Martin Brian Mulroney, PC, CC, GOQ (born March
20, 1939), was the eighteenth Prime Minister of
Canada from September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993 and was leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada from 1983 to 1993.
Background
Martin Brian Mulroney was born in Baie-Comeau, Quebec; a lumber town in eastern
Quebec. He was the son of Irish Canadian Catholic parents, Benedict and Irene (O'Shea) Mulroney. Benedict Mulroney was a paper mill
electrician. Mulroney received his high school education at a Roman Catholic
boarding school in Chatham, New Brunswick operated by St. Thomas University (in 2001, St. Thomas University named their newest academic building in his
honour).
Mulroney would frequently tell stories about publisher Robert R. McCormick, whose
company had founded Baie Comeau. Mulroney would sing Irish songs for McCormick,[1] and the publisher would slip him $50[2] . He grew up speaking English and French fluently.[3]
Family
On May 26, 1973, he married Mila
Pivnicki, the daughter of ethnic Serb immigrants. The Mulroneys have four children: Caroline, Benedict, Mark, and Nicholas. Ben is currently a CTV media personality and the host of Canadian Idol, a national spin-off of American Idol.
In 1991, Caroline became the centre of controversy when Frank Magazine ran a
satirical ad for a contest inviting young Tories to "deflower Caroline Mulroney". The magazine took the stand that they were
simply commenting on Mulroney's perceived habit of using his daughter as a political prop. Many groups and commentators joined
Mulroney in denouncing the ad as an incitement to rape.
On September 16, 2000, Caroline married Andrew Lapham, the son of Harper's editor
Lewis H. Lapham. Among the 400 guests were many dignitaries and business leaders,
including former US President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, Queen Noor of Jordan, Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia and his Greek-born wife Katherine, Dino Goulandris, Galen Weston and Ontario Lieutenant-Governor
Hilary Weston, former talk show host Kathie Lee
Gifford, and media magnate Ted Rogers.[2][3]
Mulroney is the grandfather of Lewis H. Lapham III, and twins Pierce Lapham and Elizabeth Theodora Lapham.
University
Mulroney attended a Progressive Conservative leadership convention while still a student at St. Francis Xavier University. While initially undecided, Mulroney was captivated by
John Diefenbaker. Mulroney joined the "Youth for Diefenbaker" committee which was led
by Ted Rogers, a future scion of Canadian business.
Mulroney struck an early friendship with Diefenbaker, and received telephone calls from Diefenbaker.[3] After graduating from St. Francis
Xavier, Mulroney at first pursued a law degree from Dalhousie University. It was
around this time that Mulroney also cultivated friendships with the Tory premier of Nova Scotia, Robert Stanfield, and his chief advisor Dalton Camp. It is a minor
bit of controversy as to whether Mulroney flunked out of Dalhousie his first year, or whether he simply transferred to
Université Laval in Quebec City.
In Quebec City, Mulroney befriended future Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson, Sr. At Laval, Mulroney built a
network of friends that would play a prominent role in Canadian politics for years to come,[4] including Lucien Bouchard, Bernard Roy, Michel Cogger, Michael
Meighen, Jean Bazin, and Peter White. During this
time, Mulroney was still involved in the Conservative youth wing and was acquainted with the President of the Student Federation,
Joe Clark.
It was at this time that Dalton Camp, who was now President of the Progressive Conservative Party, ran for re-election in what
was widely believed to be a referendum on Diefenbaker's leadership. Mulroney joined with most of his generation in supporting
Camp and opposing Diefenbaker, but due to his past friendship with Diefenbaker, he attempted to stay out of the spotlight. With
Camp's narrow victory, Diefenbaker called for a leadership convention in 1967. Mulroney joined with Joe Clark and others in
supporting former Justice minister E. Davie Fulton. Once Fulton dropped off the ballot,
Mulroney helped in swinging most of his organization over to Robert Stanfield.
Mulroney, then 30, would become a chief advisor to the new leader in Quebec.
