Brian Mulroney

Mila (left) and Brian (right) Mulroney greet Rt. Hon. Pierre Trudeau (Foreground).

The first Conservative majority government in 26 years—and only the second in 54 years—initially seemed to give Mulroney a very formidable position. The Tories had won just over half the popular vote, and no other party crossed the 50-seat mark. On paper, he was free to take Canada in any direction he wanted. However, his position was far more precarious than his parliamentary majority would suggest. His support was based on a 'grand coalition' of socially conservative populists from the West, Quebec nationalists, and fiscal conservatives from Ontario and Atlantic Canada. Such diverse interests became difficult for Mulroney to juggle.[36]

He attempted to appeal to the Western provinces, whose earlier support had been critical to his electoral success, by cancelling the National Energy Program and including a large number of Westerners in his Cabinet (including Clark as minister of external affairs). However, he was not completely successful, even aside from economic and constitutional policy. For example, he moved CF-18 servicing from Manitoba to Quebec in 1986, even though the Manitoba bid was lower and the company was better rated,[37] and received death threats for exerting pressure on Manitoba over French language rights.[9]

Many of Mulroney's ministers had little government experience, resulting in conflicts of interest and embarrassing scandals. Many Tories expected patronage appointments due to the long time out of government.[38] Indeed, Mulroney made a number of unscripted gaffes regarding patronage, including the reference to Ambassador Bryce Mackasey as "there's no whore like an old whore".[39] The new Prime Minister's handlers were concerned by apparent unpredictability and rumours of drinking.

Mila (left) and Brian (right) Mulroney at Andrews Air Force Base in September 1984

One of Mulroney's main priorities was to lower the deficit, which had increased from $1 billion under Lester B. Pearson to $32.4 billion under Pierre Eliott Trudeau. However, the country's annual deficit increased during Mulroney's term from $32.4 billion to $39 billion.[40] His attempts to reduce spending limited his ability to deliver on many promises. Also impeding his progress was the Senate, where the Liberals had a large majority due to their previous long tenure in power. Led by Allan MacEachen, the Senate took a very assertive role in legislation, forcing the government to compromise on several points despite its considerable House majority.

A major undertaking by Mulroney's government was an attempt to resolve the divisive issue of national unity. Quebec was the only province that did not sign the new Canadian constitution negotiated by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1982, and Mulroney wanted to include Quebec in a new agreement with the rest of Canada. In 1987, he negotiated the Meech Lake Accord with the provincial premiers, a package of constitutional amendments designed to satisfy Quebec's demand for recognition as a "distinct society" within Canada, and to devolve some powers to the provinces.

The Mulroneys with President and Mrs. Reagan in Quebec, Canada, March 18, 1985, the day after the famous "Shamrock Summit", when the two leaders sang "When Irish Eyes are Smiling."

Another of Mulroney's priorities was the privatization of many of Canada's crown corporations. In 1984, the Government of Canada held 61 crown corporations.[41] It sold off 23 of them including Air Canada which was completely privatized by 1989, although the Air Canada Public Participation Act[42] continued to make certain requirements of the airline. Petro-Canada was also later privatized.

The Air India Flight 182 bombing, which originated in Montreal, happened during Mulroney's first term. This was the largest terrorist act before September 11, 2001, with the majority of the 329 victims being Canadian citizens. Mulroney sent a letter of condolence to then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which sparked an uproar in Canada since he did not call families of the actual victims to offer condolences. Gandhi replied that he should be the one providing condolences to Mulroney, given that the majority of victims were Canadian or lived in Canada. Many Indo-Canadians considered this to be a racist act because they felt Mulroney did not consider them to be true Canadian citizens as they were not of European descent. Furthermore, there were several warnings from the Indian government to the Mulroney government about terrorist threats towards Air India flights. Questions remain as to why these warnings were not taken more seriously and whether the events leading to the bombing could have been prevented.[6][7][43] The Governor General-in-Council in 2006 appointed the former Supreme Court Justice John Major to conduct a commission of inquiry. His report was completed and released on June 17, 2010.

Near the end of his first term, Mulroney gave a formal apology and a $300 million compensation package to the families of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians who had been divested of their property and interned during World War II.

