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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 291

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 19, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24
Mr. Rick Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets, CPC)
  • Mar/19/24 6:56:15 p.m.
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Madam Chair, those were wonderful speeches by the last two Liberal members. I want to thank them. I would like to start by saying that the Irish have a saying: Family is where love begins and never ends. For Martin Brian Mulroney, the love of family never ended. While the country mourns a transformational prime minister and the world mourns a great statesman, his family is mourning the loss of a devoted father of four and grandfather to 16. He was also a true life partner to Mila, and what a life partnership. He often said that without having Mila by his side, without her love, support and guidance, he would never have overcome the challenges he faced in life. She brought him not only immense love but focus and discipline, and had an ability to work a room even better than he could. Ben once wrote that while his dad was not always present, he was always a presence in their life. He was also present to many others and in their lives. Many of us in the House were blessed to share him with his family. Many of us were lucky enough to receive those famous calls from him to congratulate, console, catch up, reminisce or, sometimes, gossip. In a tough personal time from him, former prime minister Brian Mulroney concluded his eulogy to his friend Ronald Reagan with a quote from the Irish poet Yeats: Think where man's glory most begins and ends,And say my glory was I had such friends. In his terms, he would often say, “You dance with the one that brung ya.” Friendship, loyalty and family were the guiding tenets of Mulroney's life. Upon winning the leadership, the night of it, he stood up in front of all the delegates in the nation and said to MP Erik Nielsen that he was not Erik's first choice for leader, but Erik was his first choice for deputy prime minister, instantly uniting the party after a divisive leadership race. I had the great honour of serving every single day in his government, from the start until the end, when I was in my twenties. His focus on loyalty and friendship shaped the lives of all of us young political staffers who were lucky enough to serve in his government. In much of the reminiscing of Brian Mulroney's life, people have rightly referred to his many transformational accomplishments. Many have highlighted what he did, but I would like to take a moment to speak about how he did it. A staple of his speeches as prime minister was to quote the inscription in the memorial chamber of the Peace Tower, which says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It started with this, a vision that for Canada to prosper, we needed the world to buy what we made. To achieve that consequential transformation, he had to govern not for a political term, but for future decades. What Brian Mulroney possessed was a unique instinct and caring for people. Former premier Bob Rae said that for Mulroney “all politics is not just local, it’s personal”. He was truly exceptional when it came to the fine art of making friends, winning allies and creating loyalty. He was exceptional at bringing people with disparate opinions and perspectives together in pursuit of a common cause. He knew how to identify and marshal talent, and he was a master negotiator. Public life is first and foremost a people business. We must like people and want to help them if we are to succeed in politics. Brian Mulroney liked people and wanted to help. He wrapped that desire up with a heaping helping of vision, stoked it with a burning desire to do big, important things that made a positive difference for his country and our people, and then cajoled, charmed, persuaded and dared whomever he needed to by the sheer force of his personality and the overwhelming muscle of his unique powers of persuasion and oratory. Most importantly, he knew instinctively that to achieve success, we must support allies and friends when they are in need, even at a political cost to ourselves. Their priorities were his and he helped them get them done. He needed to understand why each person, each voter, each worker, each MP, every president and every prime minister believed what they did and what motivated them. He knew that to achieve a great Canada, if we wanted other nations to support us in our needs, we had to support them in theirs. As the only Canadian prime minister to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, he expressed that approach when he quoted Emerson in saying, “The way to have a friend is to be one.” This was his secret sauce. For a prime minister to achieve great things also requires a great team and getting the most out of them. He attracted talent like few others, and they believed in his vision for Canada. He created the cabinet of Clark, Wilson, Crosbie, Mazankowski, Carney, McDougall, Flora, Charest, Mayer, McKnight, Andre, Wise, Masse, Bouchard, Blais and many more. He knew what area of government fit them best and then he let them get to work. He got the most out of them by letting his ministers lead their departments and drive change forward. He trusted them and they trusted him. He often said that political capital was to be spent, not hoarded, and he spent much of that political capital in Atlantic Canada. He spent his formative educational years, the first years away from home, in high school in New Brunswick and then at StFX university in my home province of Nova Scotia, where he joined the Tory club. He was first elected to the House of Commons in Nova Scotia. This gave him a special connection and understanding of my part of the country. Late Prime Minister Mulroney once said, “I consider myself a Maritimer by the baptism of desire”, and so do we. He wanted to return Atlantic Canada to its rightful place in Confederation. The Atlantic Accord gave provinces the right, for the first time, to receive royalties for offshore resources. His government bought equity in Hibernia. Hibernia would not have happened otherwise. These two things are the direct reason that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were able to get off equalization. Late Prime Minister Mulroney thought that regional economic development should actually be done in the regions and not by Ottawa's industry department. The creation of ACOA, based in New Brunswick, accelerated growth as a result of billions of dollars of investments in our small and medium-sized businesses. The frigate shipbuilding contract for Saint John, New Brunswick, transformed the economy of southern New Brunswick. He gave the financial support to rebuild the entire Trans Canada Highway that runs through that province, understanding that to get New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia's goods to market in Canada and the U.S. with free trade, a modern transportation system was required. He pushed for the P.E.I. fixed link, the Confederation Bridge, over a lot of