You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
My first introduction to Brian Mulroney was a book co-authored by my father, Greg Vezina, titled Democracy Eh?: A Guide to Voter Action.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Don't have an account? Create Account
In it, Mulroney is quoted as saying: “The only two headlines I really liked? ‘Mulroney Wins Big Majority’ and the second one that said, ‘Mulroney Re-elected With Big Majority,’ because you know what? All the other stuff doesn’t really matter.”
While my impression at the time was that this seemed callous and dismissive, thirty years older and wiser my perspective has changed.
Many columns and obituaries written following Mulroney’s death credit the former prime minister with being unafraid to lead, willing to do things that were unpopular in the short term because he believed they were necessary for the long term.
That can be an incredibly difficult thing for a politician to do.
What is evident looking back at Mulroney’s political legacy is that he did not let public opinion get in the way of his leadership.
Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond.
By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of Your Midday Sun will soon be in your inbox.
We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again
This is not to say that he ignored the public, but that he understood that the public’s initial reaction to policies and ideas as portrayed in the media, do not necessarily reflect the public’s best, long-term interests.
It’s probably true that the only headlines Mulroney liked were those about his winning back-to-back majority governments.
The media can be brutal — and they were often brutal to Mulroney.
But that also demonstrated that once Mulroney was focused on a goal — be it free trade with the U.S. or imposing the GST — he wasn’t deterred by negative headlines.
The reality is that when a prime minister wins a majority mandate — and Mulroney had two emerging out of the 1984 and 1988 federal elections — the public gives him a mandate to lead, without conditions, as occurs in a minority government.
In that sense, Mulroney’s honesty about being focused on winning big, was refreshing.
Of course, he also had a well-known nickname during his time in office of “Lyin’ Brian” because of a series of political scandals and when he retired from politics, most Canadians were glad to see him go.
That is generally the case for political leaders who have been in office for a long time.
In that sense, it’s not surprising his political legacy is a mixed one.
But it’s also true that the passage of time provides perspective when it comes to politics, the realization that the media can be brutal on a prime minister, and that the spotlight is unrelenting.
Inevitably, doing unpopular things because you believe they are right, makes you unpopular.
To cite a famous quote from Mulroney’s deputy prime minister, Don Mazankowski, his greatest accomplishment was, “dragging Canada kicking and screaming into the 21st century”.
Mulroney’s two most important political initiatives, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the GST, were widely opposed at the time by the opposition Liberals, but when they took office they didn’t reverse them, tacitly acknowledging they were the right policies at the right time.
To me, one of the most interesting things about Mulroney was his obvious and often publicly displayed love for his family, and especially his wife, Mila.
Normally, I wouldn’t take particular notice of this, given that in my field of emergency preparedness and risk management, we focus on making decisions based not on human emotions, but on rational and logical thinking.
Some would view relying on anyone, even one’s partner, as a sign of weakness in a leader. He obviously didn’t.
Hearing the stories of Mulroney working a room and then suddenly asking, “where’s Mila?” (she was beside him) didn’t mean he had a vision or memory problem. She was just that top-of-mind to him.
I hope he would like the headline on this column. I’m pretty sure he would be pleased by all the glowing tributes to him since his death and the state funeral.
But let’s be honest. What most mattered to Mulroney was winning elections, introducing major legislation, and his family.
In that way, he won a third big majority after all.
Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp, teaches Disaster and Emergency Management at York University and is the author of Continuity 101. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Rachel Marsden
Donald Low
Bradley Blankenship
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Michael Kwet
visit website
