Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Peter Kent: Toronto Mike'd #1446

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

In this 1446th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Peter Kent about Brian Mulroney. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada, The Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball Team and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Brian Mulroney, 1,584. And together, as Conservatives and Canadians, we're going to reconstruct that grand alliance of West and East, English and French, new Canadians and old, and we are going to make a commitment to unity, to change, to growth and prosperity that's going to mean new days and new hopes and better tomorrows for all Canadians. You do not have a monopoly on patriotism and I resent the fact that your implication that only you are a Canadian. If Canada, middle power, doesn't stand for human rights, the defence of human rights

and individual liberties, then what do we stand for human rights, the defense of human rights and individual liberties. What do we stand for? All I'm concerned about is making certain that Canada turns out to have been on the right side of history. I today, sir, as a Canadian, believe genuinely in what I am doing. I believe it is right for Canada. I believe that in my own modest way, I am nation building because I believe this benefits Canada and

I love Canada. Welcome to Episode 1446 of Toronto Miked! Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. The Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, the best baseball in the city outside the dome with eight championships since 1967. RecycleMyElectronics.ca committing to our planet's future means properly

recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed, and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. Good morning. Peter, good to see you. Good to see you. How you doing? Good, good. Is the sound okay? You sound great. Okay. Yeah, I haven't used this iPad for a little while and you never know if the settings have changed or not. No, and you have enough battery for a good 30 minutes. 30 minutes or less. It's like a pizza delivery.

Yes. Okay. Great. Great. How have you been? I'm good. I'm good. I will tell you this. You were here just in November and that was episode 1372. And I've received so many notes, like from across the political spectrum of people who loved that episode because you were basically, yeah, sure, you could speak to what you did, and there was a rationale behind it, and you had this wonderful hybrid of like the journalism career and then the political career. And I will say many, many, many people wrote me or texted me or sent smoke signals to tell me they loved Peter Kent on Toronto Mite.

Wasn't that kind? Well, I enjoyed doing it. And it was fun. And it's always more fun in your in your studio. Right. But this works fine. And we can we can see each other. Yeah, no, no, it's good. I've caught a couple, well, more than a couple recent since then. And yeah, you're certainly busy. I'm busy, but I always have time for a quick a quick zoom with FOTM Peter Kent. So let me just tell the listenership right now. If they missed your debut here in the basement, I would urge listeners to go to episode 1372. And I'll just read the description, it's a long one. In this 1372nd episode of Toronto Mike chats with Peter Kent

about his fascinating career as a journalist, covering the Vietnam War from Southeast Asia, replacing Lloyd Robertson as the national anchor on CBC, writing a letter to the CRTC regarding interference from the PMO, anchoring Global News' first national, entering politics, being environment minister under Stephen Harper, abandoning the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, getting called a quote piece of shit by Justin Trudeau and more. Did you know we chatted for an hour and 41 minutes? It went by in an instant.

We got to get you back here. As good conversation should. We got to get you back to kick out the jams. But I am very interested today, I'm very interested in your thoughts about our 18th Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, because not only did you cover him as a journalist, but then later you became a member of parliament for the party that replaced Mulroney's Progressive Conservative Party. I'm wondering, do you remember your first meeting with Brian Mulroney?

Yes, and that goes back to the 1970s when I was CTV's Quebec bureau chief working out of Montreal. And Brian was a lawyer, an emerging labor lawyer, and had been appointed by the Barassa government, by Premier Barassa, to head the Clich Commission into corruption in the labor industry. And I mean, we didn't have a deep meeting then, but we covered the hearings and Mr. Mulrooney was a star every night on both French and English television. He was perfectly bilingual and comfortable and available to all to talk about the process. So I got to know him. And then later when he ran for the leadership of the Conservative Party at the big convention in 1976,

when there were 11 candidates in the running. You got to know quite a bit better by doing profiles on each of the leaders and spending a little time. And it was one of those classic old time delegated conventions where you could spend time with not only the leader, but his supporters and his colleagues and his behind the scenes fellows. And it was a great convention. He finished third behind Claude Wagner and Joe Clark, of course, won and briefly became prime minister after that.

