Canada’s 18th Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, who passed into history one-year ago, would be celebrating his 86th birthday today. Born at Baie Comeau, Quebec, the future PM went on to study in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and then would earn his law degree at Laval in Quebec City. His political skills were honed early on and he soon began his rise through the backrooms of his beloved Progressive Conservative Party.
Though defeated in his first run party leader in 1976, losing to Joe Clark, he would be successful seven-years later, in 1983, and take his place as Leader of the Opposition soon after. By 1984 he was Prime Minister after winning the largest-ever majority in Canadian history.
As Prime Minister Mr. Mulroney did not horde the political capital he had earned but chose to spend it in great causes like negotiating a free trade deal with the U.S., combatting South African Apartheid, leading a host of environmental initiatives that later saw him named Canada’s Greenest-ever Prime Minister, and, becoming the first Tory since Sir John A. himself to win back-to-back majority victories.
He passed into history one-year-ago and historians, political scientists, media commentators and even his former opponents saluted his remarkable contributions to Canada.
For me, it was one of the greatest honours afforded me in my professional life to have joined him as his memoirs’ assistant for five-years. We always kept in touch after that and I very much miss my fallen friend today.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.