On June 15, 2007, the University of Western Ontario gave Brian
Mulroney an honorary degree in Doctor of Laws (LL.D).[5]
Gaining publicity
After graduating from Laval, Mulroney joined the Montreal law firm now known as Ogilvy
Renault. After ultimately passing his bar exams, Mulroney became a labour lawyer, which was then a new and exciting field
of law in Quebec. He was noted for ending several strikes along the Montreal waterfront where he met fellow lawyer
W. David Angus. Mulroney's reputation was further enhanced when he ended a strike that
was considered impossible to resolve at the Montreal newspaper La Presse. In doing so,
Mulroney became friends with the paper's owner, Canadian business mogul Paul
Desmarais.
Mulroney's big break would come during the Cliche Commission in 1974,[6] which was set up by Robert Bourassa to investigate the
situation at James Bay. To ensure the commission was non-partisan, Bourassa placed Robert
Cliche, a former leader of the provincial New Democratic Party in charge.
Cliche asked Mulroney, a former student of his, to join the commission. Mulroney would ask Lucien Bouchard to join. The committee's unravellings made Mulroney well-known in Quebec.[6] A notable incident included the revelation that the
controversy may have involved the office of the Premier of Quebec. Although Bouchard favoured calling in Robert Bourassa as a
witness, Mulroney refused, deeming it a violation of 'executive privilege'. Mulroney and Bourassa would later cultivate a
friendship that would turn out to be extremely beneficial when Mulroney ran for re-election in 1988.
Rise to the top
Stanfield lost the 1974 election to Pierre Trudeau. Following his third consecutive loss, Stanfield decided to resign the leadership.
Mulroney was encouraged to run in the race to replace Stanfield and along with rival Claude
Wagner, both were seen as able to appeal to Quebec which had supported the federal Liberals for decades. In the
1976 leadership convention, Mulroney would spend an
estimated $500,000, at the time an incredible sum, placing second on the first ballot behind Wagner. However, his expensive
campaign and slick image did not endear him to many delegates and he was unable to build upon his base support, being overtaken
by eventual winner Joe Clark on the second ballot. Following the convention, Mulroney turned down the offer of a shadow cabinet portfolio
in Clark's caucus.
Mulroney took the job of Executive Vice President of the Iron Ore Company of
Canada, a joint subsidiary of three major U.S. steel corporations. In 1977, he was appointed company President, and he
successfully negotiated the closing of the Schefferville mine, winning a generous settlement for the affected workers.[7] Under his leadership, the company was sold off to foreign
interests.
By mid-1983, Joe Clark's leadership of the Progressive Conservatives was being questioned. Mulroney organized to defeat Clark
at the party's leadership review. When Clark received an endorsement by less than 67 percent of delegates at the party
convention, Clark resigned and ran to regain his post at the 1983 leadership convention. Mulroney ran against him again, and he
campaigned more shrewdly than he had done seven years before. He was elected party leader on June
11, 1983, beating Clark on the fourth ballot. He attracted broad support from the many
factions of the party and especially from representatives of his native Quebec. Two months later, Mulroney entered Parliament as
the MP for Central Nova in Nova Scotia, winning a
by-election in what was then considered a safe Tory seat after Elmer MacKay stood down in his favour. This is standard practice in most parliamentary systems.
By the start of 1984, the Tories had taken a substantial lead in opinion polling, and it was almost taken for granted that
Trudeau would be heavily defeated by Mulroney in the general election due in 1985. Trudeau
announced his retirement in February, and the Liberal Party chose John Turner as its new
leader. Only four days after being sworn in as Prime Minister, Turner called a general election for September.
The campaign is best remembered for Mulroney's attacks of a raft of Liberal patronage
appointments. In his final days in office, Trudeau had controversially appointed a flurry of Senators, judges, and executives on various governmental and crown
corporation boards, widely seen as a way to offer "plum jobs" to loyal members of the Liberal Party. Upon assuming office,
Turner had been under pressure to cancel the appointments, but chose not to, and instead proceded to appoint several more
Liberals to prominant political offices, per an agreement with Trudeau.[8]
Ironically, Turner had planned to attack Mulroney over the patronage machine that the latter had set up in anticipation of
victory. He launched what appeared to be the start of a blistering attack on Mulroney by comparing his patronage machine to that
of the old Union Nationale in Quebec. However, Mulroney successfully turned the
tables by pointing to the recent raft of Liberal patronage appointments.[9] He demanded that Turner apologize to the country for making "these horrible appointments."
