Mulroney: Bush death ‘an enormous loss’

Canadian politicians past and present offered their condolences on Saturday following the death of former U.S. president George H.W. Bush, with former prime minister Brian Mulroney calling it “an enormous loss.”

Bush, who served in the Oval Office from 1989 to 1993, died Friday night at his home in Houston at the age of 94 - just eight months after the death of his wife of more than 70 years, Barbara Bush.

Mulroney, whose nine years in power overlapped with Bush’s four, said the last time he saw his friend was in late September, when he was in Kennebunkport, Maine, to accept the George Bush Award for Excellence in Public Service.

Bush wasn’t well enough to attend the event, so Mulroney paid the former president a visit at home before the ceremony.

Bush asked to hear Mulroney’s acceptance speech, so the former prime minister read it out to him. The two friends also spent time listening to music and talking.

“It was just a delightful experience, and my last visit with him after all these years,” Mulroney said Saturday in an interview.

“I think we both knew that that was probably the last visit we were going to have.”

Mulroney said that among the two leaders’ joint accomplishments, two stand out: the signing of the Canada-U.S. Air Quality Agreement, known as the acid rain treaty, in 1991; and the negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1994 after both had left office.