Brian Mulroney — who, as Canada’s 18th prime minister, steered the country through a tumultuous period in national and world affairs — has died. He was 84.
His daughter Caroline Mulroney shared the news Thursday afternoon on social media.
“On behalf of my mother and our family, it is with great sadness we announce the passing of my father, The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Canada’s 18th Prime Minister. He died peacefully, surrounded by family,” she said on X, formerly Twitter.
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has died. He was 84. His daughter Caroline Mulroney shared the news Thursday afternoon on social media.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “devastated” to hear of Mulroney’s passing.
“He never stopped working for Canadians, and he always sought to make this country an even better place to call home. I’ll never forget the insights he shared with me over the years — he was generous, tireless, and incredibly passionate,” he said in a statement on X.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Mulroney was one of Canada’s “greatest ever statesmen.”
“I will always be thankful for his candid advice and generous mentorship to me personally. All Canadians are grateful for his immense sacrifice and the lasting legacy he leaves us all,” Poilievre said in a statement on X.
Mulroney was one of Canada’s most controversial prime ministers. Unafraid to tackle the most challenging issues of his era, Mulroney pursued politics in a way that earned him devoted supporters — and equally passionate critics.
Mulroney was a gifted public speaker and a skilled politician. As prime minister, he brokered a free trade deal with the U.S. and pushed for constitutional reforms to secure Quebec’s signature on Canada’s supreme law — an effort that ultimately failed.
He introduced a national sales tax to raise funds against ballooning budget deficits, privatized some Crown corporations and stood strongly against racial apartheid in South Africa during one of the most eventful tenures of any Canadian prime minister.
“Whether one agrees with our solutions or not, none will accuse us of having chosen to evade our responsibilities by side-stepping the most controversial issues of our time,” Mulroney said in his February 1993 resignation address.
“I’ve done the very best for my country and my party.”
A fateful friendship
Mulroney was born to working class Irish-Canadian parents in the forestry town of Baie-Comeau in 1939. His father was a paper mill electrician in this hardscrabble outpost in Quebec’s northeast.
Mulroney grew up with a bicultural world view in an isolated community split between French and English speakers — an upbringing that would prove to be politically useful later.
Mulroney became interested in Conservative politics through a fateful friendship with Lowell Murray, a future senator and cabinet minister in his government. Murray convinced his charismatic classmate to join the Progressive Conservative campus club at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.
A lawyer by training, Mulroney made a name for himself in his home province as an anti-corruption crusader. After violence erupted at the James Bay hydroelectric dam construction site, Mulroney was brought in to investigate Mafia ties as the lead member of the Cliche commission reviewing the bungled project.
Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Brian Mulroney speaks to delegates at an informal gathering in a hotel suite in Ottawa, ON Feb. 18, 1976. (The Canadian Press)
Following a failed Progressive Conservative leadership bid in 1976, Mulroney took the reins of the party after organizing opposition to then-leader Joe Clark at the 1983 leadership convention. Mulroney — who had never previously held elected office — unseated the former prime minister from the leadership on the strength of his support among delegates from Quebec.
With the Liberals faltering in the polls, Mulroney led the PCs to a majority victory in the 1984 campaign — one of the largest election landslides in Canadian history. While Pierre Elliott Trudeau had been replaced by John Turner as Liberal leader by the time the 1984 campaign began, the election was widely seen as a referendum on Trudeau’s sometimes turbulent time in office.
Mulroney would win again in 1988 after voters backed his plan to sign a free trade agreement with the U.S. — easily the most consequential policy of the Mulroney era.
‘Irish Eyes are Smiling’
Mulroney was elected to office in 1984 promising to “refurbish” the Canada-U.S. relationship after years of tension. He fended off claims from the Turner-led Liberal Party that a free trade deal with the U.S. would diminish Canada’s sovereignty and turn the country into a ”51st state.”
During a widely watched televised leaders’ debate in 1988, Turner accused Mulroney of selling out Canada. “You don’t have a monopoly on patriotism — and I resent the fact, your implication that only you are a Canadian,” Mulroney fired back.