And then there was another convention in 1983 when Pierre Trudeau stepped down. And Brian came back and ran again against Joe Clark, who had agreed to a convention, even though he had two thirds support of the party. But Brian prevailed and won. And these two rivals became, if not close friends, they became very close colleagues and worked together during the Mulroney government years. Now I'm curious, you know, I want to know what you thought of

Brian Mulroney as a person, as a human, and then also as our Prime Minister, but I'll just interject here to say that I wasn't alive for the 1972 Summit series, Canada versus Russia. I know you're wondering, Mike, where are you going with this? Okay, but there was a documentary series I recorded to VHS and I want to, some point in the 1980s. It was called Summit on Ice. And I remember I watched it because I was fascinated. Even though I wasn't born, I was fascinated by this series. It's just the eight games. I mean, come on the drama there. Wow. But there's a scene in when the game was at the forum in Montreal. You can see clearly Brian Mulroney and his wife Mila walking to their seats

to watch that hockey game at the Montreal Forum. So just, I'm just, since we're, you know, leaving Brian in the 70s and we're going to talk about Brian in the 80s, I'll just say that absolutely there's footage of Brian and Mila attending that Canada-Russia game at the forum? Well, no, absolutely. And he was a, he was greatly loved by many, criticized by others. When he was elected, first elected in 1984, he carried rock star status. He had a huge majority,

and he had exceptional numbers in Quebec. So the Quebecers at that point adored him and he was a celebrity. You said, you asked earlier the difference between Brian as a man, as an individual and as the Prime Minister. Yes. He was a charmer. He was an optimist about just about everything. He had a temper. He could certainly get angry and passionate about things he believed in

and against people who disagreed with him. But he was a charmer. And, you know, a lot of people think that he lost the leadership in 1976 because the grassroots thought he was too slick. They thought he was too smooth. He thought that he was all charm and blarney, the Irish personality and the competence wasn't there. And that's why they looked at Claude Wagner and at Joe Clark. But that charm, as everyone saw in the 80s

after he became prime minister in 84, wasn't a veneer. He had charm, but he also had great talents. He took on huge challenges. And when he became prime minister, he didn't coast. He immediately began shaking things up and delivering on big projects, big changes to Canada domestically and internationally that he had been thinking about and was cultivating all through those years in the 70s as he emerged as a labor lawyer and then an emerging politician. Let's touch, if you don't mind, let's touch on some of these bigger projects.

When we look back at Brian Mulroney as prime minister, he served as our 18th prime minister from 84 to 93. Yep. I mean, there's so many places I want to go here, but maybe we start with free trade. prime minister. He served as our 18th prime minister from 84 to 93. Yep. I mean, there's so many places I want to go here, but maybe we start with free trade. I mean, you were covering this, of course, as a journalist, but tell me about Brian Mulrooney and free trade. Well, first of all, much of Brian's time in government, I was out of the country, but I was following it from the United States and from and from Europe.

My last job at the at CBC is the Journal in 1984 before I returned to NBC and in the States was to do a post election biography, mini biography of Brian and the family and his background, which was fun. Again, that was a lot of fun after he was elected. But then I was gone. So I observed the free trade debate, the evolution of free trade from the United States. And debate, the evolution of free trade from the United States. And it was interesting because Brian had the good fortune to be prime minister at the same time that there were two like-minded leaders in the United States, Ronald Reagan, and in Great Britain in the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher. So a lot of what he accomplished internationally, whether it be free trade, which I think is his most important legacy, it changed the economy of Canada.

But whether free trade, the anti-apartheid efforts convincing Mrs. Thatcher that it was time to sanction South Africa for apartheid. Acid rain convincing Ronald Reagan that acid rain needed to be addressed. The Montreal Protocol to get rid of the hydrofluorocarbons that were causing the hole in the ozone layer. All of these things that he achieved internationally were partially enabled or, well, they were enabled by that relationship with President Reagan, first of all, and with Prime Minister Thatcher. And he could be very persuasive, whether it was singing Irish eyes or smiling, you know,

that famous, that famous, I still get a little emotional when I see that. Oh, the world seems bright and gay And when I reply, that's the end Sure, they'd steal your heart away And when I reply, that's the end away. And Brian's eulogy at the Reagan funeral. There was political camaraderie, but there was also deep trust and friendship. Could we revisit that? You mentioned Brian Mulrooney's fight against South African apartheid. trust and friendship. Could we revisit that, you mentioned, you know, Brian Mulrooney's fight against South African apartheid.

