Post by quiltz on Mar 1, 2024 4:17:58 GMT
The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Canada's 18th Prime Minister has passed at age 84 today.
Mr. Mulroney was responsible for the Free Trade Agreement between the United States & Mexico in the late 1980's. Mulroney improved Canada's relationship with the U.S and pushed Reagan to sign the acid rain treaty to curb sulfur dioxide emissions that were destroying waterways. He also signed a North American air defence modernization agreement to better protect the continent from a ballistic missile attack.
While often associated with two other leading conservative figures of the era — Reagan and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher — Mulroney broke ranks with some of his closest allies on one issue: apartheid and sanctions against the South African white minority regime.
Reagan and Thatcher were both vehemently anti-communist. They feared that South African black leaders like Nelson Mandela were Marxists intent on turning the country away from liberal democracy. Mulroney, who had long admired John Diefenbaker's anti-apartheid stance decades ago, saw the state's system of racist repression as fundamentally unjust.
After his election, Mulroney launched an aggressive Canadian push within the Commonwealth for sanctions to pressure the South African government to dismantle its racist caste system and release Mandela from prison, where he had been locked up for a quarter century.
Upon his release, Mandela spoke with Mulroney by phone to thank him for his advocacy.
"We regard you as one of our great friends because of the solid support we have received from you and Canada over the years," Mandela told Mulroney, according to the prime minister's book, Memoirs. "When I was in jail, having friends like you in Canada gave me more joy and support than I can say."
Former U.S. president George H.W. Bush considered Mulroney a close personal friend — Mulroney was Bush's last guest at Camp David, the presidential retreat — and often sought his counsel on Cold War-related matters as an alliance of western nations negotiated an end to the Soviet Union with Mikhail Gorbachev.
This led to the Canadian leader advising his American counterpart to seek international consensus before launching Operation Desert Storm to oust Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, as Fen Osler Hampson details in his book Master of Persuasion: Brian Mulroney's Global Legacy.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would tap Mulroney's deep U.S. connections in 2017-18 as the NAFTA renegotiation efforts started to go sideways. Mulroney, who owned a home in Palm Beach, Fla. — not far from then-president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago — was a useful intermediary between Trudeau's Liberal government and the Republican administration.
RIP Mr. Mulroney
Also, his 2 grandsons, Brian and John were the page boys at Prince Harry & Megan Markle's wedding.
Mr. Mulroney was responsible for the Free Trade Agreement between the United States & Mexico in the late 1980's. Mulroney improved Canada's relationship with the U.S and pushed Reagan to sign the acid rain treaty to curb sulfur dioxide emissions that were destroying waterways. He also signed a North American air defence modernization agreement to better protect the continent from a ballistic missile attack.
While often associated with two other leading conservative figures of the era — Reagan and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher — Mulroney broke ranks with some of his closest allies on one issue: apartheid and sanctions against the South African white minority regime.
Reagan and Thatcher were both vehemently anti-communist. They feared that South African black leaders like Nelson Mandela were Marxists intent on turning the country away from liberal democracy. Mulroney, who had long admired John Diefenbaker's anti-apartheid stance decades ago, saw the state's system of racist repression as fundamentally unjust.
After his election, Mulroney launched an aggressive Canadian push within the Commonwealth for sanctions to pressure the South African government to dismantle its racist caste system and release Mandela from prison, where he had been locked up for a quarter century.
Upon his release, Mandela spoke with Mulroney by phone to thank him for his advocacy.
"We regard you as one of our great friends because of the solid support we have received from you and Canada over the years," Mandela told Mulroney, according to the prime minister's book, Memoirs. "When I was in jail, having friends like you in Canada gave me more joy and support than I can say."
Former U.S. president George H.W. Bush considered Mulroney a close personal friend — Mulroney was Bush's last guest at Camp David, the presidential retreat — and often sought his counsel on Cold War-related matters as an alliance of western nations negotiated an end to the Soviet Union with Mikhail Gorbachev.
This led to the Canadian leader advising his American counterpart to seek international consensus before launching Operation Desert Storm to oust Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, as Fen Osler Hampson details in his book Master of Persuasion: Brian Mulroney's Global Legacy.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would tap Mulroney's deep U.S. connections in 2017-18 as the NAFTA renegotiation efforts started to go sideways. Mulroney, who owned a home in Palm Beach, Fla. — not far from then-president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago — was a useful intermediary between Trudeau's Liberal government and the Republican administration.
RIP Mr. Mulroney
Also, his 2 grandsons, Brian and John were the page boys at Prince Harry & Megan Markle's wedding.
