Brian Mulroney's long bet on history paid off

On the day he announced his intention to resign as prime minister after nearly nine years in office, Brian Mulroney appealed to the verdict of future genera‐ tions.

"It will now be up to his‐ tory to place a definitive judgment on our efforts and our legacy," he said.

Thirty years later, in one of his last public speeches, Mulroney passed his own verdict on his political history - a judgment that Justin Trudeau, another belea‐ guered prime minister now nearly nine years in office, quoted in the House of Com‐ mons last week to mark Mul‐ roney's passing:

"I have learned over the years that history is uncon‐ cerned with the trivia and the trash of rumours and gossip floating around Parliament Hill," Mulroney said. "History is only concerned with the big ticket items that have shaped the future of Cana‐ da."

In 1993, Mulroney was perhaps compelled to appeal to distant opinion - because the opinions of the moment were so often unforgiving. But Mulroney, who was called on to eulogize two American presidents, surely came to know as well as any‐ one what history remembers and why, particularly at mo‐ ments such as these.

By the time he resigned, his government had endured its share of controversies (tu‐ nagate, guccigate, various other scandals barely re‐ membered now). Two of his attempts at constitutional re‐ form had ended in failure the latter was defeated in a national referendum. The economy had gone into re‐ cession for two years, his landmark trade deal was viewed with skepticism by many and he had imple‐ mented a highly unpopular new tax, the GST.

On the day he announced his intention to step aside, Mulroney's office released a 34-page list of his govern‐ ment's accomplishments. The nation was not in a mood to read it.

"Mulroney really had no option but to resign," Angus Reid, the pollster, wrote at the time. "Over the last year he has set new polling records for almost every measure of public disap‐ proval and resentment."

Reid said the Progressive

Conservatives now had one primary task - "to lock the ghost of Brian Mulroney away in a closet and throw away the key."

In that moment, Reid's analysis may have been as‐ tute. But the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was still shattered in the elec‐ tion that followed, winning just two seats - less than a decade after Mulroney led the party to 211 seats and 50 per cent of the popular vote in the 1984 election. Into the breach came the populist Re‐ form Party and the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

WATCH: 'One of the greatest' - Gretzky remem‐ bers Mulroney

In a survey of historians published in 2016, Mulroney was ranked eighth among Canada's 23 prime ministers. The survey was conducted just a handful of years after the Oliphant commission and the detailed scoring suggests the questions about Mul‐ roney's personal conduct were still hanging heavy on his legacy - on "personal in‐ tegrity," historians rated Mul‐ roney even lower than John A. Macdonald.

If anything, that seems disrespectful to John A., who deserves to be remembered as the author of the first and greatest scandal in Canadian political history. (Among the prime ministers who served at least four years, Alexander Mackenzie, our largely for‐ gotten second prime minis‐ ter, was tied for the highest score on personal integrity which perhaps suggests that a reputation for personal in‐ tegrity only counts for so much.)

But Mulroney's highest mark was received in the cat‐ egory of "leaving a significant policy legacy." And it's on that score that most ob‐ servers and contemporaries have been remembering him over the past three weeks.

'He would make it coun‐ t'

"He was prime minister and he would make it count," Jean Charest, a cabinet minis‐ ter under Mulroney, told his former boss's state funeral on Saturday, recalling Mul‐ roney's arrival in high office.

Mulroney's premiership, Justin Trudeau said, was about "getting the big things right."

The record of Canada's 18th prime minister includes the transformative introduc‐ tion of free trade with the United States. He is remem‐ bered and celebrated for his opposition to the scourge of apartheid in South Africa. And his government took great strides to begin pro‐ tecting and repairing the cli‐ mate and the atmosphere. A thorough account of what his government did with its nine years would run to at least 34 pages.

WATCH: Jean Charest says Brian Mulroney helped to build the modern Canada

Conservatives have taken a particular interest these past few weeks in Mulroney's efforts to contain govern‐ ment spending - through the privatization of numerous

Crown corporations, among other things - and tame infla‐ tion. But it fell to Charest to remind the assembled at Montreal's Notre-Dame Basil‐ ica that the Goods and Ser‐ vices Tax, and the reliable source of revenue it provides for the federal government, is still with us.

"I can't think of a more unpopular economic policy than the implementation of the GST," Charest said. "And yet I can't think of a more popular economic policy with all the prime ministers and governments that followed in the steps of Brian Mulroney."

Today's Conservatives might skip over that bit. But three decades after Mul‐ roney's memory needed to be locked away, it's now not hard to imagine Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre invok‐ ing his name on the cam‐ paign trail in the next elec‐ tion.

And whatever questions linger about how he gov‐ erned, these past few weeks also have testified to the val‐ ue of human kindness and the truism that people will re‐ member how you made them feel.

WATCH: 'His humanity defined him - Caroline Mul‐ roney remembers her fa‐ ther

When Caroline Mulroney spoke of the "thousands" of calls her father made to peo‐ ple, particularly when he felt they were in need of an emo‐ tional lift, she seems not to have been exaggerating. In‐ deed, Trudeau later said he had only just learned that Mulroney would periodically call his mother, Margaret, to chat - a fact that is all the more remarkable given how fiercely Mulroney and Trudeau's father clashed over constitutional reform.

On the importance of being prime minister

A few days after Mulroney announced he would be re‐ signing, Dalton Camp, the po‐ litical strategist and wordsmith, wrote in the Toronto Star that "being prime minister is a bruising, over-rated and misunder‐ stood occupation, one which invites ingratitude and in‐ spires mistrust."

"Otherwise, it's a

Camp concluded.

Recalling a figure he'd cov‐ ered and had then come to know, Anthony Wilson-Smith, the former editor of Maclean's, wrote last month that "Mulroney spent much of his life doing everything emotions, ambitions, achievements - on an over‐ sized scale."

Amid the celebrations of the man and his deeds, there has been meaningful dissent on the big things that occur‐ red on Mulroney's watch. History will weigh all that, too.

Family and friends are mourning the loss of some‐ one they loved dearly. But the death of a prime minister - especially one of Mulroney's record and bearing - is a re‐ minder that the big office comes with opportunities to do big things. life,"

The occupant, equally be‐ leaguered and blessed, is presented with immense challenges and issues and a rare chance to do something about both. Between the triv‐ ia and the trash - all the noise of politics in a democracy there is much that matters, things that are consequential and worth taking seriously.

Every day, a prime minis‐ ter has a chance to build a better nation.

"We live in the country that he helped build," Charest told the congrega‐ tion on Saturday.

That might be true of everyone who has held the job. But history will remem‐ ber if you did it well.