After Brian Mulroney’s arrival in Ottawa, the Liberals set a trap for him: a motion to denounce the Conservative government of Manitoba which restricted access to schools in French.
His rivals hoped to embarrass him. If he accepted the motion, he was criticizing a member of the conservative family. If he rejected it, he would alienate French speakers.
This was underestimating Mr. Mulroney. For him, there was no debate. Faced with a hesitant caucus, he put his foot down. He had come to become prime minister, and that required defending principles like the rights of French speakers. The scheme of his adversaries was therefore deflated.
This anecdote, like so many others, gives an idea of the Mulroney method. Through his charisma, his righteousness and his natural authority, he knew how to achieve his ends.
Politics is also a matter of style, and Mr. Mulroney’s was splendid.
Politics is not just a power struggle and a debate of ideas. His story is also a story of personal relationships. Human skills count for a lot, and Mr. Mulroney was a master at that.
Several politicians told me essentially the same anecdote: when Mr. Mulroney spoke to them, he gave them his full attention. He had a gift for establishing intimate contact with his interlocutor. His social intelligence allowed him to be comfortable both in the White House and in a modest factory, and he used these connections throughout his career to make gains.
Who else could have convinced Ronald Reagan to change his speech and his position on acid rain at the very last minute? Their common Irish origins had allowed him to build a bond of trust.
What other Canadian prime minister would have stood up to Margaret Thatcher so well over apartheid in South Africa?
And above all, who else could have tried to reconcile Quebec with the rest of the country? It was the time when people still talked about the two solitudes, and he single-handedly embodied both. He was not only bilingual, he was bicultural. He understood the reality of Quebec as much as that of English Canada and he earned their respect. With the Liberals’ broken promises, he represented this second – and last – chance.
It was Robert Bourassa, then young premier of Quebec, who entrusted him with the prestigious mandate of prosecutor to the Cliche commission on organized crime. He hasn’t forgotten it.
But when Mr. Mulroney came to power in September 1984, his opposite number in Quebec was René Lévesque. Despite their differences, they respect each other. Upon the death of the founding leader of the Parti Québécois, Mr. Mulroney will lower the Quebec flag at half-mast on federal buildings.
As Jacques Parizeau summed up in a biographical documentary of Mr. Mulroney made by Guy Gendron: “The man is honest. »
Lawyer, businessman and negotiator before being a politician, he was obviously not naive. He wanted to win, of course. But he did not seek to crush, and even less to humiliate. For Meech, he literally locked the provincial premiers in a cabin so that they could get along. He mastered the art of effective compromise.
With him the era of the great constitutional rounds ends. His injuries matched his emotional investment. His most painful undoubtedly comes from his breakup with Lucien Bouchard.
His work reminds us that politics is not just a contest to conquer power or a cold debate of ideas. It is also a matter of passion, of style, and the bond will forever remain inimitable.