Former Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney died yesterday, Thursday 28/2, at the age of 84. The news was announced by the family of the politician who marked Canadian political life in the 1980s by signing a historic free trade agreement with the United States, which was later expanded to include Mexico.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of my father, the Honorable Brian Mulroney, 18th Prime Minister of Canada,” Caroline Mulroney wrote on Platform X. “He passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family,” he added.
Ambitious and charming, with blue eyes, a thelemic chin and a baritone voice, equally comfortable in French and English. He studied law and was a business executive before entering politics.
The politicians about his death
“Brian Mulroney has never stopped working for Canadians and has always sought to make this country a better place to live. I will never forget the advice he gave me over the years,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote to X after the announcement.
Brian Mulroney became prime minister in 1984. His first year in office was particularly turbulent, with ministers resigning over scandals.
A native of Quebec, born into a poor, Irish-born family, he attacked South Africa’s apartheid regime. At the same time, he began a spectacular rapprochement with the USA of Ronald Reagan, after the cold relations that prevailed between the two countries during the liberals of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, father of the current prime minister.
“I said to him: Ronald, I want a comprehensive free trade agreement with you,” he said.
Negotiations began in March 1985 during a summit in Quebec. There the two politicians of Irish origin sang together the anthem “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”. While holding each other tight.
An agreement, which would later become the North American Free Trade Agreement (ALENA) between Canada, the United States and Mexico, was reached in early 1988, causing complaints and mistrust in English-speaking Canada, but satisfaction in Quebec. The opposition in Ottawa expressed fears that Mulroney had “sold out Canada to the Americans”.
Friendship with Donald Trump
But thanks to this agreement, he was re-elected by a margin in 1988. However, his second term was marked by a recession and the explosion of the budget deficit. Five years later, in 1993, he was forced to resign. He then retired while his popularity was at an all-time low.
Two years after he retired, Mulroney faced allegations that he was bribed by German businessman Karlheinz Schreiber to favor Air Canada’s purchase of Airbus.
The case dragged on until 2010, when an investigative committee accused him of taking $225,000 from Schreiber. Brian Mulroney admitted he was wrong to accept this money in cash. But he claims it was for his other services to Schreiber.
In 2017, he came out of political retirement at the request of Liberal Justin Trudeau to act as a mediator for Alena’s renegotiation, thanks to his friendship with Donald Trump.
The former president threatened to scrap the deal, and for months Mulroney tried behind the scenes to win over the Republican’s reluctance.
A new agreement finally came into effect in July 2020.
Messages of condolence
THE Premier of Quebec Francois Legault he hailed “a visionary, with the Canada-US free trade agreement” and a “true ambassador who made Quebec and Canada shine.”
For Pierre Poillievre, Conservative leader and main opponent of Justin Trudeau, Canada has lost “one of its greatest statesmen.” According to him, thanks to his action, “thousands of working-class families had the same opportunities as him, that is, the ability to work hard, buy a house and realize their dreams.”
Source: RES-MPE
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