44th Parl. 1st Sess.

March 19, 2024 10:00AM

Context: House Hansard - 291 - Mar/19/24

Hon. Seamus O'Regan (Minister of Labour and Seniors, Lib.)

Mar/19/24 8:32:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is hazardous stuff, I think, for any Canadian to attempt to pay tribute to a man who eulogized two U.S. presidents, particularly a Canadian of Irish descent. Brian Mulroney did big things. When we remember the scale and the stakes of what this man took on, I think of the poor advisers in each meeting whose job it was to remind him of the risks. When we consider how deeply Mr. Mulroney loved this country, we cannot imagine he was fearless. The man had so much to lose with every decision that he made, but he was courageous. He took chances. He made gambles. He was confident in himself. He was confident in the people around him. He was confident in Canadians. He was confident in this country and, more often than not, he won big for this country. When he was asked about the Hibernia oil platform off the coast of Newfoundland and the enormous amount of federal money he put behind it, Mr. Mulroney said, “If certainty of results and the elimination of risks had been required in advance, Sir John A. Macdonald would never have proceeded with the great endeavors which bound Canada together.” People say he was born in Quebec, but that has never stopped those of us out east from claiming him as one of our own. He was a fellow ex-grad, a son of Nova Scotia and the founder of Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore. It was in a crowded hotel ballroom in St. John's on February 11, 1985, that Mr. Mulroney signed the Atlantic accord with Premier Brian Peckford. It is hard to state what that accord means to people out my way. It recognized what we, as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, brought to this country, that the profits reaped from the resources off our shores should benefit the people of our province, first and foremost. It ended years of conflict between the federal and provincial governments over offshore rights and gave investors the stability that they needed to build a stellar energy industry. Mr. Mulroney had his critics, but he refused to buckle. “I am not afraid to inflict prosperity on Newfoundland and Labrador”, he famously said. To this day, the accord, as we call it, is like the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but for prosperity, and we have prospered. I was lucky enough to be in Premier Brian Tobin's office for first oil, and that was in 1997, a dozen years after the Atlantic accord was signed. That is the long-term vision that Brian Mulroney had, that John Crosbie had, that one needs to have in this job. That was such an important moment in the history of my province, but that moment was never a certainty. It was a fight. It was a fight for our economic future. It was a fight for the rights of provinces in this Confederation and a fight against those who doubted us, who doubted that Newfoundland and Labrador was capable of such ambition and capable of fulfilling that ambition. He never doubted us. Back in 1990, he put up $830 million in federal grants and over $1 billion more in loan guarantees to get that platform built. Then again, in 1993, with a partially built project at risk when Gulf Canada pulled out, Mulroney stepped in with an 8.5% share. Today that platform still stands as a testament to his faith, his faith in us. Mr. Mulroney always believed in the workers of my province. During COVID, he called on the federal government and on me as natural resources minister at the time to support the industry when it was reeling from the impacts of a global shutdown. “Failure is not an option”, he said, and he was right. We delivered almost $400 million to the province to support workers and to lower emissions in the industry, and then we came through with another $5.2 billion for Muskrat Falls. In the midst of everything he did for the people of our country, he still had so much time for this particular Newfoundlander. There are many of us who will tell stories in the coming days, weeks and months ahead of how this man touched individual lives because he understood people. That was the thread running through his greatness. I thank Mr. Mulroney for everything that he did for me on that day, for my province and for my country. I thank Mila, Caroline, Ben, Mark and Nicolas for sharing such a wonderful husband, father and grandfather with all of us. I admired him so much for his ambition, for his humanity, for his love of country. He had faith and he believed. He took to heart the words of the great Seamus Heaney, “Walk on air against your better judgement.” May he rest in peace.

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House Hansard - 291