44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 18, 2024 11:00AM
- Mar/18/24 3:22:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to pay tribute to a son of Quebec, a great statesman for Canada.
About a year ago, my wife Ana and I were at a mechanic's shop, servicing our car, about 30 minutes south of here. As I went to pay, the mechanic said, “You're that Conservative leader. Brian Mulroney is a family friend of mine.” I said, “Really, how do you know Brian Mulroney?” He said that his dad was a miner at the Iron Ore Company and when Brian was the president, he used to spend a lot of time with the guys on the ground. He would ask their opinions, hear their stories and, most of all, get tips on how they could be running a better business.
This was the kind of down to earth spirit that he brought, but more important than that spirit and collegiality with the workers on the ground was his incredible memory. When that miner passed away decades later, Brian called the family. What is so incredible about that phone call is that in the interim period, Brian Mulroney fought two leadership races; won two majority governments; shook hands and spent time with presidents, kings, queens and other prime ministers; negotiated free trade deals; watched the end of the Cold War; sent our troops into the Persian Gulf; and with all that passing through his mind, he still remembered the miner from the Iron Ore Company.
That is kindness. That is humility. I think he saw his dad in that miner, an electrician from a working class small town in Quebec.
Baie-Comeau is a hard-working city.
A modest, Irish working class upbringing taught him the value of work, family, neighbourhood, loyalty and merit. For me, this part of his legacy is personal. I was born to a teenage mother, incidentally she was from a working class Irish family. She put me up for adoption to two school teachers. I was just becoming aware that there was such a thing as prime ministers when he had that job.
Like millions of young people from similar backgrounds, we looked to him and said that if the Irish son of a working class electrician from a mill town could rise to become prime minister, then anyone from anywhere in this country could do anything.
He took his journey from small town to big business, leading some of the great enterprises of Canada. Many of these jobs he had in his late thirties and early forties. His first shot at politics came with a setback, but he would brush aside that setback with a second run for leadership, which he would win, before he could take on the mighty Liberal machine in the forthcoming 1984 election. Before he could do that, he had to come to this place.
On the first day in the House, he squared off with the legendary former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who teased him about parachuting from his corporate office in Montreal into a by-election win in rural Nova Scotia. I will quote the records:
The Hon. Member for Central Nova has come a long way from that log cabin in Pictou County. I see that he has put away his rumpled trousers and old sweaters, to be brought out again at the next election. In the meantime it is nice for us in this Chamber to be able to bask in the glow, in the benign smile, of a man who sent such shivers of pleasure down the spines of the matrons all the way from Oyster Pond to Mushaboo.
Brian Mulroney rose and responded:
I want you to know, Prime Minister, that during the summer, while you were otherwise occupied, it was a very pleasant summer for me. There was one untoward incident, only one. The Liberal candidate in Central Nova persistently referred to a candidate from Quebec who did not live in his riding but lived in a million dollar house rent free, and I defended you [vigorously].
When he appeared in this chamber with that big smile and confident tone, I think it was enough to make anybody take a walk in the snow.
Soon after the election, he would go on to win a record majority government. He inherited a desperate, divided country, with skyrocketing debt having caused double-digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates. The government had attacked industries and thousands of jobs. People's lives were falling apart. The country was more divided than ever before with rocketing separatism and western alienation, yet he set out to do his work. He shrunk government, cut red tape, ended the appalling national energy program and privatized 23 money-losing state enterprises that went on to succeed and grow in the private sector. To put any debate to rest, successive governments refused to renationalize any of them, proving that he was right.
My personal favourite was when he brought in the inflation control target that required the Bank of Canada to keep our money solid, ending the prior decade of money-printing inflation that had destroyed the working class. This policy, this inflation target, came in in 1991 and would succeed in giving us price stability and sound money for the two and a half decades that followed.
Finally, he stared down fearmongering and falsehoods to defend and secure the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the most successful trade agreement the modern world had ever seen with the most lucrative economy in the history of the planet. In fact, all of the trade access and more that we have today with the United States was secured in that agreement.