Turner replied that "I had no option" except to let the appointments stand. Mulroney famously responded:
- "You had an option, sir. You could have said, 'I am not going to do it. This
is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.' You had an option, sir--to say 'no'--and you chose to
say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party."[9]
Turner froze and wilted under this withering riposte from Mulroney.[9] He could repeat only, "I had no option." A visibly angry Mulroney called this "an avowal of
failure" and told Turner, "You had an option, sir. You could have done better." The exchange led most papers the next day, with
most of them paraphrasing Mulroney's counterattack as "You had an option, sir--you could have said 'no.'" Many observers believe
that at this point, Mulroney assured himself of becoming prime minister,[9] as the exchange made Turner look weak, indecisive, and a carbon copy of Trudeau.
In September, Mulroney and the Tories won the largest majority government in Canadian history. They took 211 seats, three more
than their previous record in 1958. The Liberals won only 40 seats,
their worst performance ever. At the time, it was also the worst defeat for a governing party at the federal level in Canada. The
Conservatives won just over half of the popular vote (compared to 53.4% in 1958) and led in every province, emerging as a
national party for the first time since 1958. Especially important was the Tories' performance in Mulroney's home province,
Quebec. They won 58 seats out of a possible 75 (up from only one seat in 1980) after winning the most seats in that province only
once since 1896. Mulroney himself yielded Central Nova back to MacKay to
run in the eastern Quebec riding of Manicouagan, which included
Baie-Comeau.
In 1984, the Canadian Press named Mulroney "Newsmaker of the Year" for the second straight year, making him only the second prime
minister to have received the honour both before becoming prime minister and when prime minister (the other being
Lester Pearson).
Prime Minister
First term
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 49 years--was considered by many to be a breath
of fresh air at first, but growing pains soon surfaced. Many of his 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.[10] 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".[11] The new Prime Minister's handlers were concerned by his seeming
unpredictability and rumours of drinking.
On paper, Mulroney entered office in a very formidable position. No other party crossed the fifty-seat mark, and he could have
theoretically taken Canada in any direction he wanted. 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 the Maritimes.
Not surprisingly, such diverse interests became difficult for Mulroney to juggle. 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,[12] and received death threats for exerting pressure on Manitoba
over French language rights.[13]
Mila (left) and Brian (right) Mulroney at Andrews Air Force Base in September, 1984
One of Mulroney's main priorities, at least publicly, was to rein in the deficit, which was
running into the billions of dollars. However, the country's debt increased substantially through
his term. His attempts to cut spending limited his ability to deliver on many promises. Also impeding his progress was the
Liberal controlled Senate, led by Allan
MacEachen, which took on a very assertive role in legislation, forcing the government to compromise some points.
A major undertaking by Mulroney's government was an attempt to resolve the divisive issue of national unity. Mulroney wanted
to include Quebec in a new agreement with the rest of Canada. Quebec is the only province that did not sign the new
Canadian constitution negotiated by Pierre
Trudeau in 1982. In 1987, Mulroney 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 Air India Flight 182 bombing which originated in Montreal happened during
this first term. This was considered the largest terrorist act before Sept 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 in that Mulroney didn't consider them to be true Canadian citizens because they were not of
Anglo descent. Further to this, 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.[14]
[15] [16] A public inquiry into the Air India bombing is currently underway to answer some of these
questions.
Another priority was the privatization of many of Canada's crown corporations. In
1984, the Government of Canada held 61 different crown corporations.[17] It sold off 23 of them. Air Canada was completely privatized by 1989, although the Air Canada Public Participation Act
continued to make certain requirements of the airline. Petro-Canada would later be
privatized.
Mulroney's government actively opposed the apartheid
regime in South Africa. Mulroney met with many opposition leaders throughout his ministry.
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 Ethiopia; Clark landed in Addis Ababa so quickly he had not even seen the initial
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 government took a strong stand against the U.S. intervention
in Nicaragua under Reagan, and accepted refugees from
El Salvador, Guatemala, and other countries with regimes
supported directly by the Reagan administration.
Near the end of his first term, Mulroney closed a dark chapter in Canadian history with a formal apology and $300 million
compensation package for the families of the 22,000 Japanese Canadians who had been stripped of their property and interned
during the Second World War.
