92 Replies to “Brian Mulroney, RIP”

    1. He was 1984-89. Sort of lost it after that. His “elder statesman” observations were rarely helpful.
      May he Rest In Peace

      1. “Brian Mulroney was a ‘progressive’ conservative who put too much emphasis on the adjective and not enough on the noun” – Margaret Hilda Thatcher.

        I remember that quote from her memoirs

  3. I clearly remember my excitement and satisfaction when he dissed the Libs and won 211 seats in 1984.
    A few years later he was my greatest motivation to support the Reform Party as he has morphed the Tories into Lib Lite.

    3. what angered me more than anything was the secret ballot had had on capital punishment.

  4. Mixed feelings.
    He ended the LIEberal reign in 1984 and made mincemeat of Turner and LIEberal
    Largesse.
    He was a CINO, gave us the GST, Quebec ownership of the country and fawned over Shiny Pony.

    2. Dan – He also brought in the US free trade agreement which the liberal media said would be a disaster.
      He tried to bring in the Meech Lake Accord. We have seen how the liberal supreme court has interpreted the Trudeau constitution, imagine how they would have interpreted the Distinct Society clause in favor of Quebec.
      He also brought in Airbus, and like any good Quebec politician, he profited from it. Allegedly.
      He did two or three good things but overall I was not a fan.

      1. Will his family find a bunch of manila envelopes full of cash that the old fart was hiding from the Airbus scandal that was never really investigated??

    3. Muldoon sent the Conservative Party to a well deserved extinction in his final run for office by garnering only two seats and stepping down with the lowest approval rating in Canadian political history at 12%. Hardly a stellar legacy. He will always carry a whiff of Airbus corruption with him.

  5. Considering his high praise of Trudeau I’m guessing this will be milked by the msm as a leader who would work with the opposition for the better of the country unlike the maga conservatives.

  6. Mommy always said “If you can’t say anything nice about the dead you should say nothing at all”. ” “

        1. “I did not attend his funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”- Mark Twain

          Think I will skip the nice letter part too, in consideration of the newly proposed federal legislation and all.

          1. I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

            Mark Twain

      1. His graft seems positively amateur compared to the current crowd.

        Envelopes and cash, so quaint.

    2. He was the anglo portion, and had to observe certain protocols that weren’t necessary for the pure laine. (sp?)

  10. I credit him with getting NAFTA done despite the fury of the opposition. But he squandered his legacy with his ill-fated constitutional gambit to appease the separatists.

    1. “I credit him with getting NAFTA done despite the fury of the opposition. But he squandered his legacy with his ill-fated constitutional gambit to appease the separatists.

      Personally, I voted for him for the FTA.

      I did NOT vote for NAFTA…Mulroney pulled a bait-and-switch on us. Never forgave him for that.

  11. Mixed feelings on Mulroney. He let Audrey McLaughlin kybosh the Triple-E Senate by making her “Social Charter” a condition. That forced us to vote against it. I will never forgive him for that.

  12. In ’84 I was ecstatic when Muldoon (a Reagan slip up) mopped the floor and took out the libranos. Over time I came to realize that he was a just another Demarais made man. A charter member of the Laurentian Elite. They had a horse or two in every race back then before the Reform Party came out of Alberta and changed the political landscape somewhat.

    The ‘Free Trade’ election of ’88 was Mulroney’s piece de resistance. He sold it successfully to a reluctant country. It was a good thing.

    He sold out disgraced in the end for a few pieces of silver when Karlheinz Schreiber bribed him with a A&W sized bag full of cash.

    Now it’s State funeral time. The Bong is a friend of Muldoon’s so forget about him taking the high jump with what’s left of today’s 40th anniversary…

  14. I’ve always been fond of Allan Fotheringham’s nickname for Mulroney: “The Chin That Walks Like A Man.”

    Gave me the inspiration for calling Justin “The Hair That Walks Like A Man.”

  15. Meh.I respect Brian Mulroney.
    With this news,I even start to like him.
    He convinced me the Uni-Party is real and rules Can Ahh Duh.
    Conservative In Name Only.
    And then we learnt an important political lesson.
    A Kleptocracy cannot be reformed,using Roberts Rules of Committees.
    A far more bitter resolve is required.

    2. I concur.
      Related
      Canada wasn’t formed to benefit the people, it was formed to keep the US from taking control of North America.