Mulroney argue that he set up the Deschênes Commission of inquiry on Nazi war criminals soon after he was first elected in 1984, even though it was controversial among “communities where Nazi criminals posed as respectable citizens.”[44]

Mulroney's government opposed the apartheid regime in South Africa and he met with many of the regime's opposition leaders throughout his tenure. His position put him at odds with the American and British governments, but also won him respect elsewhere. Also, external affairs minister Joe Clark was the first foreign affairs minister to land in previously isolated Ethiopia to lead the Western response to the 1984–1985 famine in that country; Clark landed in Addis Ababa so quickly he had not even seen the CBC report that had created the initial and strong public reaction. Canada's response was overwhelming and led the US and Britain to follow suit almost immediately — an unprecedented situation in foreign affairs at that time, since Ethiopia had a Marxist regime and had previously been isolated by Western governments.

The Mulroney government also took a strong stand against the U.S. intervention in Nicaragua under Reagan, and accepted refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and other countries with repressive regimes supported directly by the Reagan administration.

During his tenure as prime minister, Brian Mulroney's close relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan helped secure a landmark treaty on acid rain and the ratification of a free-trade treaty with the United States under which all tariffs between the two countries would be eliminated by 1998.[45]

Critics noted that Mulroney had originally professed opposition to free trade during the 1983 leadership campaign.[46] Though the 1985 report of the MacDonald Commission suggested free trade as one of the idea to him.[47] This agreement was controversial, and the Senate demanded an election before proceeding to a ratification vote. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was the central issue of the 1988 election, with the Liberals and NDP opposing it. With the Liberals gaining the initial momentum, a successful counterattack by Allan Gregg resulted in the PCs being re-elected with a solid but reduced majority and 43 percent of the popular vote. In addition, the trade deal gained the support of future Quebec premiers Jacques Parizeau and Bernard Landry, which helped Mulroney to maintain their standing in Quebec.[48] Thus he became the only Canadian Conservative party leader in the 20th century to lead his party to consecutive majority governments during peacetime. In this election, Mulroney transferred to another eastern Quebec seat, Charlevoix, after an electoral redistribution saw its boundary shift to include Baie-Comeau.

Although most Canadians voted for parties opposed to free trade, the Tories were returned with a majority government, and implemented the deal.

On election day, November 21, 1988, Mulroney made a controversial order in council which allowed the establishment of the AMEX Bank of Canada (owned by American Express).

Mulroney's second term was marked by an economic recession. He proposed the introduction of a national sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), in the 1989 budget. When it was introduced in 1991, it replaced the Manufacturers' Sales Tax (MST) that had previously been applied at the wholesale level on goods manufactured in Canada. A bitter Senate battle ensued, and many polls showed that as many as 80% of Canadians were opposed to the tax. Mulroney had to use Section 26 (the Deadlock Clause), a little known Constitutional provision, allowing him in an emergency situation to ask the Queen to appoint 8 new Senators. Although the government argued that the tax was not a tax increase, but a tax shift, the highly visible nature of the tax was extremely unpopular, and many resented Mulroney's use of an "emergency" clause in the constitution.[11]

The Meech Lake Accord also met its doom in 1990. It was not ratified by the provincial governments of Manitoba and Newfoundland before the June ratification deadline. This failure sparked a revival of Quebec separatism,[5] and led to another round of meetings in Charlottetown in 1991 and 1992. These negotiations culminated in the Charlottetown Accord, which outlined extensive changes to the constitution, including recognition of Quebec as a distinct society. However, the agreement was overwhelmingly defeated in a national referendum in October 1992. Many blamed the GST battle and Mulroney's unpopularity for the fall of the Accord.[4]

In 1990 Mulroney nominated Ray Hnatyshyn, an MP from Saskatoon and a former Cabinet minister, to be Governor General (1990–1995).

On December 2, 1991, Canada became the first Western nation to recognize Ukraine as an independent country, next day after the landslide referendum in favour of independence in Ukraine.

NAFTA Initialing Ceremony, October 1992; From left to right: (Standing) Mexican President Salinas, US President Bush, Prime Minister Mulroney, (Seated) Jaime Serra Puche, Carla Hills, Michael Wilson.

The worldwide recession of the early 1990s significantly damaged the government's financial situation. Mulroney's inability to improve the government's finances, as well as his use of tax increases to deal with it, were major factors in alienating the western conservative portion of his power base – this contrasted with his tax cuts earlier as part of his 'pro-business' plan which had increased the deficit. At the same time, the Bank of Canada began to raise interest rates in order to meet a zero inflation target; the experiment was regarded as a failure that exacerbated the effect of the recession in Canada. Annual budget deficits ballooned to record levels, reaching $42 billion in his last year of office. These deficits grew the national debt dangerously close to the psychological benchmark of 100% of GDP, further weakening the Canadian dollar and damaging Canada's international credit rating.[4]

