The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Moore Butts Conversation #14 -- Brian Mulroney

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

When Brian Mulroney passed last week so did an era in Canadian politics. But did some of the lessons of leadership that he possessed carry on to new generations of leadership? Conservative James Moore and Liberal Gerald Butts carry on their non partisan conversations on The Bridge, started in 2022, this week with the Mulroney legacy as the topic.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, The Moore-Butts Conversation number 14. How did Brian Mulroney change politics in Canada, and do those changes still exist today? That's coming up on The Moore-Butts Conversation number 14. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in Toronto. This next few weeks, there'll be a lot of memories shared in different places and in different times about Brian Mulroney, the country's 18th Prime Minister, who passed away late last week. It's going to be a state funeral in Ottawa and in Montreal. That would be my guess, and dates still to be determined, but likely a service, as we say in Ottawa, but the main service in Montreal,

which was his, well, his hometown was Baycombe, Quebec, but he's been living in Montreal for the last, well, quite a few years. And as a result, there are going to be, as I say, conversations about the impact that this prime minister had, not only on his party, but on his country, and on politics in general, and that's why there was a more butts conversation slated for this week. It was going to be about another topic, but both James Moore, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister,

and Gerald Butts, the former top Liberal strategist, and aide to Prime Minister Trudeau, both said to me, you know, we've got to talk about Brian Mulroney. There's lots to talk about on that. Man and the impact he's had. So who's to argue with them, right? So I said, absolutely, let's do it. So that conversation will come starting in just a moment.

A reminder of the question of the week. It's somewhat related. It's been spurred on by the events of the last few days. But the question is, if you could name one prime minister in the history of our country who's had the greatest impact on you, and you feel has had the greatest impact on the country, who would that be? So the answers have started to come in in the last 24 hours, and we'd like to encourage you to write your thoughts as well on that. So far, there have been a lot of letters, but they've kind of been, I don't want to say the predictable names, but the names haven't surprised me.

But you've got a lot to choose from, right? Almost a couple dozen. So think deep. And think about why you feel this particular person that you choose is the prime minister who's had the biggest impact on Canada. And on you. Write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com.

Include your name and the location from which you're writing, and keep your answers relatively short. Paragraphs should do it, right? And we look forward to hearing from you. The deadline is 6 p.m. tomorrow night, Wednesday. 6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Looking forward to reading your answers. All right, let's get to the more butts conversation. Number 14 in our series started, well, more than a year and a half ago.

And every six weeks or so, we get together and have a good chat. And this is no exception. So here we go. More buts. Conversation number 14. Well, gentlemen, you know when any one of significance passes, people tend to line up at the microphones and say wonderful things about them. This has been certainly no exception. In fact, if anything,

people have been surprised that the numbers who have lined up at the microphone to say something have not just been conservatives. They've crossed the spectrum of politics and they're saying more than just the obvious nice things one tends to say at a time like this. What does that tell us? What does it tell us about Brian Mulroney and the era in which he was so dominant in politics? Jerry, why don't you start us? What do you think it says? That's a great question, Peter.

And just at the outset, I'd like to express my condolences to Mila and the kids. I know how close they all were as a family and how much they loved their, respectively, their husband and their dad. And James, you and I were just talking about this beforehand. We've all gone through this experience of losing a parent and it's a particular kind of hurt. And I'm sure they're feeling it despite all of the outpouring of love and affection that they're getting from far and wide, from people who known Mr. Mulroney pretty closely late in his life. We got to know each other shortly before my time in the prime minister's office. His good friend and colleague, Michael Wilson, worked closely with my wife on mental health charity issues in Toronto. And I'll tell you a little story about the speech that Brian gave at Michael's retirement

from that effort, which was one of the most remarkable political things I've ever seen in my life. But I think if you could sum it up, Mr. Mulroney was famous, of course, for the big files, the big rocks he moved uphill when he was prime minister, but he was legendary for the way he conducted his personal relationships. And I personally will never forget that about 90 seconds after the news broke that I was resigning from the prime minister's office, Brian Mulroney called me just to say thank you for my service to the public and to make himself available for absolutely anything I needed at any time. And that was a pretty remarkable thing for a prime minister. Well, for a prime minister, but a prime minister of a different party. He was a true mensch. You know, he was a really kind and generous man. And if he could do anything for you, he would. James. I came into politics. My first campaign was hammering up signs in 1993 for the Reform Party.

