About an hour or so ago, I learned that former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney passed away at the age of 84.
Mulroney led the Progressive Conservative to a massive majority government in September 1984 winning 211 out of 282 seats. His passing comes only seven weeks after the death of Ed Broadbent, who led the NDP in that election to 30 seats.
In 1988, Mulroney's Tories would be re-elected to a second term albeit with a reduced majority campaigning on Canadian entry into the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement which would later become the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mulroney forged a close relationship with both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Indeed, Mulroney was among the eulogists chosen to speak both of their funerals in 2004 and 2018, respectively.
During his second term, Mulroney twice unsuccessfully attempted to have Quebec ratify the Canadian Constitution through the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord. These efforts divided his delicate coalition of conservative Western Canadians and social democratic Quebec nationalists. Mulroney didn't help matters by introducing a deeply unpopular Good and Services Tax (GST) amid a recession.
Mulroney would resign as Prime Minister in February 1993. Kim Campbell would succeed Mulroney and the Tories went from having 156 seats to 2. While Campbell was at the helm, the vote was directed against Mulroney. Canada's conservative movement was divided for more than decade as the Liberals under Jean Chretien won three consecutive majority governments.
I must admit that during my formative years, I loathed Brian Mulroney. He came across to me as arrogant, smug, self-centered, nouveau-riche and with little regard for others. I remember a story in the Ottawa Citizen in which he laughed at people in an unemployment line. How much of this is actually true I cannot be certain. But it confirmed my gut instincts about him.
I was hardly alone in feeling this way. After I had moved to Ottawa to attend university, my maternal grandparents paid a visit to my aunt and uncle in nearby Nepean. On their way from the airport, my grandfather told us, "We saw a sign which read, 'Honk if you think Mulroney is an asshole!' The noise was deafening." Grandad laughed as hard as I ever heard him laugh.
Nevertheless, Mulroney was not without his virtues. He was among the most vocal world leaders in support of sanctions against Apartheid-era South Africa which was reflected in his appointment of former Ontario NDP leader Stephen Lewis as Canadian Ambassador to the UN much to the consternation of his ideological comrades in President Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Mulroney was also a staunch supporter of Israel. I had the opportunity to hear Mulroney's views on Israel first-hand when he was the keynote speaker to the Canada-Israel Committee Annual Dinner along with former and soon to be again Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in September 1993.
What I remember about Mulroney's speech was his praise of Israel for airlifting Bosnian Muslims amid the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and admonished the world for lecturing Israel when it was in no position to do so. Frankly, I had no idea that Israel had done such a thing and would probably never have known if not for Mulroney. Shortly after, Hamas attack against Israel last October, Mulroney yet again went to bat for Israel.
My view towards Mulroney also softened as I became more conservative in my ideological outlook, and the longer he had been away from political power. There was also the fact that as controversial as both free trade with the United States and the GST were, the Liberals not only kept these policies intact but expanded them.
Mind you, Mulroney was no saint when it came to government graft in the Airbus affair. But neither is Justin Trudeau.
Like most heads of government, Brian Mulroney wasn't all good. But he wasn't all bad either. In this day in age, being not all bad is better than most. R.I.P.
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