During his tenure as prime minister, Brian Mulroney's close relationship with U.S.
President Ronald Reagan helped result in both 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.
Critics noted that Mulroney had originally professed opposition to free trade during the 1983 leadership campaign.[18] This agreement was controversial, and the Senate demanded an
election before proceeding on voting, although Mulroney planned on calling an election before the treaty had been signed. The
free trade 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% of the popular
vote. Mulroney thus became the only Conservative to lead his party to two consecutive majority governments in peacetime during
the 20th century. In this election, Mulroney was elected as the MP for Charlevoix, which included Baie-Comeau after redistribution of the electoral
boundaries.
Second term
Mulroney's second term would be marked by an economic recession. He proposed the introduction of a national sales tax, the Goods and Services Tax (GST), in 1989.
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 would have 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.
The Meech Lake Accord would also meet 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,[19] 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.
In 1990 Mulroney nominated Ray Hnatyshyn, an MP from Saskatoon and a former Cabinet minister, to be Governor
General (1990-1995).
The worldwide recession of the early 1990s further exacerbated the government's financial
situation. His inability to improve the government's finances, as well as his use of tax increases to deal with it was a major
factor in alienating the western conservative portion of his power base. Canada also suffered from the "Made in Canada
Recession", in which the Bank of Canada experimented with a zero inflation policy. With Mulroney's permission, the Bank
of Canada raised interest rates, exacerbating the hardship experienced by Canadians. The Bank of Canada was the only central bank in the industrialized world to attempt to reach zero inflation and the experiment was an abject failure, which saw many ordinary people lose
their jobs.[citation needed]
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 CF18 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. 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 [4]. The Mulroney government would undertake 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.
Retirement
Widespread public resentment of the Goods and Services Tax, the
fracturing of his political coalition, an economic slump, and his inability to resolve 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, Reform Party candidate Deborah Grey won by a hefty 4,200 votes after finishing fourth in the general election just five months
earlier. This turned out to be the first sign that Mulroney's grand coalition was coming apart at the seams; the PCs had
dominated Alberta's federal politics since the 1968 election. Another
sign came after the failure of Meech Lake, when Bouchard and several other Tories broke with the party to form the
Bloc Québécois, a pro-sovereigntist
party.
Mulroney entered 1993 facing a statutory general election. 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.[20] When Mulroney announced he was stepping aside as leader of the party, his
standing was 21% in the latest Gallup Poll in February 1993. [21] The consensus was 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.
In his waning days in office, Mulroney made several decisions that hampered the Tory campaign later that year. He took a
lavish international "farewell" tour[22] 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. Mulroney also did not immediately vacate 24 Sussex Drive after Campbell was sworn in as Prime Minister--as their new private residence in
Montreal was still undergoing renovations, Brian and Mila Mulroney 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.
In her memoirs, Time and Chance, and in her response in the National Post
to The Secret Mulroney Tapes, Campbell complained that Mulroney left
her with almost no time to salvage the Progressive Conservatives' tattered 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.
The 1993 election was an unmitigated disaster for the Tories. The oldest party in Canada was reduced from a majority 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. 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.[23]
Airbus affair
In 1997, Mulroney accepted a $2 million settlement to a lawsuit he had brought against the Government of Canada. At issue were
allegations that Mulroney had accepted bribes in the "Airbus affair" concerning government
contracts. The government said the charges could not be substantiated. The principal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigator on the case resigned a year later. The
government later dropped the investigation entirely.
But Mulroney's actions continue to be the source of controversy. After stepping down as Prime Minister, Mulroney accepted
$300,000 in cash from Karlheinz Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman. The cash
changed hands in three meetings in hotels over an 18 month period, beginning in 1993. Schreiber had at his disposal $20 million
from Airbus for the payment of secret commissions. CBC television reported on February 8,
2006[24] that the money
Schreiber paid to Mulroney originated in a Swiss bank account code-named "Frankfurt" which Schreiber also used to pay the secret
Airbus commissions. $500,000 was transferred from "Frankfurt" to an account in Zürich code-named "BRITAN" on July 26, 1993, from which withdrawals totalling $300,000 were made in 1993-4. But
there is no evidence that Mulroney was aware of the source of the funds. Nor is there any evidence that Mulroney accepted bribes
in the Airbus affair. But the appearance of illegal behaviour persisted.