Mulroney would be re-elected with another majority government — the first time a conservative prime minister had won two consecutive majorities since Sir John A. Macdonald.
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan walk past a line of Royal Canadian Mounted Police March 17, 1985 at the Quebec City airport. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)
Trade between the two countries grew dramatically after the free trade deal was ratified and the economies became even more intertwined after nearly 100 years of protectionism came to an end.
“Our message is clear here and around the world — Canada is open for business again,” Mulroney said at the 1985 “Shamrock Summit” alongside U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
The two men, both of Irish extraction, famously sang lines from the folk song When Irish Eyes are Smiling at that Quebec City meeting. The musical interlude was celebrated by some as a sign of thawing relations between the two countries — and derided by others as a sign of Canada kowtowing to its powerful neighbour.
U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills, seated in the centre, with her Mexican and Canadian counterparts, as well as all three countries’ leaders, as they sign the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992. (Pat Sullivan/AP Photo)
Mulroney improved Canada’s relationship with the U.S and pushed Reagan to sign the acid rain treaty to curb sulfur dioxide emissions that were destroying waterways. He also signed a North American air defence modernization agreement to better protect the continent from a ballistic missile attack.
Former U.S. president George H.W. Bush considered Mulroney a close personal friend — Mulroney was Bush’s last guest at Camp David, the presidential retreat — and often sought his counsel on Cold War-related matters as an alliance of western nations negotiated an end to the Soviet Union with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would tap Mulroney’s deep U.S. connections in 2017-18 as the NAFTA renegotiation efforts started to go sideways. Mulroney, who owned a home in Palm Beach, Fla. — not far from then-president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago — was a useful intermediary between Trudeau’s Liberal government and the Republican administration.
A delicate dance with Quebec and a failed accord
During his time in federal politics, Mulroney assembled an electoral coalition of western populists, Quebec nationalists and traditional Tories — an alliance that succeeded in keeping the Liberals out of power for nearly 10 years.
Mulroney’s first landslide majority win — the PCs captured 211 of 282 seats in the Commons in the 1984 vote — gave him the leeway to make fundamental reforms to the Canadian state. Under Mulroney’s leadership, dozens of Crown corporations were sold to private interests, including Air Canada. He also scrapped Trudeau’s much-maligned National Energy Program, a decision welcomed by many westerners.
That electoral coalition eventually would collapse after the emergence of the Bloc Québécois and the Reform Party — groups that capitalized on regional grievances that grew even more stark during Mulroney’s time in office.
Mulroney — who stressed the importance of Quebec to a successful conservative movement during his party leadership bid ��— trounced his Liberal opponents in the province with a promise to bring Quebec onside with the Constitution.
Quebec Premier Rene Levesque gets together with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney for an animated chat at the Federal Provincial conference on Aboriginal Rights in Ottawa April 2, 1985. (The Canadian Press)
In 1981-82, the separatist Quebec government led by René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois refused to sign Trudeau’s repatriated Constitution Act, fearing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would centralize power in Ottawa and dilute provincial influence.
In an attempt to heal those wounds, Mulroney brokered the 1987 Meech Lake constitutional accord with Quebec — then led by federalist Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa — and the other provinces. The accord would have recognized Quebec as a “distinct society” within Canada and would have extended greater powers to the provinces to nominate people for federal institutions like the Senate and the Supreme Court of Canada.
The accord also would have bolstered the provinces’ role in the immigration system and made changes to how social programs were to be funded — allowing provinces to opt out of some programs and accept federal funding to create their own.
While initially popular with voters — many English Canadians believed this overture to Quebec would silence separatism and prevent a repeat of the 1980 sovereignty referendum — the deal crumbled after Trudeau emerged from retirement to oppose it. The former PM accused Mulroney of conceding too much to the provinces and argued the accord would “render the Canadian state totally impotent.”
Lucien Bouchard was persuaded by his good friend at the time, then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, to run for office in 1988. Mulroney’s once-faithful cabinet minister quit the Progressive Conservative government over the failure of the Meech Lake Accord to found the Bloc Quebecois. (Jaques Boissinot/Canadian Press)
Many in English Canada also grew leery of recognizing Quebec as a “distinct society.” Ultimately, the provinces failed to ratify the deal by its deadline, with Newfoundland and Labrador and Manitoba as notable holdouts.