So my sort of brain was that Brian Mulroney and the progressive conservatives were adversaries and the enemy, along with the liberals and the upstart reform party was coming in. And that was when I was 16, 17. And then over the course of my life, like often it's the inverse, right? Over the course of your life, you see all the warts and you see all the reasons not to like something from the past and how they sort of got things so wrong. With Brian Mulroney, the inverse was true, that as I matured and grew up, got to know more of the rest of the country outside of my physical, you know, knowledge and upbringing and outside of my ideological expectation and got to know more of the country. The more that I realized that, oh, yeah, he was a pretty incredible, great Canadian of real substance and consequence about whom one can agree or disagree with about a lot. But about who his commitment to the country was unassailable, impressive, constant. The interpersonal thing Jerry talks about is

also very true. I didn't have as deep a closer relationship. Mine was more from afar. Met him many times, spoke to him many times. I can't imagine anybody in contemporary times who could have a phone call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and when the two would connect to the Prime Minister's switchboard, Prime Minister justin trudeau would say brian how are you and then they would have a 20-minute conversation about the new nafta negotiations and all that and then he can hang up the phone and then 20 minutes later be on the phone with the white house and donald trump would pick up the phone the switchboard say brian how are you but on a personal first name relationship have that kind of capacity to cut through biases,

temperament, disagreement, agreement, and what have you. And there's a deep disagreement, obviously, with the Trudeau family and the frustration and anger that Brian Mulroney had from Pierre Trudeau not coming on board with the Meech Lake Accord in 1990. That was a deep personal wound where Brian Mulroney thought that Pierre Trudeau did not put country first in his view. And I think there was a deep sense of anger and frustration at Donald Trump, somebody who he'd known for a long time, that he would conceivably abrogate NAFTA. And this big project of nation building, as Brian Maroney saw it, of the FTA and then NAFTA, and that Donald Trump would play politics with this and risk all that. But you park your energy and your anger and you become a statesman and you cut through that and you build on a personal relationship, a capacity to put country first. That's real

statesmanship in a pretty remarkable way. You i i find these stories um wonderful to hear and it tells us something about about the man but you know what i'm a little older than you too i was around before before when he first came into the canadian political scene 76 he ran for the leadership didn't win joe clark won uh then after the 1980 election, he decided he wanted to run again. And he was, you know, let's face it, he was behind a lot of the Dump Joe movement and made that happen. He somehow made this great relationship with Clark after he, Mulroney, became prime minister, and they did some remarkable things together.

But he was a very partisan guy, not just internally in his own party on the Clark thing, but against the liberals. I mean, I used to watch some of those speeches he gave when he ran for leadership, and then when he ran for prime ministership a year later in 1984. And he was down and dirty on running against the Liberals, so there's no question about that.

But somewhere along the line, it seems that he, I mean, he was always partisan. I mean, politics is a partisan thing. But his respect for the other side and sort of the gentlemanly way he related to the other side, something somewhere along the line happened. And it doesn't happen for everyone in politics. And I'm just wondering whether either of you may have some ideas as to how that happened and what we can all learn from it, especially these days where we don't seem to have that at play. Jerry, thoughts?

Well, I think what happened, Peter, was that he won. And that doesn't necessarily make you a gracious person. And it is true. I've certainly seen this in my life in politics and business and in my personal life, that there is indeed such thing as a sore winner, right? But Brian Mulroney was not that. Coming into that office enlarged his spirit, I think. He was a much more bare-kn knuckle politician and opposition than he ever was in government. And I think that that's because he had a baseline respect for the institutions, that he didn't want to see them debased under his stewardship. And whether you agreed with his constitutional perspective or not, whether you thought he was a toady to the Americans or recognizing the geopolitical reality of the day and trying to position Canada's economy favorably within that constellation, you could not doubt that he had a clear idea of what was in the national interest for the country and that he

was primarily motivated by that that to me i remember in high school i was in high school when in grade school and then high school and brian mulroney was prime minister and i remember participating in competing in an essay writing contest this This is I'm competing now for nerd of the year award, but an essay writing contest in at Sydney Academy High School in grade 12. And we were asked to write on fool's cap in pen, which will date me for your listeners, our opinion of both the free trade agreement and the GST. And, you know, it was, I don't think that there are many high school students who are consumed with federal politics these days. There was something about their agenda that you knew the country was being redefined by the government, and that it was going to leave an imprint for a very long time. And I,