He inherited a desperate, divided country with a public debt that led to inflation, unemployment and interest rate hikes. The government had essentially attacked key sectors, eliminating thousands of jobs. People's lives were falling apart, but he gave them hope.
He set himself some hard tasks. He downsized the government, reduced red tape, put an end to the appalling national energy program and privatized 23 public corporations that were losing money. His plan worked, and those companies thrived in the private sector. Successive governments decided not to re-nationalize any of them because they knew he had made the right decision.
My favourite decision of Brian Mulroney's was the one to give the central bank the mandate to set a low rate of inflation. The 2% target put an end to the printing of money that had destroyed the working class during the previous decade. He put that policy in place in 1991, and it was followed for 25 years.
Lastly, he stood up for the idea of free trade with the United States through what was to become the world's most successful free trade agreement, one that resulted in an extraordinary economy. In fact, these economic policies kick-started a consensus of common sense, free markets, free trade, disciplined spending, solid currency, strong defence, meritocracy and not aristocracy. That consensus lasted 30 years after he was elected in 1984.
All of the policies he put forward, the ones I have named, were controversial. Some were even unpopular, yet none was repealed by the subsequent Liberal government. He in fact started, in 1984 after his election, a common-sense consensus of free markets, free trade, disciplined spending, sound money, strong defence and meritocracy, not aristocracy. It was a consensus that would endure for 30 years after his 1984 election, and one we should restore.
He fought for the French language and for respect for Quebec, as well as for provincial autonomy.
He did away with Cold War neutrality and instead sided firmly and unequivocally with freedom and against communism. He led the world in the fight against apartheid.
Nelson Mandela would later tell the House of Commons:
I would also like to pay special tribute to the Prime Minister of this country, Brian Mulroney, who has continued along the path charted by Prime Minister Diefenbaker who acted against apartheid because he knew that no person of conscience could stand aside as a crime against humanity was being committed.
...Prime Minister [Mulroney], our people and organisation respect and admire you as a true friend. We have been greatly strengthened by your involvement in the struggle against apartheid and the leadership you have provided....
He stood for the freedom at home as well. He stood on the side of turban-wearing Sikhs by allowing them to serve in the RCMP, where they keep us safe to this day.
He was brilliant at talking through a microphone but even better at talking through a telephone. In fact for Brian Mulroney, phone calls were like an art form; he used the telephone the way Michelangelo might have used a chisel or a brush. He would use it to make business deals, to charm foreign leaders and, more importantly, to comfort grieving or suffering friends.
I have lost count of the number of people who have told me about the worst day in their life. They might have lost a loved one or a friend, or suffered a terrible public humiliation. Then, suddenly, the phone would ring and it would be that mellifluous baritone on the other end of the line, saying, “It's Brian Mulroney.” He would console, joke and maybe even throw in the odd curse about the unfairness of it all, and his friend's turmoil would melt into the astonishment that one of the country's greatest prime ministers had offered love and laughter.
I would call to seek his advice. In fact, I was very blessed to receive it. I asked him, for example, what it was that he did to deal with all of the strain of the job, the anticipation of a close election, the worry about the fate of a political battle. His answer was not that he studied stoicism, mastered yoga or meditated on a hilltop, or even that he was a tough guy who had no worries in the world. No, he explained to me very simply that he surmounted worry through one word: “Mila”, Mila Mulroney.
His half-century-long love affair with Mila is one for the ages. They would have been married 52 years in just a short time. He credited her with all his victories. She was his closest adviser, his rock. Only days before he died, he embraced her, and even with his failing eyes, as she recounted to me the other day, he looked her straight in the face and said, “You are so beautiful.” They were inseparable from the moment they met until he took his last breath.