Through a spokesman, Mulroney said Schreiber paid him the money for consulting services to promote Schreiber's pasta business.
In the February 2006 interview with CBC television, Schreiber scoffed at the claim, saying the only (pasta-related) service
Mulroney ever performed was sending him a brochure. "What had he done for the money? Well, I learned to my great surprise that he
worked with me on spaghetti." Schreiber said the money was a gift made to assist Mulroney in the transition to private life.
For many years, Mulroney did not acknowledge receiving money from Schreiber. The payments were not disclosed in Mulroney's
lawsuit and Mulroney testified under oath that he "never had any dealings" with Schreiber and knew him only "peripherally".
According to the February 2006 CBC article, "In 1999, a spokesman for Mulroney denied any money was exchanged. But in 2003,
Mulroney indirectly acknowledged he did receive money from Schreiber but as payment for his help in promoting Schreiber's pasta
business." In his 2004 book A Secret Trial, former law professor William Kaplan describes Mulroney's testimony as evasive,
incomplete and misleading --but concludes that it did not rise to the level of perjury.
Schreiber is currently incarcerated in Canada. Having exhausted almost all recourses in a legal battle that lasted years,
Schreiber is awaiting extradition to Germany, where he is at the centre of a bribery scandal that helped bring down the
government. Mulroney supporters question Schreiber's credibility. Mulroney said he was "as clean as a whistle" in accepting the
payment because he declared the money and paid tax on it. But the former Prime Minister's reputation was further tarnished, after
the years of corruption scandals that his government had suffered.
After politics
Since leaving office, Mulroney has pursued a lucrative career as a lawyer at Ogilvy
Renault and an international business consultant. His experiences as prime minister, such as trying to reconcile the
western provinces and Quebec and his close relationship with former President George H.W.
Bush, have served him well.
In 1998, Mulroney was accorded Canada's highest civilian honour when he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
In January 2004, Mulroney delivered a keynote speech in Washington, D.C. celebrating
the tenth anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In
June 2004, Mulroney presented a eulogy for former U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the
latter's state funeral. Mulroney and former British prime
minister Margaret Thatcher were the first foreign dignitaries to eulogize at a funeral
for an American president. Two years later, at the request of Prime Minister Stephen
Harper, Mulroney traveled to Washington, DC along with Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, as
Canada's representatives at the state funeral of former president Gerald
Ford.
In February 2005, Mulroney was diagnosed with a lesion on one of his lungs. In his youth, Mulroney had been a heavy smoker. He
underwent successful surgery and was recovered well enough to tape a speech for the Conservative Party of Canada's 2005 Policy Convention in Montreal in March, though he could not attend in person. Though his surgery was initially reported to
have gone on without incident, he later developed pancreatitis and he remained in hospital
for several weeks. It was not until April 19 that his son, Ben
Mulroney, announced he was recovering and would soon be released.
Mulroney currently sits on the board of directors of multiple
corporations, including Barrick Gold, Quebecor
Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland.
On September 12, 2005, veteran writer and former Mulroney
confidant Peter C. Newman released The
Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister. Based in large part on unguarded remarks from the
former prime minister which Newman had taped with Mulroney's knowledge, the book set off national controversy. Newman had been
given unfettered access to Mulroney for a thorough biography. Newman claims Mulroney did not honour an agreement to allow him
access to confidential papers.[25] After the falling out,
Mulroney began work on his autobiography, without Newman's help. Mulroney himself has declared that he showed poor judgement in
making such unguarded statements, but he says that he will have to live with it.
This led Mulroney to respond at the annual Press Gallery Dinner in Ottawa, 22 October,
2005. The former Prime Minister appeared on tape and very formally acknowledged the various
dignitaries and audience groups before delivering the shortest speech of the night: "Peter Newman: Go fuck yourself. Thank you.
Good night."[citation needed] (It should be noted that the Press Gallery Dinner is noted for its comedic
moments.)
Thirteen years after leaving office, Mulroney was named the 'greenest' Prime Minister in Canadian history by a 12 member panel
at an event organized by Corporate Knights magazine.[26]
Legacy
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.[27] 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[28] and the Goods and Services
Tax (GST).
