“Sometimes you read that in a book,” he told me, looking crestfallen. We read that Mr. So-and-so looked at the wall and didn’t know what to do. You say to yourself: “It’s just in the books…” Well, it’s true. I was doing it. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of it. » These weeks of July 1992 constitute, he confides, “the most difficult period of [sa] political life “.
Brian Mulroney held me hostage at the small meeting table adjoining his large Montreal law office. The walls were decorated with countless photos of him with all the greats of the Earth, manly handshakes, smiles in maximum position, postures of a son of an electrician from Baie-Comeau who pinches himself for having climbed to these heights. summits.
For 18 hours spread over four or five meetings, Mulroney displayed his talent as a storyteller in front of me, reliving the enthusiasms and pains that had inhabited him along the way of the cross which had ended with his greatest failure: incapacity. to repair Pierre Trudeau’s error and put an end to the isolation of Quebec in the fundamental text of Canada, its constitution. His colorful story was frequently punctuated by the expression “what mediocrity!” » which he reserved for journalists who never understood anything or — worse — who never wanted to understand anything.
He wouldn’t allow me to record the sessions, which was a huge problem for me. I struggled to write on my sheets all the anecdotes, dialogues and judgments that came out of his mouth, especially since he sometimes lost his temper, accelerating the pace, mimicking the gestures, the tone and the speaking of each person. . I was sorry for interrupting him. Wait, wait, I didn’t want to miss a beat.
The man staring at the wall was contemplating a dilemma wrapped in a paradox. When he was elected in 1984, he pledged to reintegrate Quebec into the Canadian family “with honor and enthusiasm.” (The formula is wrongly attributed to Lucien Bouchard, who had written the rest of the speech. But it was Mulroney, a lover of emphasis, who added these words.) A first understanding, said of Lac Meech, had been shattered in 1990 over the refusal of two provinces, Manitoba and Newfoundland, themselves spurred on by the campaign of Pierre Elliott Trudeau who came out of retirement to treat the supporters of the agreement as “cowards” and ” eunuchs.” A lover of insults.
What followed was a festival of consultations and negotiations led by his minister and former rival Joe Clark. Mulroney wanted—and, in fact, demanded—that at this stage the discussions would collapse under the weight of their own complexity. This demonstration done, he was going to pick up the pieces that he liked, essentially the elements of Meech, in a constitutional amendment that he was going to have adopted thanks to his parliamentary majority, then submit to a pan-Canadian referendum that he thought he could win. So he would have the last word. A lover of optimism.
“We had a strategy,” he thunders. It may have been bad, but we had one. »
He is therefore livid when he learns that, from this magma, a unanimous agreement has emerged. Everything is now ruined by this Clark who did not follow his orders, because “he thinks he is Thomas Jefferson”, one of the founding fathers of the United States. But Clark could only make it happen if Quebec said yes. Or rather Robert Bourassa, with whom Mulroney had privately drawn up his plan. With Robert, he confides, “we didn’t talk every day, but sometimes we talked several times a day.”
What particularly angers Mulroney is the concession made to small provinces to give them equal weight to the others in the Senate, which makes Prince Edward Island as powerful as Quebec, which until then had 25%. senatorial benches. He believes that this concession, without compensation for Quebec, is a political monstrosity that Quebecers will never accept — whatever their Prime Minister says — and which will lead to the isolation of Quebec. “As a Quebecer, I would never have voted for that. Never ! »
From then on, a curious scenario unfolds. The Quebecer who leads Canada will force the Quebecer who leads Quebec to be more ambitious for his people.
He took matters in hand and, for the final phase, brought together the prime ministers and succeeded in closing several breaches that, as a Quebecer, he considered intolerable. Then there is a turnaround. Quebec’s negotiating team, including its Minister of Justice, Gil Rémillard, insists on closing more holes. In a scene that we dream of seeing captured on film, Mulroney comes to snatch the text he has in his hands from Rémillard, shoves it neither more nor less towards the outside of the office, and invites him to practice on himself a sexual act. Bourassa lets it happen. But, overcome by a sudden resurgence of autonomy, the Quebec Prime Minister decided, in the last days, to reiterate a historic request: the withdrawal of the federal government from all areas of Quebec jurisdiction. Mulroney dumps him, other prime ministers jump on the prey. At the end, one of them told the CBC, “there was blood on the floor.”
Stunned and aware that these results cannot be sold to Quebecers by referendum, Bourassa pleads privately with his friend to avoid this ordeal and proceed simply by votes in the legislative assemblies. Mulroney warns him: “I know what to do!” I’m going to the House of Commons, and there will be a referendum on the package [de réforme], and the referendum will be pan-Canadian. » Bourassa is trapped by the other prime minister from Quebec. Doomed to lose together.
It’s simple, every time Mulroney appears in the works I have devoted to the affair (The cheater And The wrecker), he steals the scene. Like in life. He was very curious to know how it would appear in the works and inquired about it. “Have you spoken to the other prime ministers? » he asked me. Yes. “What do they say about me? » I told him. “So, out of 10, how many do you give me in your book? » Um, I would say 8 out of 10. Straight away, he asked: “Where did I lose my two points?” » Well, Mr. Mulroney, I stammered, it didn’t work. ” Yes N. »
In exchange for his frankness, he requested anonymity. I had to fall back on the mention that Mulroney had told all this “to a confidant”. Then, when I published a summary of the investigation in 2012 (The little cheater), I asked him if, as time had passed, I could finally attribute all these extraordinary anecdotes to him. He was not willing to do so. And, dare I ask, after your death, hopefully as late as possible, it will be possible? His response: “You will call me then.” » A lover of humor.