Prime Minister Brian Mulroney: Ten-years-ago tonight, you entrusted me with the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party. I pledged then that, with your help, I would seek to justify your trust and confidence – and, I can report tonight that, following two successful majority governments and almost nine years in office, this party has known its most successful and sustained period in Government since Sir John A. Macdonald.

Leadership campaigns are never easy. They place enormous demands of those seeking office, their families and friends. But the results are genuinely beneficial for our party and our country.

Some things are already clear:

The candidates are impressive; the campaign was instructive; the convention is exciting; and our new leader, Canada’s 19^th Prime Minister – will be a winner.

In my time, I have known moments of high achievement and periods of sadness that come with defeat.

I have made mistakes. There is no school one can attend to learn how to be Prime Minister. My successor will find, as I have, that when it comes to discerning what is right for Canada, and the end of the day you have only your own innermost values and convictions to guide you.

Then, when it comes to doing what is right for Canada you depend as well on the courage, understanding and support of your colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party and you put your faith in the ultimate judgement of history.

In government, you come quickly to appreciate the full extent to which our inheritance

– fiscal, economic and constitutional – was flawed. This meant clearly that our complex problems could no longer be finagled or finessed; they have to be confronted and corrected – once and for all.

In Canada, the binge had gone on almost no-stop for 15 years. Its effects were beginning to compromise the sovereignty of this nation. Someone had to clean up, begin paying the bills and get Canada ready to face the hard problems of the future.

For my caucus and cabinet to do this – to take tough, unpopular but necessary measures – required courage and constancy and I salute them tonight for their leadership and vision. Because of them, while others preached for special interests, we defended the national interest. Because of their loyalty and resolve, this Government made decisions not for favourable headlines in ten days but for a stronger Canada in ten years.

Given the intractability of the problems we inherited, I arrived at a simple conclusion: In 1984, I had been privileged to win the largest number of seats and highest approval ratings in Canadian political history.

I did, in fact, have a choice. I could have sought ongoing popularity by continuing the massive borrowing and spending, or I cold make much-needed, fundamental and wrenching structural change for Canada.

I chose the route of responsible leadership and I think this party will conclude it was the only proper course for Canada ….

In discussing our record, people frequently refer to Free Trade, NAFA, deficit reduction, privatizations, the Gulf War, Meech Lake and Charlottetown. But, perhaps the focus should be equally strong on our initiatives to assist persons with disabilities; to protect women from violence and children from abuse and pornography; to enhance the rights of Aboriginal Canadians and provide redress for Japanese Canadians; the development of a national AIDS strategy; the National Breast Cancer Initiative; our fight against apartheid in South Africa and our Green Plan which has been described as “a model for the world.”

Perhaps it is because of these and other achievements that, in the last few years, of all the countries on earth, Canada was ranked by the United Nations as either the No. 1 or No. 2 nation in the entire world, in terms of quality of life.

I say to my fellow Canadians: No Government could ever have done what you’ve done!

Look around you. Look at the beauty of what you’ve achieved. Look at the splendour of your citizenship. The world admires what you’ve done for your families, your communities and your country. May God bells Canada and may God bless every one of you.

In one of his poems, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, son of Ireland who became a Father of Confederation, thought wistfully of his homeland and asked:

“Am I remembered in Erin;

I charge you, speak me true,

Has my name a sound, a meaning

In the scenes my boyhood knew.”

I want to tell you simply tonight that all of you – party, caucus and cabinet – will be remembered in Erin – the Erin of Canada’s youth – because you had the vision to see the complex and exacting demands of Canada’s future and the fortitude to ensure those challenges were dealt with in a way that you will benefit our children and theirs.

I want to say to Mila and the children how very much your love and laughter have meant to me – how indispensable you’ve been to everything we have been able to do.

And so, the time has come to say thank you, good night and Au Revoir. To all of you, I say in the words of Yeats: “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say, my glory was I had such friends.