Editor's note: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Premier Doug Ford once walked into his mother’s home to the sound of Brian Mulroney’s voice ringing out through the speakers.
The former prime minister was singing.
Diane Ford, who “loved the prime minister,” was playing a CD Mulroney had given her as a gift when she was sick.
“I don’t know if people realize it. There’s a CD out there of the prime minister — all his songs and with his voice,” Ford said in the provincial legislature on Wednesday.
Mulroney showcased his baritone voice on different occasions, including a rendition of When Irish Eyes are Smiling at a fundraising gala for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2017 and alongside former U.S. president Ronald Reagan at a summit in Quebec in 1985.
“She would be playing it all the time. I came home one day and I’m hearing Brian Mulroney’s voice singing. I’m thinking, ‘OK, Mom, where’s he hiding?’” Ford said.
Ford said he once discussed his mother's love of Mulroney's CD on a phone call with him.
"He answered and I said — I always called him prime minister — I said, ‘Prime minister, I walked into the house and my mom was listening to your song.’ He said, ‘Can you pass the phone to your mother?’ I pass it to her and he started to sing. And by the time he was done, my mother was a puddle on the floor. He was just such a true gentleman,” said Ford.
The premier, other provincial party leaders, and MPPs paid tribute to Mulroney, who died on Feb. 29 at the age of 84, at Queen’s Park on Wednesday.
Mulroney served as prime minister from 1984 to 1993. His daughter Caroline, who is the MPP for York-Simcoe, sits in Premier Ford’s cabinet as president of the Treasury Board and minister of francophone affairs. She was the “apple of (Mulroney’s) eye,” the premier said.
“Even after politics, he never stopped serving the people. He became an elder statesman, an adviser to so many of us,” said Ford, adding that Mulroney was his mentor, role model and friend and that he would call the former prime minister when he needed advice.
Ford said Mulroney had a “massive impact” on the province and country, “profoundly” shaping the nation. He lauded Mulroney for driving the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in the late 1980s, which was replaced by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in 1994.
“He’s the reason that today we do over $1.2 trillion in two-way trade with the United States every year,” said Ford, saying that the “larger-than-life figure” was also influential among world leaders like former U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
“He gave our country a confidence that we never had before,” said Ford.
All provincial party representatives spoke of the pivotal role Mulroney played in helping to end apartheid in South Africa.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles highlighted that Canada was one of the first countries Nelson Mandela visited after his 27-year imprisonment.
“PM Mulroney repeatedly called for the release of Nelson Mandela and fought Margaret Thatcher to impose sanctions on the apartheid regime,” said Stiles. “While there’s no question that the fight for liberation in South Africa was won by South Africans, by people organizing and resisting, sanctions were a critical factor in applying international pressure to the apartheid state.”
Sharing her family’s personal experience, Stiles said Mulroney’s other policies, including on international development, also helped.
“We were living in Newfoundland and my father got a contract doing work for (the Canadian International Development Agency), international development in southern Africa, working with the static states,” said Stiles, adding that the project was to “ensure industrial energy conservation” in some of the states where there was much resistance to apartheid.
“And what was important about that was it allowed for those states to remain independent of the South African apartheid state. It was a critical thing,” said Stiles. “It was another way, and I think there were many of these tactics that were used by Canada in that moment to use our policy and our money and our decisions to put pressure to end apartheid. It’s something that changed my life and it changed my family’s life.”
Liberal MPP John Fraser said he met Mulroney during a tribute to former Ontario premier Bill Davis.
“And I don’t remember his words as much as I remember how he made me feel: warm words of encouragement, a genuine interest. And after that conversation, I thought to myself, I understand why Brian Mulroney was so special," Fraser said.
Green Leader Mike Schreiner added to this, calling Mulroney “one of a kind, with his baritone voice, remarkable storytelling ability and his courage to take extraordinary risk as prime minister.”
Schreiner dedicated much of his tribute to what he said was Mulroney’s “game-changing work” on the environment, as did Stiles.
“Securing a treaty on acid rain with the U.S. made our lakes and rivers cleaner; making Canada the first industrialized country to ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity is even more relevant today; his passing of the Environmental Assessment and Protections Act protects the places we all love in Canada; his support for the Montreal Protocol and the ozone layer shows how international co-operation can help us fight existential threat such as the climate crisis,” Schreiner said.
Housing Minister Paul Calandra said he fondly remembers Mulroney because, for most Conservatives of his age, Mulroney's government was their first experience in government, aside from one little "blip."
Calandra was born in May 1970 and was 14 when Mulroney won the second-biggest majority in Canadian history. The “blip” refers to Joe Clark’s short-lived Tory government from June 1979 to March 1980.
Since Mulroney's passing, a number of prominent Canadians have recalled times when Mulroney reached out to them. Calandra said it happened to him on what he described as a “terrible, terrible day.”
While serving in parliament in 2014, Calandra was forced to apologize in the House of Commons for giving non-answers during question period.
“I was alone in the Parliament Hill office. It was like eight o’clock at night on a Friday. I was probably the only one there, and I got a call and it was the prime minister’s switchboard,” Calandra recounted. “Honestly, I thought I was about to get fired by Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper — and it was (former) prime minister Mulroney.
“I'd never talked to him before that point, and he had called and said, ‘Listen, I saw your apology on TV.’ He went on: ‘You’re doing a great job. Don’t let these people get you down. Just keep moving forward.’
“Then we got into this long conversation about family and everything. And I’d never met him before. I thought, man, this is unbelievable. I’m getting to talk to a prime minister and he was paying attention. It was pretty amazing,” Calandra said.
“When you actually needed somebody to call, he would be the one that you'd get on the other end.”
Mulroney kept paying close attention and offering his two cents, especially when his daughter Caroline became a minister in the Ford government. Calandra and Caroline Mulroney sit next to one another in the legislature. Her father would watch every day and offer advice in texts and calls.
“The No. 1 thing he always said, which we try to do, is ‘You might have a message, but answer and then get to your message,’” Calandra said.
The Trillium asked Calandra if he sticks to that advice.
“No, no. You saw me today,” Calandra said with a laugh and a smile.