“It’s a sad day for Canada. This was all about Canada, about the unity of our country,” Mulroney said of the accord’s defeat.
Lucien Bouchard, Mulroney’s Quebec lieutenant and a former colleague at the Cliche anti-corruption commission, angrily left the PC government after the accord failed and formed the Bloc, a party devoted to Quebec’s interests. Bouchard, widely respected in Quebec, torpedoed Mulroney’s support in that province.
Another Mulroney-led attempt at constitutional reform, the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, was later defeated in a national referendum.
A deeply unpopular tax
Amid the constitutional fracas and after the introduction of the deeply unpopular Goods and Services Tax (GST), Mulroney’s popularity declined dramatically. He posted record-low approval ratings at the end of his second term.
After negotiating the free trade deal with the U.S., Mulroney sought to reform the existing manufacturers’ sales tax (MST) system that, he said, put Canada’s exporters at a disadvantage.
That 13.5 per cent tax was largely invisible to the consumer, while the consumption-based GST that would replace it — a 7 per cent levy on all goods and services purchased in Canada — was to be paid directly at the cash register.
With the Queen’s approval, Mulroney stacked the Senate with supporters to get the deeply unpopular bill through the Liberal-dominated upper house.
South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela raises his arms as he is acknowledged by the Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and other members of Parliament in Ottawa, June 18, 1990. (Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)
“It is clearly not popular, but we’re doing it because it’s right for Canada. It must be done,” Mulroney said of the tax in 1990.
In the 1993 election campaign following Mulroney’s departure from the federal scene, then Liberal leader Jean Chretien — hoping to capitalize on voter frustration — made “Axe the Tax” his campaign mantra.
Chretien easily beat Mulroney’s successor, Kim Campbell, but never followed through on his promise to scrap the tax as it raked in billions of dollars in government revenue — money used to pay down Canada’s substantial national debt.
“Quite frankly, it’s interesting to me to sit back many years later, having had to endure the abuse and recriminations and the pounding, and to see that it’s turned out well for Canada. That’s all I wanted,” Mulroney said in 2010.
A break with allies on apartheid
While often associated with two other leading conservative figures of the era — Reagan and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher — Mulroney broke ranks with some of his closest allies on one issue: apartheid and sanctions against the South African white minority regime.
Reagan and Thatcher were both vehemently anti-communist. They feared that South African black leaders like Nelson Mandela were Marxists intent on turning the country away from liberal democracy. Mulroney, who had long admired John Diefenbaker’s anti-apartheid stance decades ago, saw the state’s system of racist repression as fundamentally unjust.
After his election, Mulroney launched an aggressive Canadian push within the Commonwealth for sanctions to pressure the South African government to dismantle its racist caste system and release Mandela from prison, where he had been locked up for a quarter century.
Upon his release, Mandela spoke with Mulroney by phone to thank him for his advocacy.
“We regard you as one of our great friends because of the solid support we have received from you and Canada over the years,” Mandela told Mulroney, according to the prime minister’s book, Memoirs. “When I was in jail, having friends like you in Canada gave me more joy and support than I can say.”
WINNIPEG – Some 250 coloured tacks pepper a large-scale world map among bookshelves at Whodunit Mystery Bookstore.
Estonia, Finland, Japan and even Fenwick, Ont., have pins representing places outside Winnipeg where someone has ordered a page-turner from the independent bookstore that specializes in mystery and crime fiction novels.
For 30 years, the store has been offering fans of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot or Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes a place to get lost in whodunits both old and new.
Jack and Wendy Bumsted bought the shop in the Crescentwood neighbourhood in 2007 from another pair of mystery lovers.
The married couple had been longtime customers of the store. Wendy Bumsted grew up reading Perry Mason novels while her husband was a historian with vast knowledge of the crime fiction genre.
At the time, Jack Bumsted was retiring from teaching at the University of Manitoba when he was looking for his next venture.
“The bookstore came up and we bought it, I think, within a week,” Wendy Bumsted said in an interview.