for one, never doubted that that's why he was in it, right? He wasn't in it for all of the trappings of power. He was in it to make a very substantial change in the direction of his country. And I really admire that, whether you agree with where he wanted to take it or not. It's been quoted in the press since he passed a few days ago, many times, that he believed that political capital, deficit of political capital when he left and left a deficit to his party but you can't doubt for a moment that he accomplished big things while he was there which is the point of being there in the first place i would only argue i'd only argue with you on one thing he did enjoy the trappings of power. Well, you were closer to it than I was. But, I mean, his main focus, as you say quite correctly, was on big things and big changes, in his view, to make the country better.

There's no doubt about that. Yeah, that saying goes, right? Two kinds of people in politics. Those who want to be something and those who want to do something. He clearly wanted to do something, but he knew he had to be something to do something so he had but he had the he had the wagon in the right sequence behind the horse um and in the politics like you know you say Peter about how uh that he was a real partisan he was an elbows up guy and all that well you have to be but there's a difference between saying the the party uh the policies of Pierre Elliott Trudeau

over the fullness of time will make the country weaker and need to be stopped and saying that the party, the policies of Pierre Elliott Trudeau over the fullness of time will make the country weaker and need to be stopped. And saying that Pierre Elliott Trudeau is a traitor to the country and he can't be trusted and he's an evil man. Like there is a line there and some of your partisans may take the first part and bridge it to the second, but you don't cross that line. You don't cross that bridge. And as an example of that, like he was a true Federalist and a proud Federalist. He chaired the no committee in the 1980 referendum. And of anger still about the legacy and debated about the legacy of René Lévesque is a Québécois, which means he is a Canadian. And we honor his contributions to Canada and his contributions to Quebec by extension. Therefore, his contributions to Canada. And we respect this man and what he's done. And that built him a lot.

And it was after 1987 that he approached Jacques Perrault and offered him a seat in the Senate to try to build the coalition of people who would be on side and be advocates for Meech, which was to say, to be advocates for a deal that Premier Bourassa was pushing in the Quebec National Assembly, which would, in his view, get Quebec's full consent to finish off the repatriation of the constitution and to bring Quebec into the Canadian family with sort of full embrace. So tactical politician who understood the importance of respecting other people's contributions, even if you disagree with them, but there's a rhetorical line that you don't cross. Really impressive. And so the things that he did, and I also didn't appreciate this as well.

June 11th, 1983, he becomes leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. The first leader of the Conservative Party from the province of Quebec, he was, 1983. 83. It took that long for us as conservatives to have a leader from the province of Quebec. Charest would eventually, of course, follow that. But that's how long and how deep in the woods the conservative movement was and has been in terms of its rapprochement and engagement and understanding of the province of bringing the Canadian family together

and bringing Quebecers into the conservative movement, it will last for many, many, many decades. You know, I'm glad you mentioned the 87, you know, the death of Levesque, because I'd forgotten about it. It said something remarkable about Canada, and you're right, Mulroney helped lead the way on the lowering of flags on federal buildings but I went to Quebec City for the funeral and here was this guy who had tried to break up the country and you know had done the 1980 referendum and he'd said you know all the

things he said about the the need for Quebec to be its own nation and yet there behind his hearse were the prime minister the former prime minister in trudeau as well um the premiers a lot of the premiers it was a remarkable scene it really did say something about how we're different than almost anybody else. I just can't imagine that scene elsewhere, anywhere in the world, that would have had that kind of aura to it. And that, you know, that said something, I guess, about Mulroney, but it said something, I think, about Canada in general. What can the politicians of today learn from the way Mulroney conducted politics?

I mean, this sense that, you know, we've heard a lot of stories over these last few days about how he'd reach out behind the scenes to liberals. We always knew about how he'd reach out often behind the scenes to to his own party, and that helped maintain loyalty and gave MPs, all MPs, the sense that they could make a difference and they could talk to the leader

and they could have dine with the leader at 24 Sussex or have lunch with him and try to impress him on their issues, that he went out of his way to do that. A lot of other prime ministers haven't done that to their peril for some. What do you think we can learn from Mulroney, or at least the politicians of today can learn from Mulroney? James, you start us this time. Yeah, sure.

