On the day he announced his intention to resign as prime minister after nearly nine years in office, Brian Mulroney appealed to the verdict of future generations.
“It will now be up to history to place a definitive judgment on our efforts and our legacy,” he said.
Thirty years later, in one of his last public speeches, Mulroney passed his own verdict on his political history — a judgment that Justin Trudeau, another beleaguered prime minister now nearly nine years in office, quoted in the House of Commons last week to mark Mulroney’s passing:
“I have learned over the years that history is unconcerned with the trivia and the trash of rumours and gossip floating around Parliament Hill,” Mulroney said. “History is only concerned with the big ticket items that have shaped the future of Canada.”
In 1993, Mulroney was perhaps compelled to appeal to distant opinion — because the opinions of the moment were so often unforgiving. But Mulroney, who was called on to eulogize two American presidents, surely came to know as well as anyone what history remembers and why, particularly at moments such as these.
By the time he resigned, his government had endured its share of controversies (tunagate, guccigate, various other scandals barely remembered now). Two of his attempts at constitutional reform had ended in failure — the latter was defeated in a national referendum. The economy had gone into recession for two years, his landmark trade deal was viewed with skepticism by many and he had implemented a highly unpopular new tax, the GST.
On the day he announced his intention to step aside, Mulroney’s office released a 34-page list of his government’s accomplishments. The nation was not in a mood to read it.
“Mulroney really had no option but to resign,” Angus Reid, the pollster, wrote at the time. “Over the last year he has set new polling records for almost every measure of public disapproval and resentment.”
Reid said the Progressive Conservatives now had one primary task — “to lock the ghost of Brian Mulroney away in a closet and throw away the key.”
In that moment, Reid’s analysis may have been astute. But the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was still shattered in the election that followed, winning just two seats — less than a decade after Mulroney led the party to 211 seats and 50 per cent of the popular vote in the 1984 election. Into the breach came the populist Reform Party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois.
Gretzky: Mulroney was ‘one of the greatest prime ministers we’ve ever had’
In his eulogy for Brian Mulroney, Wayne Gretzky fondly recalls a phone conversation he and his father had with the prime minister during the Canada Cup.
In a survey of historians published in 2016, Mulroney was ranked eighth among Canada’s 23 prime ministers. The survey was conducted just a handful of years after the Oliphant commission and the detailed scoring suggests the questions about Mulroney’s personal conduct were still hanging heavy on his legacy — on “personal integrity,” historians rated Mulroney even lower than John A. Macdonald.
If anything, that seems disrespectful to John A., who deserves to be remembered as the author of the first and greatest scandal in Canadian political history. (Among the prime ministers who served at least four years, Alexander Mackenzie, our largely forgotten second prime minister, was tied for the highest score on personal integrity — which perhaps suggests that a reputation for personal integrity only counts for so much.)
But Mulroney’s highest mark was received in the category of “leaving a significant policy legacy.” And it’s on that score that most observers and contemporaries have been remembering him over the past three weeks.
‘He would make it count’
“He was prime minister and he would make it count,” Jean Charest, a cabinet minister under Mulroney, told his former boss’s state funeral on Saturday, recalling Mulroney’s arrival in high office.
Mulroney’s premiership, Justin Trudeau said, was about “getting the big things right.”
‘We live in a world that he helped shape’: Jean Charest reflects on Brian Mulroney’s legacy
Former Quebec premier and former leader of the Progressive Conservative party Jean Charest honours late prime minister: ‘Because of Brian Mulroney, we live in one of the greatest countries in the world.’
Conservatives have taken a particular interest these past few weeks in Mulroney’s efforts to contain government spending — through the privatization of numerous Crown corporations, among other things — and tame inflation. But it fell to Charest to remind the assembled at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica that the Goods and Services Tax, and the reliable source of revenue it provides for the federal government, is still with us.
“I can’t think of a more unpopular economic policy than the implementation of the GST,” Charest said. “And yet I can’t think of a more popular economic policy with all the prime ministers and governments that followed in the steps of Brian Mulroney.”
Today’s Conservatives might skip over that bit. But three decades after Mulroney’s memory needed to be locked away, it’s now not hard to imagine Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre invoking his name on the campaign trail in the next election.
And whatever questions linger about how he governed, these past few weeks also have testified to the value of human kindness and the truism that people will remember how you made them feel.
WATCH: ‘His humanity defined him — Caroline Mulroney remembers her father
‘His humanity defined him’: Watch Caroline Mulroney’s full eulogy
Brian Mulroney was “a truly great father” who said family was the most important thing in the world, his daughter Caroline Mulroney said in her eulogy at his state funeral.
When Caroline Mulroney spoke of the “thousands” of calls her father made to people, particularly when he felt they were in need of an emotional lift, she seems not to have been exaggerating. Indeed, Trudeau later said he had only just learned that Mulroney would periodically call his mother, Margaret, to chat — a fact that is all the more remarkable given how fiercely Mulroney and Trudeau’s father clashed over constitutional reform.
On the importance of being prime minister
A few days after Mulroney announced he would be resigning, Dalton Camp, the political strategist and wordsmith, wrote in the Toronto Star that “being prime minister is a bruising, over-rated and misunderstood occupation, one which invites ingratitude and inspires mistrust.”
“Otherwise, it’s a life,” Camp concluded.
Recalling a figure he’d covered and had then come to know, Anthony Wilson-Smith, the former editor of Maclean’s, wrote last month that “Mulroney spent much of his life doing everything — emotions, ambitions, achievements — on an oversized scale.”
Amid the celebrations of the man and his deeds, there has been meaningful dissent on the big things that occurred on Mulroney’s watch. History will weigh all that, too.
Family and friends are mourning the loss of someone they loved dearly. But the death of a prime minister — especially one of Mulroney’s record and bearing — is a reminder that the big office comes with opportunities to do big things.
The occupant, equally beleaguered and blessed, is presented with immense challenges and issues and a rare chance to do something about both. Between the trivia and the trash — all the noise of politics in a democracy — there is much that matters, things that are consequential and worth taking seriously.
Every day, a prime minister has a chance to build a better nation.
“We live in the country that he helped build,” Charest told the congregation on Saturday.
That might be true of everyone who has held the job. But history will remember if you did it well.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