“It never didn’t seem like a good idea.”
In the years since the Bumsteds took ownership, the family has witnessed the decline in mail-order books, the introduction of online retailers, a relocation to a new space next to the original, a pandemic and the death of beloved co-owner Jack Bumsted in 2020.
But with all the changes that come with owning a small business, customers continue to trust their next mystery fix will come from one of the shelves at Whodunit.
Many still request to be called about books from specific authors, or want to be notified if a new book follows their favourite format. Some arrive at the shop like clockwork each week hoping to get suggestions from Wendy Bumsted or her son on the next big hit.
“She has really excellent instincts on what we should be getting and what we should be promoting,” Micheal Bumsted said of his mother.
Wendy Bumsted suggested the store stock “Thursday Murder Club,” the debut novel from British television host Richard Osman, before it became a bestseller. They ordered more copies than other bookstores in Canada knowing it had the potential to be a hit, said Michael Bumsted.
The store houses more than 18,000 new and used novels. That’s not including the boxes of books that sit in Wendy Bumsted’s tiny office, or the packages that take up space on some of the only available seating there, waiting to be added to the inventory.
Just as the genre has evolved, so has the Bumsteds’ willingness to welcome other subjects on their shelves — despite some pushback from loyal customers and initially the Bumsted patriarch.
For years, Jack Bumsted refused to sell anything outside the crime fiction genre, including his own published books. Instead, he would send potential buyers to another store, but would offer to sign the books if they came back with them.
Wendy Bumsted said that eventually changed in his later years.
Now, about 15 per cent of the store’s stock is of other genres, such as romance or children’s books.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced them to look at expanding their selection, as some customers turned to buying books through the store’s website, which is set up to allow purchasers to get anything from the publishers the Bumsteds have contracts with.
In 2019, the store sold fewer than 100 books online. That number jumped to more than 3,000 in 2020, as retailers had to deal with pandemic lockdowns.
After years of running a successful mail-order business, the store was able to quickly adapt when it had to temporarily shut its doors, said Michael Bumsted.
“We were not a store…that had to figure out how to get books to people when they weren’t here.”
He added being a community bookstore with a niche has helped the family stay in business when other retailers have struggled. Part of that has included building lasting relationships.
“Some people have put it in their wills that their books will come to us,” said Wendy Bumsted.
Some of those collections have included tips on traveling through Asia in the early 2000s or the history of Australian cricket.
Micheal Bumsted said they’ve had to learn to be patient with selling some of these more obscure titles, but eventually the time comes for them to find a new home.
“One of the great things about physical books is that they can be there for you when you are ready for them.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Sept. 15, 2024.
MONTREAL – Canada’s labour minister is praising both Air Canada and the union representing about 5,200 of its pilots for averting a work stoppage that would have disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Steven MacKinnon’s comments came in a statement shared to social media shortly after Canada’s largest air carrier announced it had reached a tentative labour deal with the Air Line Pilots Association.
MacKinnon thanked both sides and federal mediators, saying the airline and its pilots approached negotiations with “seriousness and a resolve to get a deal.”
The tentative agreement averts a strike or lockout that could have begun as early as Wednesday for Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge, with flight cancellations expected before then.
The airline now says flights will continue as normal while union members vote on the tentative four-year contract.
Air Canada had called on the federal government to intervene in the dispute, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that would only happen if it became clear no negotiated agreement was possible.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
When it comes to plant-based alternatives, Canadians have never had so many options — and nowhere is that choice more abundantly clear than in the milk section of the dairy aisle.
To meet growing demand, companies are investing in new products and technology to keep up with consumer tastes and differentiate themselves from all the other players on the shelf.
“The product mix has just expanded so fast,” said Liza Amlani, co-founder of the Retail Strategy Group.
She said younger generations in particular are driving growth in the plant-based market as they are consuming less dairy and meat.
Commercial sales of dairy milk have been weakening for years, according to research firm Mintel, likely in part because of the rise of plant-based alternatives — even though many Canadians still drink dairy.
The No. 1 reason people opt for plant-based milk is because they see it as healthier than dairy, said Joel Gregoire, Mintel’s associate director for food and drink.