Well, on that one piece, right, about personal relationships, it's so fundamental, you know, and you talk to any former leader, former premier, former prime minister, or leader who didn't ascend to the office of prime minister, about how much of their mental GDP was devoted to dealing with caucus management issues and what a stress and all that. Because in our system, you know, about one or two percent of Canadians in their lifetime are ever a member of a political party. There's deference to political parties and there's deference to government sort of in our culture. And there are a bunch of reasons for that institutional and historic and so on. But

there is. And so when there's disunity in a caucus or in a cabinet, it's a reflection that the leader must not have a strong hand and must not be being respected by his or her team, and therefore maybe I shouldn't trust. And so when you have backbenchers, whether it's John Ananziata or others, we had Bill Casey, Danny Williams as a premier breaking away from the conservative movement when Stephen Harper was in government. When that happens, I think a lot of people sort of take a step back Williams as a premier breaking away from the conservative movement when Stephen Harper was in government.

When that happens, I think a lot of people start to take a step back because it's a reflection of internal capacity. And I remember I came into office as a member of parliament in 2000, which is seven years after the two-seat Progressive Conservative showing in the 1993 campaign. And I remember going around between 2000 and until the Conservative Party of Canada was created in 2003 in that window when I was a Canadian Alliance MP, when we were trying to bring the parties together. How many people, 10 years after the two-seat defeat of 1993, were absolute Brian Mulroney loyalists. Their party had been crushed and decimated. Some would

blame the campaign of Kim Campbell, but come on. I mean, the foundation was laid for a whole bunch of reasons, which we can be able to talk about in a minute, but that personal loyalty and the, and the don't, don't come out. And like, and just that unwillingness to break, you know, a decade later from the party and to sort of walk away from the progressive conservative banner and the legacy of Brian and still defending the GST and still defending even after Meech going on to Charlottetown and sort of obsessing about this Quebec constitutional question and getting a deal for Quebec and

getting a new constitution for the whole country that would embrace everybody and spending years and years and years on this in the face of other challenges the country faced. And they would still defend that 10 years later. It spoke to sort of his, the personal bridges that he built. And I think, because I think he understood that once you have a fracturing of that personal loyalty of the people who know you best and as a symbol of, you know,

the solidarity that people should trust in you as a prime minister, not being afraid and how important that was. I think that's a real lesson for leaders, that you have to spend time building those relationships because of all the things that didn't go well for his government and didn't go well for him politically, he had the iron backbone of the majority of his caucus

for years after he left office. Not setting aside the Bouchard issue, setting aside the Reform Party issue, which were sort of tectonic things, but those who were with him who would ride or die right up until those breakaway moments, you know, stayed with him all the way up until today. You'll see them, you know, defending his legacy forever and for eternity. They still have gatherings on September 4th each year to remember the September 4th victory in 1984, which at the time was the, and still is, the largest majority government that any party has achieved in this country. Jerry, on this point, I think the most important thing that Mr. Mulroney could teach today's generation and tomorrow's and politicians is just how important relationships are.

And those are relationships with your caucus. Absolutely. I agree with everything James said, but it's also relationships with your adversaries and relationships with your colleagues internationally that I think that it's coming out in some of the coverage reflecting on his legacy at his passing. But I don't think Mr. Mulroney ever got the credit in Canada he deserved, for instance, for apartheid. And if you speak to a British public servant or an American public servant or a foreign service officer from that period, that is the thing that they remember about Brian Mulroney. And I think it's important for people to appreciate just how difficult that must have been for him to do. Because when you're sitting around, let's just take the G7 table as the primary example, sometimes G8, now G7. The two natural allies around that table for Canada are the United

