“Despite his trials and tribulations, his mistakes and failures – both human and political – Canada – Macdonald’s Canada – was a transcontinental nation that truly stretched from sea-to-shining-sea,” Mulroney said. “The four provinces he had persuaded to come together in 1867 under his guidance, were now seven and the groundwork for one of the world’s greatest nations had been successfully laid.”

You can read an edited version of his address below.

The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney: All Prime Ministers of Canada who have followed – including this one – have stood very much in Macdonald’s shadow. Like other giants of the world stage, Sir John A. thought big and long-term.

“Depend on it,” he once said, “the long game is the true one.”

Consider the situation Macdonald had to deal with at the end of celebrations on July 1, 1867. Once the Governor General returned to Rideau Hall and the revelers grew quiet, Macdonald faced a situation on the morning of July 2, 1867 that would have completely intimidated lesser men.

The nation he had formed with his courage and bare hands had fewer than four million citizens. The Great Republic to the south had ten score more. Canadians were divided by region, race and religion. Our governing structures were new and the rookie Prime Minister had, in fact, to invent many of them on the fly.

Most alarmingly, the Grand Army of the Potomac that had marched through Georgia under Sherman and defeated Lee at Gettysburg, was still under arms. Due to British support of Confederate raiders during the just completed U.S. Civil War and with stirrings of Manifest Destiny on the lips of many U.S. leaders, prospects for the new union of the four Canadian provinces – so tiny in comparison and hugging the U.S. border – were bleak.

Between Ontario and the Pacific lay the vast emptiness of Rupert’s land, coveted by many Americans and all but forgotten in the offices of Whitehall in London.

And who was this John Macdonald who faced these challenges without hesitation?

He was a Kingston lawyer who had entered politics at age 29. His first wife had died a slow and lingering death, finally succumbing to a mysterious and debilitating illness at Christmas a decade before Confederation. He and his wife had lost a child. As a boy, Macdonald had watched his own brother beaten to death by a drunken man on the streets of Kingston. As an adult, and like his father before him, this immigrant from afar faced a life-long battle with alcohol.

After Confederation, he and his second wife, Agnes, would be forced to watch helplessly as their beloved only child, Mary, was stricken with hydrocephalus.

In that first term in office, Macdonald moved quickly. Though Canada could not afford it, Sir John A.’s government purchased Rupert’s Land. He then promised British Columbia a 3,000 mile band of steel – the CPR – if they entered Confederation and, then proceeded to build it.

Only seven years after the celebrations on July 1, 1867, Macdonald was removed from office and crushed by the Liberals in the ensuing election.

In 1878, the same Canadians who had tossed him from office, returned him to power with a majority.

Through the years of blistering personal attacks, unremitting and cruel media criticism, allegations of scandal and periods of deep family sorrow, he never looked back. He never whined. He never quit. He was a Leader.

He fought his last campaign during the winter of 1891. The crowds who gathered before him sensed every appearance might be his last.

“Sir John, you’ll never die,” they shouted.

How right they were.

When Macdonald’s weary body finally gave out shortly after that last victory, a nation mourned. 

Despite his trials and tribulations, his mistakes and failures – both human and political – Canada – Macdonald’s Canada – was a transcontinental nation that truly stretched from sea-to-shining-sea. The four provinces he had persuaded to come together in 1867 under his guidance, were now seven and the groundwork for one of the world’s greatest nations had been successfully laid.

As a Canadian columnist noted: “It is one thing for a leader to aspire high and fail; it is another for a leader to aim low and succeed. He might temporarily triumph but the country loses.”

Macdonald aimed for the skies and won. And every single Canadian for the 150 years since has been the direct beneficiary of his vision and courage.