https://www.npr.org/2024/03/01/1235112487/canadian-brian-mulroney-died
Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has died at 84
MARCH 1, 202412:26 AM ET
By The Associated Press
TORONTO — Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who forged
close ties with two Republican U.S. presidents through a sweeping free
trade agreement that was once vilified but now celebrated, died
Thursday. He was 84.

The country's 18th prime minister died peacefully and surrounded by
family, daughter Caroline Mulroney said in a post on X. Mulroney's
family said last summer he was improving daily after a heart procedure
that followed treatment for prostate cancer in early 2023. A family
spokesman said Mulroney died at a hospital in Palm Beach, Florida,
where he was being treated after a recent fall.

Leader of the Progressive Conservative party from 1983 to 1993,
Mulroney served almost a decade as prime minister after he was first
elected in 1984 after snagging the largest majority in Canadian
history with 211 of 282 seats.

The win would mark Canada's first Conservative majority government in
26 years. His government was re-elected in 1988. Mulroney entered the
job with widespread support, but he left with the lowest approval
rating in Canadian history. His Progressive Conservative party
suffered a devastating defeat just after he left office. But in the
years after the loss, prime ministers sought his advice.

"He had the courage to do big things," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
said. "He shaped our past, but he shapes our present and he will
impact our future as well. He was an extraordinary statesman and he
will be deeply, deeply missed."

The man known for his charm and Irish blarney — a gift for the gab —
was an ardent advocate of stronger U.S.-Canadian relations. He pushed
a free trade deal forward in no small part due to his chumminess with
U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Few Canadians around during his reign have forgotten the widely
broadcast Mulroney-Reagan duet of "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" at the
Shamrock summit in Quebec City in 1985, named after the pair's Irish
heritage and the fact that their meeting fell on St. Patrick's Day.
The 24-hour meeting opened the door to future free trade talks between
the countries.

Along with a fan base of fellow conservative Margaret Thatcher,
Mulroney can also boast of an enduring friendship with former
President George H.W. Bush.

Mulroney delivered a eulogy for Bush's state funeral. He also
eulogized Reagan in 2004. Mulroney,

Reagan and Bush became friends when they shared the world stage as
leaders of their countries during the last decade of the Cold War.
Mulroney's nine years in power overlapped with Bush's four.

It was Mulroney's amiable relationship with his southern counterparts
that helped develop the free-trade treaty, a hotly contested pact at
the time. The trade deal led to a permanent realignment of the
Canadian economy and huge increases in north-south trade. Canada is
one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world. More than 75%
of Canada's exports go to the U.S.

"He unleashed free enterprise, crushed inflation, restored fiscal
sanity and concluded one of the greatest free trade agreements the
world has ever seen," Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre
said in a statement.

"On the world stage, he stood firmly on the side of Western allies
against communism and for freedom. He was among the first and most
strident to fight against South Africa's apartheid policy and champion
the cause of Nelson Mandela."

However, Mulroney's administration was saddled with scandals and his
near decade reign as prime minister came crashing down in 1993 when
voters delivered a devastating election defeat to his Progressive
Conservative Party, leaving it with just two seats in the 295-member
House of Commons. He left shortly before the election result.

The defeat came amid widespread unhappiness over Canada's
then-depressed economy. Canadians blamed Mulroney for a three-year-old
recession that left a record number of people out of work or bankrupt.

Under his leadership, a much-criticized 7% sales tax was pushed
through, as well as the 1988 U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, after
more than 100 years of tariff protection. The agreement later included
Mexico in 1994, evolving into the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Prime Minister Mulroney's instrumental role in the creation of the
North American Free Trade Agreement laid the foundation for decades of
economic cooperation and shared prosperity between the United States
and Canada," the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Cohen, said in a
statement.

Mulroney, the Quebec-born, half-Irish "boy from Baie-Comeau" (a
small-town in the French-speaking province), campaigned hard on the
trade agreement following his first term.

But many constituents opposed the treaty, concerned the agreement
would jeopardize Canadian sovereignty. Critics blamed the rising
unemployment during the late '80s and early '90s in Canada on factors
such as businesses moving south to escape higher Canadian taxes and
labor costs.

Former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted Mulroney was
vilified for the free trade deal during his leadership but said
history will remember him as the leader who set Canada on a path to
unprecedented economic growth and prosperity.

Mulroney also irked Canadians by failing to unite the country's then
bickering provinces and resolve French-speaking Quebec's desire for
special status in the constitution, eventually leading to what would
become a referendum on Quebec separation after he left office. The
Quebec separatists lost a narrow vote.

"He helped revive the conservative party. It didn't exist in Quebec
before him," former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said.

Mulroney was born March 20, 1939, in Baie-Comeau, an isolated smelting
town on Quebec's North Shore. The town mill was American-owned.
Mulroney was raised on the notion that American investment meant jobs
for his father and the other families in Baie-Comeau.

Hired as a labor lawyer by Montreal's largest law firm, he later
became the president of the Iron Ore Company of Canada, a subsidiary
of Cleveland-based Hanna Mining.

In 1972, he met a bikini-clad Mila Pivnicki by the pool at the Mount
Royal Tennis Club. She was 14 years his junior. She would become his
wife at age 19.

Mulroney leaves behind wife Mila and four children: Caroline, Ben,
Mark and Nicolas.