Mulroney supported the United Nations coalition during the 1991 Gulf War and when the UN authorized full use of force in the operation, Canada sent a CF-18 squadron with support personnel and a field hospital to deal with casualties from the ground war as well as a company of The Royal Canadian Regiment to safeguard these ground elements calling Canada's participation Operation Friction. In August he sent the destroyers HMCS Terra Nova and HMCS Athabaskan to enforce the trade blockade against Iraq. The supply ship HMCS Protecteur was also sent to aid the gathering coalition forces. When the air war began, Canada's planes were integrated into the coalition force and provided air cover and attacked ground targets. This was the first time since the fighting on Cyprus in 1974 that Canadian forces participated directly in combat operations.

For the Canadian Forces, the Mulroney years began with hope but ended with disappointment. Most members of the CF welcomed the return to distinctive uniforms for the three services, replacing the single green uniform worn since unification (1967–70). A White Paper proposed boosting the CF's combat capability, which had, according to Canadian Defence Quarterly, declined so badly that Canada would have been unable to send a brigade to the Gulf War had it desired to. The CF in this period did undergo a much-needed modernization of a range of equipment from trucks to a new family of small arms. Many proposed reforms, however, failed to occur, and according to historian J.L. Granatstein, Mulroney "raised the military's hopes repeatedly, but failed to deliver." In 1984, he had promised to increase the military budget and the regular force to 92,000 troops, but the budget was cut and the troop level fell to below 80,000 by 1993. This was, however, in step with other NATO countries after the end of the Cold War.[49] The Mulroney government undertook a defence policy review, publishing a new statement in late 1991, but political considerations meant that no comprehensive policy for the post Cold War era was arrived at before the government's defeat in 1993. According to Granatstein, this meant that Canada was not able to live up to its post-Cold War military commitments.

The decline of cod stocks in Atlantic Canada led the Mulroney government to impose a moratorium on the cod fishery there, putting an end to a large portion of the Newfoundland fishing industry, and causing serious economic hardship. The government instituted various programmes designed to mitigate these effects but still became deeply unpopular in the Atlantic provinces.

The environment was a key focus of Mulroney's government, as Canada became the first industrialized country to ratify both the biodiversity convention and the climate change convention agreed to at the UN Conference on the Environment. His government added significant new national parks (Bruce Peninsula, South Moresby, and Grasslands), and passed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and Canadian Environmental Protection Act.[4]

In 1991, Frank magazine ran a satirical advertisement for a contest inviting young Tories to "Deflower Caroline Mulroney". Her father was incensed and threatened physical harm toward those responsible before joining several women's groups in denouncing the ad as an incitement to rape on national television. Frank's editor Michael Bate, called the spoof, intended to mock her unpopular father for bringing her to public adult oriented events, "clumsy" but had no regrets. Bate also shared sympathy towards her father's reaction over the spoof.[50]

Widespread public resentment of the Goods and Services Tax, an economic slump, the fracturing of his political coalition, and his lack of results regarding the Quebec situation caused Mulroney's popularity to decline considerably during his second term. An ominous sign was a 1989 by-election in the Alberta riding of Beaver River. In this election, called when Tory MP John Dahmer died before ever having a chance to attend a sitting, Reform Party candidate Deborah Grey won by a hefty 4,200 votes after finishing fourth in the general election just five months earlier. This was perhaps, the first sign that Mulroney's grand coalition was fracturing; the PCs had dominated Alberta's federal politics since the 1968 election. Another sign came before Meech Lake was finalized, when Bouchard resigned from both the cabinet and the party over changes to the proposal that he felt diluted its spirit. After the failure of Meech, Bouchard convinced several other Tories to break with the party and join him to form the Bloc Québécois, a pro-sovereigntist (i.e. independentist) party. Years later, Mulroney said that his biggest error as Prime Minister had been trusting his former university friend; indeed, he and Bouchard have not spoken to each other in over two decades.[51]

Mulroney entered 1993 facing a statutory general election (under Canadian law, federal governments can have a maximum duration of five years, but they often have lesser duration as they must enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons in order to continue in office). By this time, his approval ratings had dipped into the teens, and were at 11% in a 1992 Gallup poll, making him one of the most unpopular prime ministers since opinion polling began in Canada in the 1940s.[52] There was a consensus that Mulroney would be heavily defeated by Jean Chrétien and the Liberals if he led the Tories into the next election—ironically, the same situation that led to Trudeau's departure from the scene nine years earlier. He announced his retirement from politics in February and was replaced as Prime Minister by Defence Minister Kim Campbell in June. The last Gallup Poll taken before his retirement, in February 1993, showed his approval ratings had rebounded to 21%.[53]