States of America and the United Kingdom. In fact, we owe our presence at that table to the United States of America. A little known piece of history. It was Gerald Ford that insisted that Canada be part of the G7 in the first place. It's really difficult to go against both those people on a core moral issue where you are pretty much accusing them of having their, if not being immoral in their foreign policy stance, certainly not having their moral compass aligned quite to true north. And Brian Mulroney had built a strong enough relationship with both the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, two enormous personalities, the two people

who dominated his political movement globally. And he was able to disagree with them on a principled basis and remain not only friends, but have a constructive working relationship with both of them bilaterally. That's a truly remarkable feat of diplomacy when you think about it and spoke at their funerals yeah and spoke at both of their funerals yeah right that's like what does that say is that on a very public stage and in a very self-righteous way earned but in a very self-righteous way distinguished himself and against against both of those leaders and then and then later was invited by them and their families in their dying days to speak at their funerals. I mean, disagreeing with somebody about how they're confronting

or not confronting apartheid in South Africa and not showing sufficient solidarity with Nelson Mandela. And then 10, 20 years later, being invited to provide the eulogy at their funerals to speak about their character. I mean, that's a pretty dramatic bond and also a sense of deep respect about how he chose to go about his dissent publicly and to speak about the dissent publicly in speeches and in books and in um and in interviews for many many years afterwards and not do so in a way that was so grating or self-righteous that it alienated you from your friends that being disagreeing being in disagreement without being disagreeable um that capacity is uh again enormously impressive well in being a in being a good winner again

right that and i don't want to create the impression, Peter, that I think too much is made at this point. You hear it all the time. They have a good relationship. every problem gets more difficult to solve. And Mulrooney understood that better than any politician in my lifetime. Not the exact point, as I had it explained to me. Like, if you ever bought a car or wanted to buy a car and you see a car and you say, I can't believe how good a car, like, I can't believe it's only that much. That's exactly what I want. And it's here. And they're offering for that. But you don't like the sales guy? I just don's only that much. That's exactly what I want. And it's here. And they're offering for that. But you don't like the sales guy?

I just don't like that guy. I don't want it. I don't want it. I don't want a piece of this is going to be his commission. I don't want to do business with that guy. Not interested. So there's a dynamic of that that's in public life as well, right? I like the South Africa story and the discussion around Mulroney's value on the end of apartheid and the release of Mandela, all of that.

Because I, like Jerry, and I assume you too as well, James, don't think that Mulroney gets enough credit at home for that. I think he gets a lot of credit outside of Canada for it. I don't think Canadians themselves recognize how important a role that he played and, in fact, we played in making that happen. But there were two important lessons, and he was never shy about talking about them about his position. I mean, it grew out of his early days as a youth PC member,

and Diefenbaker's move in 59 and 60 to have South Africa pushed out of the Commonwealth over apartheid. But he made it happen in the 80s with the help of two people. Joe Clark, who felt equally the same, and they'd had their obvious rough relationship over time but his un ambassador canada's un ambassador where he reached over political partisan lines got stephen lewis on board and you know stephen lewis talks about and mulroney has talked about their their relationship and their common bond on on making that work But still, having said all that, trying to imagine what it must have been like for him in those private sessions with Thatcher, the Iron Lady, and basically wagging his finger at her.

I'm not sure he wagged his finger, but you can see them in the confrontation and Mulroney saying to her, Margaret, you're putting your country on the wrong side of history here. You've got to rethink this position. That took, you know, a degree of courage that you don't often see, or at least we don't often hear about. True. But to your point about Prime Minister Clark and drawing him into his government, I mean, it was, as you said, I think in the beginning, like it was a pretty ugly and vicious campaign around, I mean, when they competed against each other for leadership in 76 and then 79 and the

defeat in 80 and all of that. And it was not a clean, smooth transition from one to the other, but the assembly of a team of rivals. in part it's because, you know, his statesmanship and his capacity to build bridges and to build these personal relationships, that's all true. But I think part of the, part of the mortar that binds those bricks together is also, it's not just personality and, and, and being able to get along with people. It's part of it. But the

other part of it is having a focused agenda and clarity and having people buy into an agenda and people consent to working together for a bigger goal. And for the sake of the conservative movement, that's always been the case, right? We say as conservatives that liberals need to love their leaders, but conservatives need to respect our leaders. We don't really love our leaders, but we respect them. And we respect them in different ways because it's either because of their resume values and their abilities and their accomplishments and sort of there's this deference. Or more often is the case, it's that, but it's assistered with a focused agenda and clarity. And what Brian Mulroney wanted to do later, particularly with regard to meat and free trade, those two things,

brought a lot of people together across differing boundaries and differing aspirations and, and focus on this. I mean, there's a private sector example of this, right? Like the, the, the greatest non-governmental movement in North America in our lifetimes is, was mothers against drunk driving, right? Which focused relentlessly on, you know, non-governmental movement in North America in our lifetimes was Mothers Against Drunk Driving, right? Which focused relentlessly on, you know, blood alcohol levels and equipment. And they said, I don't care if you're pro-life, Republican, pro-choice, pro-gun, anti-gun, I don't care about any of those things. If you're focused and you believe that we have to have tougher

