Canada’s 18th prime minister died Feb. 29 at age of 84
Landmark environmental policies, negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and opposition to apartheid in South Africa are all part of Brian Mulroney’s political record.
So too are his government’s introduction of the GST and two failed attempts at courting unanimous national support for amendments made to Canada’s constitution in 1982.
For many of Mulroney’s political allies and opponents alike however, the former prime minister’s legacy will forever extend far beyond politics.
Mulroney, who led the Progressive Conservative party to two consecutive majority governments and served as Canada’s PM from 1984-93, died Feb. 29 at the age of 84.
In a phone interview Monday, longtime former MP Lorne Nystrom said Mulroney’s character always rose above their political differences.
“He was a wonderful, engaging person and very friendly, and he had a real knack of keeping this Rolodex in his head,” said Nystrom, who represented the Yorkton-Melville riding in Parliament as a New Democrat from 1968-93.
“He would always ask how your family was and what they were doing and what was your spouse doing, and he was just a very, very friendly person – more so than most of the other people I’ve seen in politics.”
Current Opposition House Leader and former Conservative Party of Canada leader Andrew Scheer concurred. Scheer unseated Nystrom as the Regina-Qu’Appelle representative in 2004 and is serving his seventh term in federal office.
“The stories are legendary,” Scheer said in a phone interview. “The wives of MPs who would get phone calls on their birthday. The riding association presidents who would get ‘Merry Christmas’ cards handwritten and signed. He just was incredibly and genuinely interested in people and it shows.
“Any time he and I spoke on the phone we always just spent four or five minutes talking about my kids … or asking about my wife, and it wasn’t just ticking boxes or going through pleasantries. He was a very genuine man that way.”
Landslide election
Mulroney was elected to his first term as Prime Minister on Sept. 4, 1984, with his Progressive Conservatives winning 50.03 per cent of the popular vote. To date, that marks the last time any Canadian political party received over half of all votes cast in a federal election.
In the now-defunct ridings that once covered southeast Saskatchewan, the PCs won seats in Assiniboia with 47.2 per cent of the vote and Qu’Appelle-Moose Mountain with 49.9 per cent support, while the NDP won Yorkton-Melville with 51.0 per cent of the vote and Regina East with 44.6 per cent of ballots cast.
Mulroney then won a second majority government in 1988 before resigning ahead of the 1993 federal election.
During his time as Prime Minister, Mulroney was a champion of both free trade and the environment.
His government oversaw the privatization of Air Canada and Petro-Canada, and negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico – a move Scheer credits as being instrumental in Canada’s fortunes over the past several decades.
“There was a lot of opposition to (NAFTA) but he knew that it was the right thing to do and he convinced the country to trust him and we’ve been reaping the massive benefits from free trade ever since,” Scheer said of Mulroney. “That’s certainly a major accomplishment.”
Human rights and the environment
Mulroney’s government also passed landmark environmental legislation, including a treaty with the U.S. to reduce air pollution and the resultant acid rain, the creation of eight new national parks, and the passage of multiple other acts pertaining to environmental assessments and protection.
He is further recognized as a leading champion of opposition to South Africa’s apartheid regime, a collection of decades-long policies centred around racial segregation and Caucasian rule over political, economic and social culture.
In the face of resistance from then-U.S. president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Mulroney encouraged economic sanctions against the South African government of the day. To that point, he added in 1985 that Canada would consider ending its diplomatic relations with South Africa entirely unless the international community likewise supported meaningful penalties.
In turn he developed a close relationship with anti-apartheid advocate and future South African president Nelson Mandela, who was freed from prison in 1990 after spending 27 years behind bars for his activism.
“That’s an incredibly positive legacy for him to have played that role,” said Scheer.
Less popular were the Mulroney government’s passage of nine consecutive deficit budgets and its use of an emergency clause in the federal constitution to enact a national goods and services tax (GST).
Chretien weighs in
In the face of waning opinion polls, Mulroney resigned as prime minister on June 25, 1993, with Kim Campbell succeeding him, shortly before Chretien was voted in for his first term as PM.
“I was his opponent for many, many years and many different files,” Chretien said in an interview with CTV’s Vassy Kapelos that aired Sunday. “We had different views of how to approach a problem, but we both believed that we needed a good Canada united, we needed a country that was tolerant, that was bilingual, that was welcoming and sharing.”
That NAFTA (since renegotiated and re-branded as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) and the GST endure however, among other signature policies, speaks volumes to Scheer about why Mulroney’s legacy has been praised across political lines in recent days.
“The fact that even political opponents who didn’t share his ideology were forced to recognize the benefits of his policies was a testament to the fact he made transformational changes, and that’s not something you can say of every leader,” said Scheer.
“His love of country shone through in everything he did. He truly did believe in a strong and united Canada, and when people from all different political stripes can see that in him, even if they disagree with one particular policy, they’re still going to appreciate Brian Mulroney as a patriot and someone who is clearly in politics for the public service component of it.”