In his final days in office, Mulroney made several decisions that hampered the Tory campaign later that year. He took a lavish international "farewell" tour[54] mostly at taxpayers' expense, without transacting any official business. Also, by the time he handed power to Campbell, there were only two-and-a-half months left in the Tories' five-year mandate. Further compounding the problem, Mulroney continued to live at 24 Sussex Drive for some time after Campbell was sworn in as Prime Minister. Brian and Mila Mulroney's new private residence in Montreal was undergoing renovations, and they did not move out of 24 Sussex until their new home was ready. Instead, Campbell took up residence at Harrington Lake, the Prime Minister's official summer retreat across the river in Gatineau Park, Quebec.

The 1993 election was a disaster for the Tories. The oldest party in Canada was reduced from a majority with 151 seats to two seats in the worst defeat ever suffered for a governing party at the federal level. The 149-seat loss far exceeded the 95-seat loss the Liberals suffered in 1984. The Tories were no longer recognized as an official caucus in the House of Commons, since the required minimum number of seats for official party status is 12. As an example of the antipathy toward Mulroney, his former riding fell to the Bloc by a lopsided margin; the Tory candidate finished a distant third, with only 6,800 votes—just a few votes shy of losing his electoral deposit.[55] In her memoirs, Time and Chance, and in her response in the National Post to The Secret Mulroney Tapes, Campbell said that Mulroney left her with almost no time to salvage the Tories' reputation once the bounce from the leadership convention wore off. Campbell went as far as to claim that Mulroney knew the Tories would be defeated regardless of who led them into the election, and wanted a "scapegoat who would bear the burden of his unpopularity" rather than a true successor. In 2019, Campbell revealed in an interview with Macleans to that people asked her why she was nice to Mulroney. She said that Mulroney was "a pragmatist, not an ideologue."[56]

On September 29, 1995, the Canadian Department of Justice, acting on behalf of the RCMP, sent a Letter of Request to the Swiss Government asking for information related to allegations that Mulroney was involved in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the Government of Canada.[57]

The investigation pertained to "improper commissions" allegedly paid to German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber (or to companies controlled by him), Brian Mulroney and former Newfoundland premier Frank Moores in exchange for three government contracts.[58]

These contracts involved the purchase of Airbus Industrie aircraft by Air Canada; the purchase of helicopters by the Canadian Coast Guard from Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm GmbH (MBB) in 1986; and the establishment of a manufacturing plant for Thyssen Light Armoured Vehicles (Bear Head Project) in the province of Nova Scotia, a project which Mulroney as prime minister had cancelled.[58]

This Letter of Request (LOR) "and its contents were to be kept confidential" but the letter was leaked to the media.[59] As a result, Mulroney launched a $50 million libel lawsuit against the Government of Canada and the RCMP on November 20, 1995.[60] On January 5, 1997, Mr. Mulroney agreed to an out-of-court settlement with the Government of Canada and the RCMP.[61]

Mulroney joined the Conservative Party of Canada following its creation in 2003 by the merger of the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance. According to press reports his membership lapsed in 2006. In early 2009, Mulroney "called a high-ranking person in the party and asked that his name be removed from all party lists" due to his anger at the continued inquiry into his financial affairs,[69] although he denies this claim.[70]

Mulroney's legacy is complicated and even emotional. Mulroney makes the case that his once-radical policies on the economy and free trade were not reversed by subsequent governments, and regards this as vindication.[13] His Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski said that his greatest accomplishment will be seen as, "Dragging Canada kicking and screaming into the 21st century." Mulroney's legacy in Canada is associated mostly with the 1988 Free Trade Agreement[46] and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Although the Tories were re-elected in 1988 campaigning on free trade, they won with only 43% of the popular vote, compared to 52% of the vote which went to the Liberals and the New Democratic Party who campaigned mostly against the agreement. However, when the Liberals under Jean Chrétien came to office in 1993 promising to re-negotiate key parts of the agreement, they continued the deal with only slight changes, and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement which expanded the free trade area to include Mexico.