drunk driving laws, you're welcome in our movement. And they did that and they've moved the needle massively when it comes to drunk driving laws. Well, Brian Mulroney, his relentless pursuit of an agenda that Canadians across regional boundaries, across linguistic barriers, across historic grievances, across the law can focus and be committed to something, a big project, free trade and national unity through a renewed constitution in Meech, that ability to open the doors and bring people in focused on that agenda and then have the charm layered on top of it. That was the secret sauce. I think of his, his success, success in free trade, defeat in Meech and later Charlottetown, but that was his formula is getting people to focus on something better,

bigger than themselves and to feel part of it. And sort of endless energy towards a limited list of goals is, is again, one of the lessons that politicians, regardless of background or partisanship can take from, from his time as well. I've, I got to take a break here, but before I do, I want to, I just want to get a sense from you on this. You know, as I said, at the beginning of the program, when somebody of significance passes, people line up to say wonderful things about them. And a lot of wonderful things have been said about Brian Mulroney

in the last couple of days. I mean, this prime minister did cause divisions around big issues, big subjects. There's no doubt about that. He left at a time when not everything was nice being said about him for a number of different reasons, not just some of the issues and policies that he pushed. Have we been kind of over the top on this?

I don't mean we in terms of this discussion, but I mean generally the kind of coverage that's come as a result of his passing and the kind of level at which he's ascended to in his passing. Have we been over the top, Jerry? Well, I don't think so, but I do think that there's a great paradox at the heart of Brian Mulroney's time as prime minister and its aftermath. On the one hand, he's universally lauded for conducting these relationships with such sophistication and mastery over a long period of time, mostly for the betterment of the country. But on the other hand, his party split in three at the end of his leadership, and it took a decade to put it back together. And you could argue that it's never really been put back together, that the current manifestation of the Conservative Party is much more like the one of those three

wings than the other two. So I think that's a huge conundrum when you're reflecting on the legacy of Brian Mulroney, that we ended up with a durable separatist federal party in parliament for what's going on now, 20 plus years, that were more 30 plus years. I'm dating myself there. And we had a protest movement out West that refashioned and took over the conservative movement and turned it into something that whatever you think of it, it's not what Brian Mulroney would have led. So I think that that's a really difficult paradox of Brian Mulroney would have led. So I think that that's a really difficult paradox of Brian Mulroney's leadership that on the one hand, everybody he touched has nothing but good things to say about him. But on the other hand, the party that he led split in three never to

be reunited. Are people being too kind? I think there's a grace that's being shown to Brian Mulroney now in the days after his passing that That was also shown to Pierre Elliott Trudeau. That was shown earlier this year as well to Ed Broadbent and others. I just think there's a decency that's owed and earned. And so there's that. There has been debate over the years about his record. To Jerry's point, and we can talk about some of the lessons of Brian Mulr the, from the defeats and from the failings and disappointments of his time. To your point though, Jerry, about the progressive conservative party sort of blowing up after his,

his leadership, it goes, it's, it's, it's sort of the, it's, it's the back edge of the knife blade that you talked about, you know, earlier, right. That you build political capital and you spent it. Yeah, he spent it. Right. And so the, you it, right? And so the coil that's packed most tightly explodes the most violently because the pressure that you put on it. And he put a lot of pressure on the coalition and the movement. And when you say to Western Canadians that Quebec will be a distinct society within a constitution to be determined later by the courts of what that means, there's a lot of Western populists who kind of go, I don't really know that I'm comfortable with that. Right. And you have a guarantee of Senate seats and you have a guarantee of, of, of, of seats in the house. And he's like, there's, there's a dynamic there that, that is not comfortable to

a lot of people. And so he, he, he rode that edge as far as he could to try to get the accomplishment and then it blew up. And again, we can, we'll, we'll talk about that. And I guess after the break shortly, but, but on your question, Peter, though, are we over the top? I don't think so. Because I think this is the, this is the good of Canada where we, we would talk, you know, nicely about people. And by the way, I do hate it. I have to say, I hate this part. I hate this part about, about, about tributes that you see on TV. I don't know who, I know hate it. I have to say, I hate this part. I hate this part about, about, about tributes that you see on TV. I don't know who, I know who it was, but I'm not going to do it, do it here and sort of defeat my own point or whatever.

