Over his impressive — yet at times divisive — political career, Mulroney left an unmistakable mark on the country.
Early political ambitions
Born to a working class family in Baie-Comeau, Que., as a university student studying political science Mulroney became an adviser to Conservative prime minister John Diefenbaker.
He worked behind the scenes in conservative politics for years and earned a law degree before finally running to become the next federal Progressive Conservative leader in 1976, only to lose to Joe Clark.
Defeated but not discouraged, Mulroney joined corporate Canada as a senior executive, but continued plotting a campaign to oust Clark.
His pursuits for power culminated in 1983, when he won the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party.
“Together we’re going to build a brand new party and a brand new country,” he vowed at the time. He was then elected as MP for Central Nova, N.S., promising to push for more jobs in the riding.
Mulroney went on to run a commanding 1984 federal campaign, winning a majority with the largest number of seats in Canadian history, after delivering what may be his most memorable political line.
When then-Liberal prime minister John Turner’s honouring of Pierre Trudeau’s controversial patronage appointments came up during an election debate, Mulroney stated: “You had an option, sir.”
‘Very tough decisions’
As Canada’s 18th prime minister, Mulroney, then sitting as the MP for Manicouagan, Que. embarked on an at-times stormy prime ministership that in nine years both strengthened and divided the country.
“Mr. Mulroney took some very tough decisions which only in retrospect people are appreciating,” former diplomat and Mulroney’s former chief of staff Derek Burney, once told CTV News.
He took Canada on a forced march through two major efforts to bring Quebec into the constitutional fold, “with honour and enthusiasm.” Both tries, Meech Lake and the Charlottetown Accord, failed, meaning his proposed amendments to the Canadian constitution and the reforms they would have instilled, did not become a reality.
On the international stage, however, Mulroney gave Canada a new sense of respect and presence. He rallied countries against apartheid, and imposed sanctions on South Africa.
And, while building stronger ties with the United States, Mulroney and his wife Mila developed close friendships with Nancy and Ronald Reagan, leading to the iconic “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” moment at the 1985 Shamrock Summit in Quebec City.
Mulroney and his wife also forged a closeness with Barbara and George Bush Sr.
Former U.S. President George Bush has a word with former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as they enter a luncheon as part of a conference marking the tenth anniversay of the North American Free Trade Agreement Saturday, June 5, 1999 in Montreal. (CP PHOTO/Paul Chiasson)This led to the Canadian leader advising his American counterpart to seek international consensus before launching Operation Desert Storm to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait, as Fen Osler Hampson details in his book Master of Persuasion: Brian Mulroney’s Global Legacy.
These relationships outlasted the leaders’ respective political careers, seeing Mulroney deliver eulogies for both former presidents.
It wasn’t just friendships Mulroney forged stateside. One of the marquee pieces of his legacy is his work to establish first a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, which became a lightning rod in the 1988 campaign.
And then, after winning a second Progressive Conservative majority, Mulroney pushed on and cemented an expanded trade deal that included Mexico: the North American Free Trade Agreement.
It was also in his second mandate that Mulroney secured the Acid Rain Accord, and introduced the reviled Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The tax, which came into effect in 1991 and remains in place today, was deeply unpopular, and as a weary country drifted into a recession, Mulroney’s polling numbers plummeted to a historic low in 1992.
Time ‘to step aside’
It was then in 1993 that he declared in a Centre Block meeting room that “the time has come for me to step aside,” after doing his “very best” for his country.
Mulroney said then that he’d be resigning as soon as his party had elected a successor. The reins were then handed over to Kim Campbell a few months later, making her Canada’s first female prime minister.
After leaving office, his party was decimated in the 1993 federal election, seeing the Liberals led by Jean Chretien win a landslide majority government.
Under Chretien, Mulroney was accused by the government of accepting $5 million in kickbacks on the sale of Airbus jets to Air Canada from German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber.
After much attention around the corruption allegations, in 1997, the RCMP cleared him of any involvement and the Chretien regime apologized.
In a remarkable legal saga, Mulroney successfully sued the government for defamation and received $2 million.
But, a few years later as Schreiber faced extradition to Germany for tax evasion, he revealed a bombshell, that Mulroney accepted a $300,000 secret cash payment from him shortly after he left office.
Then-prime minister Stephen Harper was forced to call a public inquiry, led by Justice Jeffrey Oliphant, a scarring event for Mulroney and his family, he told the inquiry in 2009.
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, left, leaves with wife Mila and lawyer Guy Pratte following six days of testimony at the Oliphant Commission in Ottawa, Wednesday May 20, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean KilpatrickUltimately in 2010 the inquiry found that the financial and business dealings between the two men were inappropriate, tarnishing his legacy.
That same year, Mulroney was diagnosed with a rare blend of diabetes that he said turned his life upside down.
It was amid these challenging early aughts for Mulroney that he released his own memoir, after settling a public and scathing dispute over former confidant Peter Newman’s biography The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister based on hours of recorded interviews that cast the former prime minister in an unflattering light.
Mulroney and Justin Trudeau
In the more than a decade since, however, Mulroney defended his record, becoming one of Canada’s top statesmen.
When NAFTA was thrust back to the renegotiation table in 2017, Mulroney helped Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stickhandle the at-times tense talks, by leveraging his relationship with then-U.S. president Donald Trump.
In a 2019 CTV News interview, Mulroney advocated for Canada to do more to raise its global profile on international causes.
“The world doesn’t want more Canada until it bellies up to the bar,” he said.
And, as the current Conservative party has worked its way through successive leadership searches and failed election campaigns over the last eight years, Mulroney became a recurring presence, offering his insight and at times, criticism.
In 2021, Mulroney endorsed then-leader Erin O’Toole the same day he vowed he wasn’t leading “your dad’s” Conservative party, but within weeks he made headlines for criticizing O’Toole’s leadership over his handling of vaccine mandates.
A Companion of the Order of Canada, Mulroney received numerous awards and considerable recognition for his leadership and contributions to Canada.
He was also a mentor to his four children, including Ben Mulroney who became a top entertainment host, and Caroline Mulroney who is a cabinet minister in the Ontario government.
In 2023, Mulroney spoke publicly about his battle with prostate cancer, telling CTV’s Question Period in May that his doctors had done a “spectacular” job and he was not ready for the Olympics yet, but was “improving.”
A month later, when speaking at the Atlantic Economic Forum at St. Francis Xavier University, Mulroney offered a thoughtful perspective on the legacies of political leaders, in paying tribute to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“It takes years, and not a few months or a few years… before one can make a judgment as to how a prime minister, or premier, has handled his responsibilities,” he said.
“History is only concerned with the big ticket items that have shaped the future of Canada.”
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