He told me that my wife, Anaida, who shares Mila's beautiful immigrant story, was my superpower. After my recent convention speech, he said that my speech was terrific but Ana's was far, far better. Ana and I were happy to host the Mulroneys as our first guests at Stornoway after taking on these functions. We were able to plunder both of their minds for incredible advice, which I will not reveal here because I do not want any of my political competitors to take advantage of them, but the best and most important advice was to stand with family.
Brian and Mila's achievements are greatest when it comes to their kids, who tell stories even today, saying that they could call Brian at any time and he would take the calls, even when he was the prime minister. Later they would find out that he had left world summits or cabinet meetings to talk with them. That is why Mark, Caroline, Nicholas and Ben have been such smashing successes in their own right. They are now parents themselves. He had sixteen grandchildren: “Go forth and multiply”, indeed.
He lived out the words of Kipling:
If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you;If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too...
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,And stoop and build [them] up with wornout tools...
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,Or walk with kings—nor lose [your] common touch...
Yours is the Earth and everything...in it,And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rest in the peace of God, Prime Minister Mulroney.
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- Mar/18/24 3:38:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have fond memories when I talk about this prime minister. I was elected with him as part of his team on September 4, 1984. He was a great Canadian, a great Quebecker and a great prime minister.
On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I would first like to offer my deepest condolences to his wife, Mila, his daughter, Caroline, his sons, Ben, Mark and Nicolas, and his grandchildren.
I remember Brian Mulroney as a family man first. He loved Mila, his wife and lifelong companion. He was proud of his children and cherished his role as a grandfather. He was always only a phone call away from his loved ones and delighted in spending quality time with the whole family.
Born to a working-class family, Mr. Mulroney grew up in Baie-Comeau, a paper mill town on Quebec's north shore. Thanks to a strong work ethic, Mr. Mulroney rose to the highest ranks in the legal and business communities of 1970s Montreal. He even became president and CEO of a large company before the age of 40. Early on, however, he took an interest in Quebec and Canadian politics. Motivated by a deep desire to build a modern Quebec and Canada, he left the sidelines to play an active role in the political arena.
In 1984, Mr. Mulroney was the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, a party that no longer exists. He won the biggest election victory in history. He immediately set about instituting major reforms to the Canadian economy, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA; the privatization of Crown corporations; policies to keep inflation low, deregulate and cut spending; and the GST.
As the father of North American free trade, which would play a pivotal role in the economic vitality of Quebec as a producing and exporting nation, he is credited with reducing Quebec's unemployment rate from 12% to 6% within two years of NAFTA being implemented. He will be remembered for his engaging personality, which was key to strengthening the important relationship between Canada and the United States.
Who could forget how Mr. Mulroney strengthened ties with the U.S. at an evening out with President Ronald Reagan at the Grand Théâtre de Québec in Quebec City on St. Patrick's Day, which some people were celebrating yesterday. True to their roots, both Quebec and Irish, the two heads of state solidified their friendship when they sang When Irish Eyes are Smiling on stage. Brian Mulroney persisted and successfully negotiated NAFTA.
Another thing I remember about that time is that the then premier of Ontario was strongly opposed to NAFTA throughout the negotiations. He gave countless speeches on the subject. Three months after NAFTA was signed, Mr. Mulroney showed up to a caucus meeting with an American business magazine. He used to always give a little pep talk at those meetings. He opened the magazine to page six or seven to show everyone the picture of the premier of Ontario next to a message saying that thanks to free trade, Americans could now invest in Ontario.
It was with a hint of humour that Mr. Mulroney showed us that photo, but he made no comment about the premier of Ontario. He had a deep respect for his opponents, but he also had a very refined sense of humour.
Opposition to the GST was fierce. It came from all sides, even within our Progressive Conservative caucus. Some caucus members went so far as to resign and sit as independents. They were sure they would be re-elected as independents just by saying the word GST, because they sensed that many Canadians were opposed to this reform. Brian Mulroney did not waver. He persisted and implemented the GST. Today, no one would want to turn back the clocks on the GST. Let us not forget that, at the time, exporting companies paid a tax on the goods they exported. It was totally abnormal. Brian Mulroney promised to correct that and he succeeded.