But I hate when people say, you know, Brian Murray's passed away. You know, I don't, I never voted for the guy and I totally disagreed with him, but isn't it really so sad? Like just leave the first part out. Just be gracious. Be nice. Ed Broadman passes away. I'm not a New Democrat. I never would have voted for him. I disagreed with the man, but boy, what a lie. Just leave the first part out. Just be nice. Just be good. Be nice to people. It just drives me crazy when I see that all the time. You're an NDP member of parliament and a deputy leader. We know you don't agree with Byron Moroney.

You don't have to lace that in your base knows that you're good. Your next fundraising letter will get a return. Just be nice. I will, I will know before you go to break Peter, that there was one very prominent Canadian who did not afford Pierre Elliott Trudeau that grace period after he passed and published a screed against him the day of his funeral in the National Post. And that prominent Canadian was Stephen Joseph Harper. Oh, well, that's another story. I guess you've lost your support, Jerry. Okay, we're going to take that break and be right back after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to the latest of the Moore Butts Conversations. And not surprisingly, with James Moore and Jerry Butts, we're talking about the impact of Brian Mulroney on the country and on politics in our country. We've only got a few minutes left. That first half was really the first three quarters of our time slot. But here's what I wouldn't mind on the final segment. You both kind of introduced little bits of your own personal stories or your awareness of certain stories that involve Brian Mulroney.

I'm wondering if you could go a little further, deeper down in the memory bank and tell us. People love the anecdotes. You know, they love personal anecdotes about issues and other people. So give me something on that front, something that either impacted you personally or you know of others that he impacted by something he did or said. Here's an, I got a funny one. Okay. It won't be endearing, but it's funny and good because he's also a man with an incredible sense of humor, right?

If you look through the history of his speeches. So going into the way back machine, the Canadian alliance created in 1998, 99 reform party couldn't gain and become a national party. We're, we're, we're trying to, we're trying to come on and be the new national conservative party in the 2000 election campaign. There's a leadership going on. Stockwell day wins came in. Preston Manning came in second place. And third place was Tom Long. Tom Long was a campaign manager for Mike Harrison, 95 mike harrison 95 you know well respected in the conservative movement hadn't run for office before and it was discovered by the national post and a few others that um dead people were showing up in the membership of the conservative party you'll remember this peter there was one riding in the

gas bay peninsula gas bay idla medlin riding, which prior to the leadership race had about three and a half members, maybe. No membership at all. And then upon investigation, there were something like 1,300 members of the party in this one riding. Well, how does that happen? So, of course, reporters go to the Gaspé Z and they get the membership list, which was available now to the other contestants for the leadership. They said, here's a list of 1,300 people in this riding that had three members before the leadership started. Go knock on their doors and ask them how they became members of the party. And one by one, they went through the list.

So what happened on the back end was that people who were hired in one of the campaigns, it turned out to be Tom Long's campaign, and Tom didn't know apparently, is that people were paid a commission for signing people up, right? There was a reward system. You sign somebody up to the party. So people were going into the phone books and just signing people up and submitting it and then getting a commission

on the back end of those memberships. It was a huge scandal, eventually effectively sunk Tom's candidacy for the leadership. But out of the something like 1,200 people who joined the party in this one riding, they found out that there were people who were dead. They died many years ago, and they were now active members of the Conservative Party, apparently, because they were roguely signed up by some corrupt apparatchik who was trying to get some kind of a commission on this membership sign up. Brian Mulroney was asked about this they said what do you if you heard the story there are people who are dead who are showing up in the conservative party membership and and all this like isn't that crazy how what is what are your

thoughts and brian moroni paused and he said well i don't know about that but what i do know is that when i die i hope i'm buried in the gas bazee so I can still participate in conservative politics. That's Brian Mulroney. That's Brian Mulroney. Absolutely. Jerry, you got one? Yeah, I've got two. One's pretty lighthearted and the other one is really sweet that I'd like to end with because it's how I'd like to remember Mr. Mulroney. The first one was he made a admittedly rare misstep. I can't even remember what he said, but he said something he shouldn't have said during the NAFTA negotiations. I think he was revealing something that we talked about privately and that we didn't want to go there in the public. And he immediately knew that he'd screwed up.