      1. Strictly speaking, it was formed to prevent the British Empire from having to go to war if the Americans did take control of North America. Canada is indefensible. That was its organizing principle.

  16. Just another eastern canaduh politician who contributed to the downfall of a great country. Unfortunately they are not dying quickly enough.

    1. Perpetual western victims forget that he scrapped Trudeau’s Sr much-maligned National Energy Program.
      Tell me, when do you start asking for victim reparation like the rest of the socialist victims out there?

      1. And then he tried to screw over the West with the Charlottetown DIScord!
        I am a white Western taxpayer so I pay reparations to Aboriginals, Quebec and the maritimes every year. Thats exactly what Mulroney stood for.

  17. Will the small, delightful, mystery meat sandwiches be served in brown paper bags at the funeral?

    2. That better not be “rest in power” because that’s only for black people apparently.

  19. What the country has needed for about thirty years is a distinguished elder statesman who could put Liberal prime ministers in their place as they over-reach, especially the current one. Sadly, we have had no such person, max Bernier has had to carry that load. Brian mulroney started out well but the second half of his time in office basically led to the split of the political right into centrist and true-conservative factions and that never went away, despite assurances from Stephen harper that he would fix the problem (he did not succeed, partly because of a lack of actual desire to try).

    There is no legacy, just a void, and that will be the case just about every time a former Canadian leader passes away.

  20. I remember 1984 and it seemed like canada would emerge from the darkness of turd 1 and which turned to disappointment as the years went on. First PM I voted for in the FTA election of ’88. This would be repeated during the rise of Harper and end in disappointment again. Now I doubt canuckistan will ever emerge from the darkness now.

  23. He tried to make it look like a Canadian Prime Minister didn’t hate a Republican POTUS.
    Groundbreaker, eh.

  24. Good Riddance.
    Another FILTHY LIBERAL Elite Turd that appeased the Separatists and sold us out to China. (Show me something he did that was conservative)

    Why is the Funeral Sponsored by AIRBUS?…

    1. That was my first thought as well.
      It harkens a time when it could be said (perhaps naively) that our leaders were nominally governing in the country’s, and thus its peoples, best interest. Given what we’re dealing with now, his death magnifies that for me.

      Despite his negatives, Mulroney re-established our standing amongst leading western countries at a time when Turd the First counted Fidel as his greatest friend. At least Mulroney got his foreign policy right.

      I’ll also add to what others have said as far as his government creating the impetus for the formation of the Reform party.

  30. I guess I credit him for inadvertently creating the Reform party, which ultimately did some good.

    His brown envelopes of cash were quaint small potatoes compared to anything the Libranos do, but that’s pretty faint praise. We’ve certainly had worse prime ministers than him.

  32. In the late 70’s, I was a young manager in the Labrador City operations of the Iron Ore Company of Canada when Mr. Mulroney became the President of the company. Prior to his arrival, the morale among the managers was pretty low. We had taken a long strike, during which we kept the plant going. For some time we had worked with little recognition as all attention was focused on the union’s needs. As a former member and worker with both the Steelworkers and CUPW I wasn’t exactly anti-union, but these were lousy times.

    Mr. Mulroney came in and within months a feeling of pride began to return to management. Under his leadership, morale improved dramatically. I left to return to school shortly after. I will always regard him as one of the best leaders Canada has had, especially when compared to the disaster we’ve experienced over the last eight years.

    I offer my condolences to the Mulroney family, and I for one will honour his service.

    2. Interesting contribution. That’s why this site is so good, because people give relevant first-hand experience.
      And if I ever have any…I’ll share it.

  33. IMO, he was the right man at the right time, not just for Canada, but globally. He was, along with Reagan, Thatcher, and Kohl, one of the last statesmen. The world needs more leaders, not more politicians.

  34. He was elected to reverse and undo Pierre Trudeau’s mistakes and damage. He did none of that – and made things worse. Health care was a “sacred trust”, he abandoned the VC in the military, allowed an absurd exemption for full blown turbans (when a simple solution was available via the “sports turban”) in the RCMP uniform (which was part of national identity), doubled immigration quotas overnight via a cabinet meeting etc. etc. On and on and on it goes. Utter political failure in what was perhaps Canada’s last chance at an easy exit ramp.

    Decent and honorable man personally, probably.