“Plant-based milk, the one thing about it — it’s not new. It’s been around for quite some time. It’s pretty established,” said Gregoire.
Because of that, it serves as an “entry point” for many consumers interested in plant-based alternatives to animal products, he said.
Plant-based milk consumption is expected to continue growing in the coming years, according to Mintel research, with more options available than ever and more consumers opting for a diet that includes both dairy and non-dairy milk.
A 2023 report by Ernst & Young for Protein Industries Canada projected that the plant-based dairy market will reach US$51.3 billion in 2035, at a compound annual growth rate of 9.5 per cent.
Because of this growth opportunity, even well-established dairy or plant-based companies are stepping up their game.
It’s been more than three decades since Saint-Hyacinthe, Que.-based Natura first launched a line of soy beverages. Over the years, the company has rolled out new products to meet rising demand, and earlier this year launched a line of oat beverages that it says are the only ones with a stamp of approval from Celiac Canada.
Competition is tough, said owner and founder Nick Feldman — especially from large American brands, which have the money to ensure their products hit shelves across the country.
Natura has kept growing, though, with a focus on using organic ingredients and localized production from raw materials.
“We’re maybe not appealing to the mass market, but we’re appealing to the natural consumer, to the organic consumer,” Feldman said.
Amlani said brands are increasingly advertising the simplicity of their ingredient lists. She’s also noticing more companies offering different kinds of products, such as coffee creamers.
Companies are also looking to stand out through eye-catching packaging and marketing, added Amlani, and by competing on price.
Besides all the companies competing for shelf space, there are many different kinds of plant-based milk consumers can choose from, such as almond, soy, oat, rice, hazelnut, macadamia, pea, coconut and hemp.
However, one alternative in particular has enjoyed a recent, rapid ascendance in popularity.
“I would say oat is the big up-and-coming product,” said Feldman.
Mintel’s report found the share of Canadians who say they buy oat milk has quadrupled between 2019 and 2023 (though almond is still the most popular).
“There seems to be a very nice marriage of coffee and oat milk,” said Feldman. “The flavour combination is excellent, better than any other non-dairy alternative.”
The beverage’s surge in popularity in cafés is a big part of why it’s ascending so quickly, said Gregoire — its texture and ability to froth makes it a good alternative for lattes and cappuccinos.
It’s also a good example of companies making a strong “use case” for yet another new entrant in a competitive market, he said.
Amid the long-standing brands and new entrants, there’s another — perhaps unexpected — group of players that has been increasingly investing in plant-based milk alternatives: dairy companies.
For example, Danone has owned the Silk and So Delicious brands since an acquisition in 2014, and long-standing U.S. dairy company HP Hood LLC launched Planet Oat in 2018.
Lactalis Canada also recently converted its facility in Sudbury, Ont., to manufacture its new plant-based Enjoy! brand, with beverages made from oats, almonds and hazelnuts.
“As an organization, we obviously follow consumer trends, and have seen the amount of interest in plant-based products, particularly fluid beverages,” said Mark Taylor, president and CEO of Lactalis Canada, whose parent company Lactalis is the largest dairy products company in the world.
The facility was a milk processing plant for six decades, until Lactalis Canada began renovating it in 2022. It now manufactures not only the new brand, but also the company’s existing Sensational Soy brand, and is the company’s first dedicated plant-based facility.
“We’re predominantly a dairy company, and we’ll always predominantly be a dairy company, but we see these products as complementary,” said Taylor.
It makes sense that major dairy companies want to get in on plant-based milk, said Gregoire. The dairy business is large — a “cash cow,” if you will — but not really growing, while plant-based products are seeing a boom.
“If I’m looking for avenues of growth, I don’t want to be left behind,” he said.
Gregoire said there’s a potential for consumers to get confused with so many options, which is why it’s so important for brands to find a way to differentiate themselves, whether it’s with taste, health, or how well the drink froths for a latte.
Competition in a more crowded market is challenging, but Taylor believes it results in better products for consumers.
“It keeps you sharp, and it forces you to be really good at what you’re doing. It drives innovation,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2024.
