TRIBUTE TO A PRIME MINISTER
Canadians pay respects to Mulroney, `one of the last gentlemen in politics'
They came by devotion and by happenstance; some out of curiosity and some with a wish to be a part of history.
Braving a bone-chilling wind on the first day of spring, dozens of Canadians waited patiently for their turn to pay respects to former prime minister Brian Mulroney as he lay in state across from the Parliament he led for 8 1/2 tumultuous years.
Mulroney died Feb. 29 in Florida. He was 84.
For many of those queued inside a maze or barricades outside the Sir John A. Macdonald Building, where Mounties stood sentinel around the flag-draped coffin, Brian Mulroney was the first prime minister they ever voted for.
“I was a student of politics in the '80s, when he was prime minister, and we studied a lot about him,” said Kim Ross, who drove from Toronto with her partner, Eric Wang, to pay respects. Ross and Wang were the first people in line Tuesday to view the casket after a special ceremony with the Mulroney family, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other MPS and foreign dignitaries had concluded.
“He wasn't always judged kindly at that time,” Ross said. “History has judged him much more kindly. We see now that he was a visionary about a lot of things — acid rain, NAFTA agreements. All those things were ahead of their time.
“I feel like he was, in my lifetime at least, the only prime minister who tried to unify Quebec into the rest of Canada. I don't think he succeeded, but he truly tried. He chose to do things that were for the best, even if people didn't always see it that way at the time,” she added.
“He was, in my opinion, one of the last gentlemen in politics. Politicians don't have those reach-across-the aisles qualities anymore.”
Mulroney won consecutive majority governments, in the 1984 and 1988 general elections, and his policies had a profound effect on Canada: free trade, the goods and services tax, and the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords, both failed attempts at constitutional reform.
He shepherded agreements to reduce acid rain and the Montreal Protocol to limit the use of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. Internationally he led the fight against apartheid in South Africa. But his personal popularity plummeted and he quit politics in 1993.
Later that year, the Progressive Conservatives were crushed at the polls, winning just two seats with Kim Campbell, Mulroney's successor, as leader.
It has taken time for Mulroney's reputation to be redeemed, Ottawa's Ross Rheaume said.
“One of the features of our fouryear election cycle is there seems to be a more short-term oriented point of view by the public and voters,” he said. “Often times it takes several decades to reflect back and look at the long term impacts of his policies. When you look back, you see some of policies were beneficial. At the time, the GST was not so popular, but ultimately that was a financial safeguard for the country.”
Ottawa's Charlotte Kelly said she voted Conservative in the Mulroney years, “and I believed in most of his policies. I always felt history would be good to him. He accomplished so much and it wasn't popular at the time.
“And the Progressive Conservatives paid a heavy price. His party is no longer in existence as far as I'm concerned,” Kelly said, adding she no longer voted Conservative.
That was also the sentiment of Laura Boujoff, who was visiting Ottawa with her son, Roland, 12.
“The very first vote that I cast when I was in university — and I know we don't vote for prime ministers directly in this country — but in my mind I was voting for Mr. Mulroney. That was the first and only time I voted Conservative,” Boujoff said. “It truly was a Progressive Conservative party back then. It isn't that now and I'll never vote for them again.”
Mulroney's brand of bipartisanship is a rarity now, Boujoff said. “I've been dismayed in recent years to see what I see as the importing of U.s.-style nasty politics into Canada and that's been very disheartening to me.”
The Neal family of Victoria, B.C., arrived in Ottawa on Monday night on a long-planned school break trip. On Tuesday, father Chris, mother Amanda and daughters Emily, 10, Hannah, 8, and Laura, 7, stood at the barricades to watch as red-jacketed Mounties carried Mulroney's casket inside the Macdonald Building.
“Chris and I both grew up in that era, and we remember watching prime minister Mulroney on the news with our parents. It's very full circle,” Amanda said. “It's an opportunity now to teach our kids how politics impacts their world.”
Even at 4 p.m. Tuesday, a steady stream of well-wishers queued up to be let into the viewing by security staff in groups of about 30 at a time.
Mulroney's body will lie in state in Ottawa again on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., before being taken to Montreal, where it will lie in repose on Thursday and Friday. A state funeral is scheduled for Saturday.