A FAN’S NOTES

Brian Mulroney (1939-2024)

The death of a public figure who’s had an impact on my life, however remotely or intimately, usually precipitates a pause for reflection, at least for a moment or two. And those fleeting thoughts can encapsulate years. That – me and everything I was experiencing at the time – is always then, which is where it will always remain. Even if I was holding hands with Eddie Money or listening to his greatest hits, I can’t go back, I know, even if I’m feeling so much older. As a rule, recently deceased Canadian politicians rarely jiggle that particular VU meter needle.

“I voted for him.” Not reluctantly, but perhaps out of character. “Me too.” 

This was the consensus on the 300 Club (five guys and me who’ve been friends since Methuselah smoked his first cigarette) instant messaging thread upon digesting the news last Thursday of the death of Brian Mulroney who served two terms as Canada’s 18th prime minister (1984-1993). I was two years out of university with an arts undergraduate degree and holding down a job I hated when Mulroney took power. I harboured no utopian illusions about real life. It wasn’t some sort of anti-social justice crime to vote “capital C” conservative back then. There wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the Liberal and Progressive Conservative parties. Canadian Tories were more pragmatic and more flexible than Reaganites and Thatcherites. Social issues weren’t on the table; Mulroney was all about growing a middling country’s middling economy. I wanted a better shot at making a decent living – as much as that depended on my own initiative and not the government’s. Still, things, all kinds of things, are easier to look after in a healthy, robust economy.

Reciprocity – free trade between Canada and the United States – was a liberal and Liberal goal dating back to Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier, who declared the 20th century would belong to Canada. Things didn’t start shaking down that way until Mulroney flipped his party’s platform, forcing the liberal and Liberal establishment to repudiate its fundamental principle. It’s telling and damning that the legacy of our current prime minister, Liberal Justin Trudeau, will likely be the preservation of the deal Mulroney cut with the States and Mexico some forty years ago.

Mulroney also introduced the federal goods and services tax (GST). Nowadays that legislation would be described as a CLM, a career limiting move, albeit a courageous one. The GST is a fact of Canadian life now. At the time of its introduction, it replaced a hidden and regressive manufacturing tax which had to go if Canada was to be competitive as an international trader. Wealth creation across all strata of society is a noble goal, neither evil nor nefarious. 

Since Canada was essentially granted sovereignty from the will of the British parliament with the Statute of Westminster in 1931, we’ve rarely punched above our weight in international affairs. Future prime minister Lester B. Pearson was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize because he was instrumental in the formation of the League of Nations. Prime Minister Jean Chretien refused to chip in to the Second Gulf War, pile on. Mulroney led the Commonwealth and the States in imposing severe sanctions (they used to work back then) on South Africa’s apartheid regime, paving the way for Nelson Mandela’s presidency. It’s still a bit of a head-shaker, a Conservative prime minister in tune with rockers like Little Steven, U2, Midnight Oil and Simple Minds. But his was the type of firm, modestly substantial voice that elucidated Canadian values, instilling a sort of soft pride in country that contrasted sharply with discontented disciple Stephen Harper’s (by this time the Progressive Conservative Party had devolved in to the Conservative Party of Canada following its amalgamation with the fringe Reform Party) government’s dog whistle, nationalistic spin on that glorious stalemate, 53 years before Confederation, the War of 1812. Action trumps revisionism; patriotism is not a propaganda product where I’m from.

Mulroney, like Chretien, always played up his less than modest rural Quebec roots. Friday’s and Saturday’s newspaper stories about him, whatever the section, emphasized his wit and charm. I’ve always imagined him as a Mordecai Richler character, striving from the sticks for the best house in Montreal. He got that mansion on the hill. Despite serving as part of the Cliche Commission, tasked to investigate corruption in Quebec’s construction industry (the Mafia pours deep sidewalks using low grade cement), while still a labour lawyer, whispers of his being on the take tended to follow him around in his political life. The tired rumours spumed in 2007 with the culmination of the Airbus affair. Mulroney allowed accepting $225,000 (possibly $300,000 – the amount is disputed by the lobbyist) in cash, stuffed in envelopes, was “a serious error in judgment” on his part. Not a crime, mind, just business.      

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