Mulroney’s advice not always taken
To incoming prime ministers, Brian Mulroney would always say you have two priorities, above all else: the nation’s security and your relationship with the president of the United States.
He devoted dozens of hours schooling Prime Minister Justin Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on coping with a deeply psychologically unstable Donald Trump. They listened and saved NAFTA.
He would groan angrily at how less successful he was on the national security front, with leaders from both sides. Trudeau’s security policy hypocrisy has created a new hole the Conservatives can drive a truck through.
In private, to incoming Conservative leaders he would add another priority: keep your caucus happy. Be open and accessible to them. Compile dossiers on their families, friends and causes. Ensure you are always on the look out for trouble makers and invite them to a private breakfast at 24 Sussex Drive on the morning of caucus, then enter the room together.
Over nine years, no party leader has managed a caucus so superbly, a caucus looking at popularity in the low teens for long periods. Mulroney had a caucus of 211, a record, to soothe after his 1984 sweep. No prime minister since has listened to his advice. Like Trudeau, prime minister Stephen Harper barely knew the names of the last row in his backbench.
Prime ministers Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Harper and Trudeau each saw caucus relations as a task for caucus officers and PMO staff. They made special efforts to patch up caucus grievances only after they had exploded. Imagine how differently Mulroney would have handled the Israel-Hamas war, in contrast to the open caucus rebellion, petitions and bitter leaks that Trudeau is enduring. Mulroney remembered anniversaries, graduation dates and parents passing. He set out time nearly every day to make the calls that showed he knew you, he cared about you, and your family’s health and happiness was important to him.
As a recipient of one of those calls one day after I had just received a serious cancer diagnosis, I can attest that even the most jaded political hack’s heart skips a beat at the sound that booming baritone coming down the line.
But it was not all tea and sympathy, there was always a large stick hovering. Everyone knew it hung there like a Damocles sword. Just ask the record number of ministers who were shown the door over transgressions great and small.
One of the sourest old political chestnuts, he faced immediately upon becoming leader, was what was always referred to with a delightful Canadian euphemism, the “Manitoba Schools Question.” This was one of the lingering legacies of anti-French discrimination: no French allowed in Manitoba schools. Point Final!
Jim Coutts, Pierre Trudeau’s chief staff swordsman, saw a fine opportunity to jam Mulroney on his first appearance in the House. As a newly minted leader from Quebec, would he support the anti-French Manitoba premier and his provincial Tories, or not?
But as he reported in his memoir, Mulroney told the caucus of his decision to support language equality. Then he warned any prospective dissident to keep his mouth shut, in “very salty terms.” Any potential defector would instantly no longer be a member of his caucus if he broke ranks, Mulroney declared.
Then publicly Mulroney gave one of the speeches of his career. He said in closing, on Oct. 6, 1983, “Our collective evolution has determined that two peoples speaking English and French were united in a great national adventure … [this requires] a respect for our linguistic and other minorities, a long-held desire to encourage their flowering and the duty to protect the rights of our minorities, wherever they are.”
Such a ringing endorsement of language equality had rarely neem heard so eloquently from a Tory leader. The Liberals and the nation were stunned.