The visibility of the GST proved to be very unpopular. The GST was created to help eliminate the ever-growing deficit and to replace the hidden Manufacturer's sales tax, which Mulroney argued was hurting business. Mulroney's usage of a rare Constitutional clause to push the tax through,[71] prices not falling very much with the MST removed, and the "in your face" nature of the tax infuriated politicians and the public. The succeeding Liberal government of Jean Chrétien campaigned in 1993 on a promise to eliminate the GST (as per the Red Book), but ultimately backed away from that promise. This prompted two of their members Sheila Copps and John Nunziata to resign or be expelled in protest. Mulroney's supporters argue that the GST helped the subsequent government eliminate the deficit, and that the visible nature of the tax kept politicians more accountable.

Mulroney's intense unpopularity at the time of his resignation led many Conservative politicians to distance themselves from him for some years. His government had flirted with 10 percent approval ratings in the early 1990s, when Mulroney's honesty and intentions were frequently questioned in the media, by Canadians in general and by his political colleagues.[72] During the 1993 election, the Progressive Conservative Party was reduced to just two seats, which was seen as partially due to a backlash against Mulroney, as well as due to the fracturing of his "Grand Coalition".

Social conservatives found fault with Mulroney's government in a variety of areas. These include Mulroney's opposition to capital punishment[9] and an attempted compromise on abortion.[10] Fiscal conservatives likewise didn't appreciate his tax increases and his failure to curtail expansion of "big government" programs and political patronage.

In the 1993 election, nearly all of the Tories' Western support transferred into Reform, which replaced the PCs as the major right-wing force in Canada. The Tories only won two seats west of Quebec in the next decade and recovered only upon reunification the elements that had split from the party in the late 1980s. The Canadian right was not reunited until they merged with Reform's successor, the Canadian Alliance, in December 2003 to form the new Conservative Party of Canada. Mulroney played an influential role by supporting the merger at a time when former PC leaders Joe Clark, Jean Charest and Kim Campbell either opposed it or expressed ambivalence.

Military historians Norman Hillmer and J.L. Granatstein ranked Mulroney eighth among Canada's prime ministers in their 1999 book Prime Ministers: Ranking Canada's Leaders.

On March 31, 2009, it was reported by various news outlets that a Conservative official claimed Mulroney was no longer a member of the party. They claimed his membership expired in 2006 and was not renewed. Additionally, Mulroney allegedly "called a senior party official two months ago to ask that his name be pulled off all party lists and materials and that communications with him cease." However, a Mulroney confidante, speaking on condition of anonymity, called the party's claims preposterous. 'He's part of the history of this party, you can't rewrite history. If they're worried about branding, then shut the inquiry down. They're the ones who called the inquiry.' "[73]

In 2018, CAQ MNA and then Journal de Montreal journalist, Sylvain Lévesque, refers to Brian Mulroney as a political influence when criticizing the relatability progressive decisions made by Justin Trudeau.[74] Former Bloc Québécois leader Michel Gauthier joined the ranks of the Conservative Party mention that he voted for Brian Mulroney in the 1984 and 1988 elections. He considered Brian Mulroney to be the greatest prime minister Canada has known in the last 50 years due to its political projects taken by him such as Meech Lake accord, the fight against apartheid, an economic project, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and a fiscal project, which was to put the finances of the state back in order. He also pointed out that there was no constitutional quarrel between the federal and Quebec Government.[14]

Brian Mulroney has received several honorary degrees, including:

Location	Date	School	Degree
Newfoundland and Labrador	October 1980	Memorial University of Newfoundland	Doctor of Laws (LL.D)[85]
Maryland	May 21, 1992	Johns Hopkins University	Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) [86]
Connecticut	April 26, 1994	Central Connecticut State University	Doctor of Social Science (D.S.Sc)
Missouri	May 1998	University of Missouri–St. Louis	Doctor of Laws(LL.D) [87]
Quebec	December 2005	Concordia University	Doctor of Laws (LL.D) [88]
Massachusetts	May 21, 2007	Boston College	Doctor of Laws (LL.D)[89]
Ontario	June 15, 2007	University of Western Ontario	Doctor of Laws (LL.D) [90]
Quebec	June 16, 2007	Laval University
Nova Scotia	May 3, 2015	St. Francis Xavier University	[91]
New Brunswick	May 15, 2018	St. Thomas University	Doctorate [92]

Mulroney was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada on May 6, 1998. His citation reads:[93]

As the eighteenth Prime Minister of Canada, he led the country for nine consecutive years. His accomplishments include, among others, the signing of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and the United States, and the Acid Rain Treaty. In other international activities, he assumed the leadership of the Commonwealth countries against apartheid in South Africa and was appointed Co-chair of the United Nations' World Summit for Children. Fiscal reform, important environmental initiatives and employment equity were also highlights of his political career.

Mulroney was inducted into the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame in 2018.[94]