It was on the front page of the Globe and Mail. So Derek Burney, I come into the office early in the morning, and I've got two messages from Derek Burney, who for your listeners' behalf was Prime Minister Mulroney's Chief of Staff and then a very distinguished ambassador to the United States for Canada, had called me two or three times. I already had a voicemail from him. So I called him back and I said, so I think I know why you're calling, Derek.

And he said, yes, Mr. Mulroney really misstepped and he's sorry, etc., etc. And he had this long speech for why Brian was sorry. And I paused and I said, Derek, I think what you're really telling me is these jobs are a life sentence. That Derek was still doing the job that he thought he'd left 20 years ago. And of course, Brian called himself and said, you know, told the prime minister, I'm very sorry. And I did not mean to say what I said, Jerry, et cetera, et cetera. So I thought that was quite revealing and again, reflective of how he maintained his relationships over a long period of time, because not every leader of every party

maintains such devoted relationships from their staff over time, to say the least. And then the last thing, and I think this is more reflective of Mr. Mulroney's thoughtfulness and his personality. He, he loves St. Francis Xavier university. And as you know, I'm a proud Cape Breton and half of my extended family went to Todd at, uh, protested at St. Francis St. FX, as we'd call it back home. And my aunt aunt, Sister Peggy Butts, taught at St. FX and was an honorary doctorate there. And Mr. Mulroney was quite fond of her. And he knew of my special relationship with her and how she was a mentor to me. And as you both know, there was established a few years ago, the Mulroney School of Policy Studies at St. Francis Xavier University.

And about a year after I'd left the prime minister's office, Brian sent me a note and he said, I just want you to know that we've received the first round of applicants for the Sister Peggy Butz Memorial Scholarship to go to the Mulroney School at St. FX. And it just struck me how persistent he was in the things that he thought mattered to the people who mattered to him. I never asked for it, never would have thought of it. But he just he picked up on something in our many conversations over the years that he knew that would be particularly meaningful to me and my family, and he was absolutely right.

You know, Susan Delacorte, the headline on her column yesterday or over the weekend was, it's hard to imagine a kind of world without Brian Mulroney in it in some fashion. And she's right on. It is going to be hard to imagine. We're going to hear that voice a lot. You'll hear it in your head. It's one you can't forget, especially if you get a phone call from him.

You knew immediately. You knew immediately who it was. Anyway, listen, this is a great conversation. I think we've all learned some lessons through the things you've had to tell us. And we look forward to the next More Butts conversation, whenever that may be in the next month or so. But for this one, thank you both. I'm glad we talked about it.

Well, there you go. The More Butts conversation number 14. Jerry Butts, James Moore. And I love those conversations. Love them. And I think you do as well. We don't have them every week. It's usually separated by about six weeks,

and you'll see or hear both these gentlemen in their more partisan roles at other times, but on this conversation. They speak to the business of politics in Canada in a way I don't think we get a chance to hear from anywhere else. And it's a great conversation to have and to listen to, and I hope you've enjoyed it as well. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this day. Remember, tomorrow is the deadline for answering the question, who do you think was the best prime minister the country's had? Had the most influence on the country?

Had the most influence on you? So let us know on that. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com is where to write. And you've got until 6 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, Eastern Time, to write in your answer to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. Location that you're writing from and your name, please, on those letters. And we'll pick a winner, and that winner will get a signed copy of one of my books. Thanks for this. Thank you for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Have a great day. Talk to you again tomorrow on our Encore Edition. I should say, one thing you've heard mentioned a lot over the last few days on anything I've been on, I've been on all kinds of different programs, different networks, different stations. I've talked about that trip to South Africa for the lying in state of Nelson Mandela, where I had an interview with Brian Mulroney. It was quite a revealing interview about him, about Mandela, where I had an interview with Brian Mulroney. It was quite a revealing interview

about him, about Mandela, about his relationship with Thatcher, etc. And I managed to find it, and I'm going to play it. I think I can get away with doing that. It was during my time at CBC, and CBC has talked to me about that interview more than a few times in the last couple of days. So I'm going to try and put it up tomorrow and let you have a listen to it. That's on tomorrow's encore edition of The Bridge. All right, once again, Peter Mansbridge signing off for this day. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours.