Brian Mulroney, former Canadian prime minister, from 1984 to 1993 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, died this week.
Daughter Caroline Mulroney, now a cabinet minister in Ontario’s provincial government, made the announcement on X Thursday evening. She wrote, “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. We will share details of arrangements when they become available.”
He was known as a skilled politician with a gift for public speaking and for playing a key role in changing the Canadian economy.
Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said in a statement, “Mr. Mulroney loved Canada. After a distinguished business and legal career, he became Prime Minister in 1984 and made significant progress on important issues here at home and around the world. He negotiated the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement and, later, the expanded North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Mexico. He worked hard to build bridges between French and English Canada. He was at the forefront of environmental issues, helping secure an air quality agreement with the United States to reduce acid rain, championing the first Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and creating several new national parks. And he exemplified Canadian values, standing up against apartheid in South Africa.”
Born of modest means, Mulroney grew up in Baie-Comeau on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, his father an electrician at the local paper mill, his mother a homemaker. Mulroney went on to become one of Quebec’s top labour lawyers.
“Playing up his Quebec roots and business know-how, Mulroney forged a big-tent coalition, bringing together Quebec nationalists and conservatives of all stripes — fiscal, social and progressive. It worked like a charm. In 1984, Mulroney won one of the biggest landslides in Canadian history. His PCs took 211 of 282 seats in the House of Commons, including more than three-quarters of the seats in Quebec,” an article in The Gazette mentions.
“Mulroney also presided over two failed bids to change Canada’s constitution to grant the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec the status of a distinct society. The efforts, designed to thwart the Quebec independence movement, fostered deep differences between French and English Canada that reverberated politically for decades,” mentions The Guardian.
He resigned in 1993 amid record low polling numbers.
After leaving office, Mr. Mulroney continued to lead an active life, serving on corporate boards and becoming chair of Quebecor Inc. and Forbes Global Business and Finance. He was also a senior partner at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada, a Montréal-based international law firm, for almost 30 years.
For his many accomplishments, Mr. Mulroney received numerous honours and awards, including the Order of Canada, the Ordre national du Québec, and the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service. A globally respected and recognized leader, Mr. Mulroney was also awarded some of the highest recognitions from governments around the world.
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.
Minister Sean Fraser said, “I’m saddened to hear of the passing of one of our Nation’s great leaders. The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney is a political giant who can be credited with achieving progress on what he called “big ticket items” – those bold ideas on matters of importance that help shape the world we live in. He is responsible for advancing free trade, concluding environmental treaties of global importance, and defending human rights on the world stage. He had a special connection to Nova Scotia as a StFX alum, and was the Member of Parliament for Central Nova before he became the 18th Prime Minister of Canada.”
In 1995, a leaked letter revealed that Royal Canadian Mounted Police had accused Mulroney of having taken kickbacks from German-Canadian arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber on the sale of Airbus airliners to Air Canada in 1988.
“My second biggest mistake in life, for which I have no one to blame but myself, is having accepted payments in cash from Karlheinz Schreiber,” he said in 2007. “My biggest mistake in life – by far – was ever agreeing to be introduced to Karlheinz Schreiber in the first place.”