resistance, because a province that produced perishables needed quicker, more reliable access to export markets. The creation of Slemon Park Corporation in Summerside was a vision that converted 200 civilian jobs at a military base to five times that today in an aerospace centre for business. For Nova Scotia, the acid rain accord with the U.S. stopped the destruction of Nova Scotia's rivers, streams and critical forest products. The free trade agreement spurred Nova Scotia's exports to the U.S. and rapid growth in our beef, seafood and dairy products. The result is that today more than 70% of our seafood is exported, with 50% going to the United States. This is why former premier Frank McKenna said that late Prime Minister Mulroney did more for Atlantic Canada than any other prime minister in history. When the former premier was asked by the former prime minister to comment on how his preparations for an introduction for an upcoming speech were going, Premier McKenna said that it was a little too laudatory and that he might have to scale it back. To that, Mr. Mulroney replied, “Frank, you can not be too lavish in your praise. I can handle a lot.” My fellow traveller Mark McQueen, as a Mulroney political staffer, observed late Prime Minister Mulroney's approach to life recently when he wrote: Love and honour your family. Be a loyal and steadfast friend. Seek out new friends and experiences. Own up to your mistakes. Comfort others when they’re down. Find a soulmate and always “dance with the one that brung ya.” Play to your strengths. Let others shine. Live a life of consequence. I will conclude with late Prime Minister Mulroney's own words. If anyone has read Mulroney's Memoirs, they will know they are filled with extracts from his diary as prime minister. The final entry, on June 27, 1993, two days after he left office, reads as follows: I actually did govern not for good headlines in ten days but for a better Canada in ten years. I paid the price in media hostility and public disapproval. But I did so knowingly and willingly. Leadership is about courage, strength, and resolve, often in the face of overwhelming criticism and adversity; it is about taking positions you believe to be in Canada’s long-term interest and sticking to them. He went on: ...I’ll miss the job—caucus, the House, the problems, the achievements, the excitement. But I’ve achieved a degree of serenity.... I leave with a happy heart and a sense of fulfillment at having done much and at all times having done my best for Canada. History is remembering him fondly today, as are we. Until we meet again, Prime Minister.
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Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24
Ms. Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, CPC)
  • Mar/19/24 7:52:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to rise and pay tribute today to a prime minister is one of the distinct honours here, but to rise and pay tribute to a prime minister who so enormously changed this nation, and one whom I knew, is the dream of a kid from a hard-working immigrant family, who in her earliest memories of politics understood that this country is one where success was ours to make. I offer to Mila, Caroline and Andrew, Ben and Jess, Mark and Vanessa, and Nic and Katy, to their children and to the rest of their family, my sincerest condolences as they seek comfort in the memories this country shares with them. Prime Minister Mulroney led a life that can only be described as extraordinary, one that saw him rise from the mills of northern Quebec to the halls of power here in Ottawa, a life characterized by his own devotion to family, community and country, and a life that will have a lasting impact on Canada and indeed the rest of the world. During my time in politics, I was fortunate enough to hear his speeches, his stories, and much later, I would get to know the Prime Minister as someone who he had called, one day on an idle Thursday, to come back to a life in politics, which I had thought for a brief moment that I had left. He was warm, tough and full of colourful language when it was required and deserved. He often quoted scripture, in particular, one passage from Acts; young men have visions, and old men dream dreams. He intended it. I believe it to be a reflection on the nature of things as he saw them and the world that we live in today, but in many ways, it describes his life too. He was a visionary of a continent brought together by commerce, where everyone would be uplifted by the blessings of trade and a free market. He was a visionary of a world united by common values like democracy, peace and justice. The accolades that have poured in from allies and adversaries alike speak wonders about the esteem in which he was held by people from all backgrounds. The respect that he commanded and that he showed equally to others might be the among the best lessons that somebody could learn from this place. Many people, luminaries here at home and abroad, leaders in their fields, have spoken eloquently about that tenure and what it meant to Canada. I cannot say much about what it was like to live in Canada when he was prime minister, but I can say what it is like to live in Canada after he was prime minister. For the economic prosperity that we saw through the 1990s and the 2000s, we can thank Brian Mulroney. For the foundation of fiscal stability that made it possible, we can thank Brian Mulroney. For the long-standing respect and admiration that Canada enjoyed throughout the world, we can certainly thank Brian Mulroney. The very fact that we are here today in Parliament, working on behalf of a united Canada, is a testament to the work he did to preserve our national unity at a time when many people thought it could not be done. All those accomplishments were made possible by a deep and abiding faith to our country, to our people and to what we stand for here as a nation. This place perverts that, and its to his legacy that we should look when we fight for the preservation of values here: to doing what he knew was right, even when it was unpopular; to persevering, even in the face of intense and often visceral opposition; and to an always-resonant voice of moral clarity in these dangerous times. We know one thing for sure. His legacy and success will live on through his four children, who are already leaders in their own fields of politics, broadcasting and business. They, in their own right, embody their father's character, ambition and decency, and I am lucky enough to call them friends. I thank Caroline, Ben, Mark and Nic, for sharing their father with Canada. This is something that is fitting for them, just a few days after St. Patrick's Day, and especially so for Prime Minister Mulroney, whose Irish eyes were always smiling. “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; Love leaves a memory no one can steal.” May those memories comfort you in your time of grief. May you treasure the love that he clearly felt for you and for this country, and may his memory always be a blessing. I know it will be in the hearts of millions of Canadians.
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