freed up as well."
Mr. Martin's campaign team is understandably sensitive about the subject, and most of his strategists are loath to talk about it. They prefer to leave the patronage ball, for now at least, in Mr. Chrétien's court.
"The Prime Minister has prerogatives," said one Martin insider. "Whoever might be the next leader doesn't share those prerogatives or have any participation in the decisions, nor should he."
So far the Prime Minister has been exceedingly cautious.
He did name Percy Downe - his former chief of staff, and before that his adviser on patronage appointments - to the Senate in June.
More recently, he gave former press secretary Patrick Parisot a plum job as ambassador to Portugal, in effect extending a diplomatic career that began two years ago with a posting as ambassador to Chile.
Mr. Chrétien has offered similar rewards to others in his decade in power, dispatching communications director Peter Donolo as consul to Milan, former minister André Ouellet to the chairmanship of Canada Post and another cabinet veteran, Roy MacLaren, as high commissioner to Britain.
Herb Gray, after nearly 40 years in the Commons, got a posting last year to the International Joint Commission, which oversees Great Lakes water and air quality. That move was widely praised.
It was decidedly otherwise when Alfonso Gagliano was packed off as ambassador to Denmark, in the midst of a scandal over advertising contracts awarded to Liberal-friendly firms in Quebec during his time as public works minister.
The resulting furor serves as a reminder to Mr. Chrétien, as he ponders his end-of-term options, of what can happen when a prime minister crosses the line between the defensible and the indefensible.
"Gagliano was an awful appointment," Mr. Docherty said. "Gray's made all kind of sense.
"The problem is getting the public to distinguish between the good and bad extremes. As long as there are Gaglianos appointed, the Herb Grays are going to look bad even if they make sense."