Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada from 1984-1993, has died at 84

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

It's telling that progressives and conservatives are both clamouring to claim Mulroney's legacy (at least in part). That's the marker of a true leader. Yes, he was quite unpopular, even hated, by the end of his term. But as is so often the case, the leaders who make the hard and unpopular decisions in their time are the ones who get vindicated by history, and I believe this is the case for Mulroney. Both the left and right hated him by the end of his term, and now both sides want to claim him. The left wants to emulate his global leadership on the environment and human rights, and the right wants to expand on his fiscally conservative and pro-business vision at home. And his once-polarizing free trade agreement is now something that all sides of Canadian politics want to protect. Two Prime Ministers since him, Chretien and Harper, served longer terms than him, yet I would argue Mulroney left a bigger legacy. Trudeau is a few months short of surpassing Mulroney's longevity, but I suspect Trudeau's legacy will be much more likely to be dismantled than Mulroney's - which was far from dismantled, it was expanded upon by his political opponents. This isn't to pave over Mulroney's failures, like the constitutional accords with Quebec, and his ultimate inability to fix Canada's fiscal issues - though on the latter, you could argue that in some aspects, he paved the way for Chretien to take the credit. The GST for example was going to destroy any government that implemented it, but Chretien and Martin eventually mounted Canada's economic recovery on having as reliable and efficient a revenue source as the GST, as well as the massive expansion of cross-border business through NAFTA.

Beyond politics though, Mulroney's story is even more remarkable. He was the son of an electrician in a small, rural mill town in a part of Quebec that even Quebecers forget about. He entered the workforce as a 10 year old, but still excelled as a student. He had no connections, he genuinely came from nothing, but was clearly a very talented and hardworking young man. By his early 30s, he was already a successful lawyer, and a known quantity in Montreal's saturated and cutthroat legal industry. By the age of 38, he was the President of one of the biggest companies in Canada. By 44, he was the leader of Canada's official opposition, and at 45 he was our Prime Minister, despite previously never having been elected to anything. In Canada's political culture, that's basically unheard of. In fact, I believe he's the only leader that either the Tories or Liberals have ever had (federally) who had never held political office prior to becoming party leader. He also holds the record of commanding the largest majority government in Canadian history. A guy who grew up in a working-class family in the middle of nowhere, whose talents, intelligence, and sheer hard work propelled him to exceptional success in business and in politics. I don't think Canadians of that era truly appreciated his impressive and inspirational rise to the top, but I hope history does.

Politically successful, personally successful, and a class act through it all. Rest in peace, Brian Mulroney.

[LabourJersey]

I don't have anything meaningful to add, but I've appreciated reading all of the previous replies.

Learning about Mulroney and the Canadian political situation of the 1980s does reiterate Frank's point that Canada is a much harder country to govern than is typically recognized.

[oldtimer]

I don't have anything meaningful to add, but I've appreciated reading all of the previous replies.

Learning about Mulroney and the Canadian political situation of the 1980s does reiterate Frank's point that Canada is a much harder country to govern than is typically recognized.

The list of problems and compromises with governing Canada:

Balance the economic and cultural might of their southern neighbour with their local interests.
A vocal French majority in Quebec.
The canadian part of the Great Plains.
The canadian part of New England.
Minorities that are larger and more competing than in the United States.
A geographical extent only 2nd to Russia.
A larger urban share due to the very bad weather.
Authoritarian instincs from the British Empire.

It's like trying to govern Oklahoma and New Hampshire jointly together at the same time with France, without a strong army or a flexible party system, but with the British Monarchy.

All while being dragged here and there by N.Y.C. levels of immigrants and the State Department down your neck.

[Flyersfan232]

Uh, that's not how I've seen him generally portrayed, but tbf I've never looked into Canadian politics as in depth as with France or the US or even Britain, so I might have missed something. I'm pretty sure he did further significant elements of the neoliberal agenda, but you might be right that he didn't go as far as most of his contemporaries in that respect. Good on him if so.

Most such reforms were actually carried out under Chrétien (by his Minister of Finance Paul Martin, basically a US Republican until he became PM and governed like a typical Liberal) and by provincial governments — Harris, Klein, Devine and such. The worst thing Mulroney did was probably his response to the Oka crisis, and that was really inexcusable.

There were significant spending cuts under Chretien with Paul Martin due to the deficit crisis which was a real crisis despite what some of the left wing conspiracy theorists say and along with that, significant devolution of powers to the provinces, since the Federal government at that time could not offer money to the provinces to dictate policy to them.

As with it also being the case that nearly all the privatization in the U.S was done under President Clinton and not Reagan, neither Chretien/Martin nor Clinton did these things for any ideological reason but due to the reality of their nations' enormous debts and the things they had to do to address that.

I admit I'm under the stress of moving, but sometimes the amount of B.S that is posted about politicians by people who don't understand or don't know the context of why they did what they did really annoys me.

Don't criticize what you can't understand.

Well to be fair to our French friend, Mulroney served around the same time as Reagan, and Thatcher ( the two most famous neoliberals of that time period.) And so it's easy for anyone who's not Canadian, to put Mulroney in the same tent as Reagan and Thatcher.

Furthermore, I think it's fair also to say that Canada's political party System is unique, because you have 3 major parties, but the two big big ones are either neoliberal ( the liberals ) or canadian tory conservative. A social democratic party like the new democrats have never played a significant role in Canadian politics like in France or Britain. I hope I'm correct on that.

That's a bit of a stretch. The NDP holds power in two provinces now, and have been in government in four others. Plus, they were the official opposition in 2011, and have played major roles in minority governments, including the current one. But, I digress.

Mulroney often gets lumped in with Regan and Thatcher for obvious reasons...



But of course, he was much more moderate than them. His work on Apartheid and the environment should be commended. But we shouldn't also forget that he was on the right wing of the conservatives (both Clark and Campbell ripped up their party cards after the merger in 2004, while Mulroney embraced it), even if he's seen as being more moderate from today's perspective. His handling of the constitutional crisis and his other scandals nearly ripped the country apart, and really accelerated Canada's regional polarization of the 1990s, as Reform and the BQ were created in part as a backlash to his unholy coalition of Western populists and Quebec nationalists.

wasnt he a friend of trump in as late as 2017 too he lived in retirement in palm beach Florida so