NEWS ANALYSIS : Brian, Don’t Let the Door Hit You on Your Way Out : Canada: For exiting Prime Minister Mulroney, familiarity--and brashness--bred contempt among a modest citizenry.
OTTAWA — Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a singing buddy of Ronald Reagan, a hunting companion of George Bush and perhaps Canada’s most disliked politician ever, has said goodby to a party and country glad to see him go after nine years of contentious style and largely unfulfilled policies.
Mulroney, who led the Progressive Conservative Party to two consecutive and overwhelming parliamentary victories, announced Feb. 24 he was resigning and will leave office June 21.
But his last meaningful place in the spotlight came Friday night in a crumbling, stuffy minor-league hockey rink where he said farewell to party delegates assembled to select his successor.
The event, attended by 8,000 party delegates, political operatives and assorted hangers-on, was a fair reflection of Mulroney’s tenure--slightly pugnacious, defensive, slick and just not quite right.
As Graham Fraser, a widely respected Toronto Globe & Mail writer, put it: “It was like wandering into someone else’s anniversary party. At best it seemed a little embarrassing and self-indulgent; at worst it was over the top.â€
The two-hour homage ended with Mulroney reading a speech extolling his record, defending his failures and boasting about his place at the high table of world leaders.
The audience applauded loudly when old black-and-white campaign films of past party heroes flickered across huge screens, less so at the high-tech color videotapes of messages from world leaders telling of their regard for Mulroney--Presidents Bush and Clinton, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher and John Major, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin among them.
But it was Mulroney they were waiting for, the man who had taken control of the party exactly 10 years ago to the day in a brutal political fight--and then went on to defeat the Liberal Party of Pierre Trudeau.
“Wait until he speaks,†said a delegate from Calgary, Alberta. “He’s Irish, you know, and can make you cry.†As if on cue, a singer broke into “Oh, Danny Boy.†It was hard to see if the crowd was crying, but the TV close-up of Mulroney seemed to show his eyes glistening.
But the emotion sought by the Hollywood producers of the $300,000 show never came.
The crowd did get to its feet, but within five minutes after finishing, Mulroney, his wife, Mila, and their four children were out of the arena, the clapping had stopped and the only sounds were the shuffle of departing feet accompanied by echoing tape of the song “I Will Always Love You.â€
Ten years ago, few in the audience would have foreseen such a deflated outcome when Mulroney took over the party, and even fewer in early September, 1984, when he led the Conservatives to the biggest electoral victory in Canada’s history.
It was a win derived from promises of new visions, fiscal responsibility, social justice, reduced deficits and an end to the corruptive cronyism of the Liberals, who described themselves as Canada’s “Natural Governing Party.â€
Mulroney immediately hit it off with world leaders, particularly Reagan, who seemed to find a kindred spirit in the glib Canadian.
Their relationship hit its high point--or nadir, if you believe the nationalist sentiments of the Toronto Star editorial writers of the time--when Reagan and Mulroney sang “When Irish Eyes are Smiling†at the so-called Shamrock Summit in Quebec City on St. Patrick’s Day, 1985.
With a seemingly unstoppable parliamentary majority, Mulroney appeared poised for great policy successes. And there were some. He negotiated strong environmental protection agreements with the United States as well as a free trade treaty.
He pushed the international community into anti-apartheid sanctions against South Africa and helped found an organization of French-speaking nations.
At home he cut inflation and enacted a national sales tax that reduced a fiscal deficit. He abolished the death penalty and created programs to help children, battered women and native peoples.
And he led the Progressive Conservatives to a second sweeping electoral victory in 1988.
Yet something was wrong, always. Even at the height of his success he never exceeded 43% approval in opinion polls.
Surprisingly, even his party followers were lukewarm. A Globe & Mail poll taken last week showed only 13% of Conservatives rated him as one of Canada’s best prime ministers.
What was wrong?
A major factor was his two failed efforts to write a new constitution that would have decentralized the federal government, given French-speaking Quebec special status and autonomy to native peoples.
The result was national rejection and the near-collapse of his ability to govern.
To many, it was his style that did him in, a style he summarized when he said, “I ain’t no shrinking violet.â€
Following a pattern of broken campaign promises, unpopular initiatives and self-aggrandizing claims of international influence, Mulroney was widely derided as “Lyin’ Brian†and “The Jaw that Walks Like a Man,†a derisive reference to his unusually strong facial characteristic.
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