    1. He had good intentions.
      But chose the path of trying to outdo PET at his own game of pander to the MTV and screw the west.
      In other words he thought if he could just get his name on enough significant items it would replace the Trudeau myth with a Mulroney mythology.
      I figured this out when he tried to get the Meech Lake accord passed, and knew he learned nothing from that experience during the repeat of the Charlottetown Accord referendum.
      He didn’t want to fix Canada as much as he wanted to amend the charter so it would have his name on it for posterity.
      There’s ample substance there for me to ramble on, but today is not the day.

      My condolences to his family may he rest in peace.

  36. George HW Bush got Canada admitted to the G7. He did this as a favor to Mulroney.

    It will be interesting to see who attends the funeral.

  37. I was active in politics in those days, as a conservative. I did not care for the man then and am indifferent now.

  38. Regret his passing, of course, and thoughts and prayers to family BUT he was the WORST Conservative PM ever. He had a chance with 2 MAJORITY governments to push back on Trudeau. Instead he and his fellow MPs wallowed in the trough, increased funding for the CBC and increase immigration levels. What happened with Skybus makes Liberal corruption look modest.

  39. Will he get a state funeral? Probably not as he was a conservative and we all know how cons get cancelled in this country.

  40. Won’t speak ill of the dead but his F-18 maintenance decision prevents any praise.

  42. Who was the best Canadian PM ever? I don’t know. No anyone that anyone alive could remember. I’ve lived with some of the worst. Is it possible Paul Martin was the best in my lifetime? Fixing Muldoon and Cretins debt sprees? Harper literally shovelled the path for the Turd.

  43. I think that the GST was mostly good. Recall that it replaced the 9% Manufacturers Sales Tax, a moronic tax that effectively penalized our own manufacturing and subsidized foreign goods. Virtually everything manufactured in Canada instantly became slightly cheaper as a result, especially cars.

    Free Trade I used to unabashedly support like most on this board. Now? I don’t know. I don’t think Ricardo was right, given labour mobility will happen with capital and production mobility. Look at the effective hollowing out of much of the Italian fashion industry with 300,000 Chinese living in Italy and working to produce cheap clothing. And unfortunately being a nice vector for covid, through no fault of theirs.

    And the grotesque pandering to Quebec, especially with the constitutional deals? Yeah. That ultimately turned me, a life long Ottawa Valley rural conservative into a staunch supporter of most Alberta views including voting for Reform.

    He will also likely be the last Canadian leader of significant international prominence. (No disrespect to PMSH). We have fallen from the ranks of significant powers to middle powers to, well, the worst country in the OECD til 2050 in the last 9 years. Now Britain (under PM Sunak) sides with India over us.

    In the end, I think he was genuinely better than most of the imaginable alternatives. And if that’s thin gruel, well, that’s what we on the right have to dine on in Canada.

    RIP, Mr. Mulroney.

    Holmwood

    1. I recall corresponding with Mike Wilson the Finance Minister at the time about the GST. I supported it. If your going to have a tax at least it gives consumers an option in their buying and it replaced a tax.

      Over the years the GST crept up until Harper lowered it from 7 to 5%.

  44. Looking back, I would say that John Diefenbaker was one of the best of the 20th century. He was the last PM to have a vision for the entire country, and wasn’t a Laurentian insider.
    It was under his watch that native Canadians were given the right to vote, he appointed the first female cabinet minister, and he offered the first Canadian bill of rights, including the right to own property.
    Unfortunately, the AVRO closure was too much for the Laurentians, who quickly ousted him for it.
    Note the bill of rights was “amended” to remove the right to own property before passing.

  45. “Don’t speak ill of the dead” so; Canada, with so much potential and very intelligent/talented hard working people, was never allowed a great PM. I blame the Bolsheviks.

  47. I left Canada in 1984, when Trudeau was still in power, and came back two years later, with Mulroney new in office. It was a different country. It’s Mulroney’s country that we still live in, and what’s left of Trudeau’s country clings to it like a particularly nasty and destructive leech.

    It’s not the Canada I want, and Mulroney was not the man I wanted. But it’s to his credit. We could have had a much better country today, and to some extent that’s his fault; but we could have had a much worse country, we did once and we seem to be working on it now, and it’s to his credit that we didn’t. And it’s certainly not his fault if we dig ourselves into a hole.

    I always saw enough to dislike in Mulroney that I saw no need to spread lies about him. The fact that he could lie shamelessly himself does not justify it.

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