He will be remembered for reconciling an open economic approach and confidence in the markets with global leadership on the environment. He signed the Canada-U.S. acid rain treaty and initiated the Montreal protocol on ozone-depleting substances. This made him the greenest prime minister ever.
The international relations he developed, his negotiating talents and his unwavering determination to build consensus gave him influence on the international scene. He was one of the first to respond to the 1984 famine in Egypt. He led the campaign against apartheid in South Africa. Canada was the first country to impose economic sanctions on that country, despite opposition from Mrs. Thatcher and the U.S. President, action that eventually led to Mandela's release.
He also played an active, if not a leading role in the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. He was awarded highest honours not only by Quebec and Canada, but also by a long list of countries, including France, which named him Commander of the Order of Legion of Honour, South Africa, which appointed him Supreme Companion of O.R. Tambo, Japan, which honoured him with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Haiti, which gave him the Grand Cross of the National Order of Honour and Merit, and Ukraine, which awarded him the Order of King Yaroslav the Wise. He was a person of international renown.
There are aspects of Brian Mulroney's political life that the Quebec nation will always remember more than anyone else, and that too many others have since forgotten, if not swept under the rug. He took it upon himself to transform, almost single-handedly, the then historically difficult and distrustful relationship between Quebec and his party. Quebeckers will never forget that, when he was prime minister, from 1984 to 1993, he was the last to make a sincere and ardent attempt to reconcile Quebec and Canada.
Brian Mulroney had the courage to build his winning campaign in 1984 on respect for Quebeckers and their pride. He won with the support of the most nationalistic among us. René Lévesque placed his trust in him the day after the 1980 referendum. Lucien Bouchard placed his trust in him as well, and the news of their recent reconciliation, a few months before his death, brought comfort to the hearts of many Quebeckers.
The majority of Quebeckers placed their trust in him, as did I when I was elected to the House alongside him in 1984. Like most Quebeckers, I was confident that his was the steady hand that would lead the government to do right by Quebec's aspirations.
He promised himself and the rest of us that the trickery marring the repatriation of the Constitution in 1982 would not set the tone for future Canada-Quebec relations. He pledged to bring Quebec into the Constitution and the federation with “honour and enthusiasm”, as a people. He said that Quebec had “an option”, to paraphrase the words he fired off at John Turner during the first debate. I am sure we all remember that.
Mr. Mulroney's openness to Quebeckers did not hurt him. On the contrary, in his first election as leader, his commitment to nationalism won him no fewer than 211 of the 282 available seats, including 57 in Quebec. He won another majority in 1988. It was the first time since Confederation that the Progressive Conservative Party won a majority twice in a row, both times on a promise that no federal party would make in 2024. Nowadays, nobody is promising to reform Canada in a way that includes Quebec with dignity.
Just a few kilometres from the House of Commons, at Meech Lake, he managed to convince every premier from the Canadian provinces and every federal opposition leader to take this chance with him. Everyone was ready to recognize Quebec as a distinct nation. Everyone was ready to limit the federal government's spending power. Everyone was ready to guarantee Quebec the right to withdraw from federal programs with full compensation.
Brian Mulroney loved Canada deeply, just as he loved Quebec deeply. That is why he did everything he could to make Quebec feel at home. He did everything and tried everything to carve out a better Canada, a real federation, united in mutual respect and in celebration of its founding identities. Unfortunately, no one has tried to take that on since.
For the years that I had the honour and privilege of sitting under his leadership, I rubbed shoulders with a true statesman, a man of vision who was undaunted in achieving the goals he set for himself, an affable man who was respectful of his opponents and who had one goal: to improve the lives of Quebeckers and Canadians.
My dear Brian, we etched your name on the trees on the Hill, but over time the bark wore off. We etched your name on the sidewalks of the Hill, but over time the concrete broke down. Fortunately, we etched your name in our hearts and time will keep it there forever. Adieu, Mr. Prime Minister, and thank you.
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