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.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