Looking back, you know, now it's like, oh wow, there was a time when, you know, Margaret Thatcher needed convincing on this matter, but can you give a little context to the younger listeners as to how important Brian Mulrooney's stance was there in the fight against apartheid in South Africa? Well, it was very important and Margaret Thatcher was not initially prepared to act on South Africa. Great Britain as the head of the Commonwealth, she, I believe, I understand, I mean, I was NBC's

chief euros, European correspondent in London at the Times. And I went to Downing Street for briefings by her, by her communications guy once a month. And their focus was more on managing the relationship than isolating South Africa. And they were persuaded by Mr Mulroney, by Brian, and basically, I forget the line, I don't have the quote in my back pocket, but it was something to the effect that Brian said, history will remember your position on this issue. And not long after that, Margaret

Thatcher came onside. Well, this speaks to the man's humanity. I'm trying to understand, you know, Brian Mulroney, the man and his, you know, as a politician, and this does speak to the man's humanity, because I'm trying to understand, you know, Brian Mulroney the man and his, you know, as a politician, and this does speak to the man's humanity. Well, no, absolutely. And the same thing on the Middle East. He is remembered in Israel by a succession of prime ministers through the through the 80s into the 90s and and and still today he was recognized

by the with a a Herzl Foundation honor just I believe last year maybe two years ago for his consistency in supporting the right of Israel to exist and and to defend itself. When Joe Clark was his foreign minister, the two of them disagreed. Joe was a little more sympathetic to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians at the time. And I remember doing a fireside chat with Brian a couple of years ago at a fundraiser for one of his former chiefs of staff, Stanley Hart, and

basically he reminded the room that he prevailed over Joe's tendency to want to tilt more towards Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian side. So he was, yeah, no, he was, he had great environmental beliefs, he had great humanitarian views, he had a real feeling for justice, social justice, I believe. And it was interesting to see him take on some fights, unpopular fights in which he eventually prevailed. Free trade is probably one of the biggest. John Crosby, who ran against him in the leadership

in 1984, had originally been for free trade, and Brian had been against free trade before his election. And there's another line again, I'm not very good at accurate quotes, but there's a line that John had been saying in his sort of forceful way, you got to, you know, it's time to get into the world, to recognize international trade and to, you know, it's time to get into the world to recognize international trade, and to, with our largest trade partner, have a treaty on freer trade. And Brian came back with

a line about the Canada and the elephant and basically said, if the elephant ever rolls over on trade, we're done. But he changed his mind. That wasn't a big issue in the 84 election. They had had that disagreement in the leadership. But as we saw, he became a passionate champion of free trade and realized that it was time. And it changed the Canadian economy as the GST did at the same time. So a formidable guy who took on really big challenges and important challenges for Canada

and for Canada's relationship with the world, and he prevailed. Well, you said the G word. Is that a word? It's not really a word, but GST. I was going to ask you about that because, of course, as I recall, and again, you were out of the country watching, monitoring things very closely, of course, but didn't Kretschian run on reversing the GST? This was in the election, he was critical of the GST because it was very unpopular. But he backed away from eliminating it, and he took full advantage for the early years of the Kretchen government to reap the huge windfall. The GST was actually a larger tax than was necessary to reduce the GST and it brought in an abundance of tax dollars. And it helped Jean Chrétien and his finance minister and the government, Paul Martin, to reduce the deficit. But then it was time to reduce the GST. And as we saw, it was reduced somewhat.

And then, of course, Prime Minister Harper took it down significantly. And today we have the HST, which replaced the harmonized tax, which replaced the goods and service, the original goods and service tax. Okay. So we've discussed a lot of the pros here. We talked about free trade. We talked about GST. We talked about his humanity, particularly his fight against South African apartheid and of course acid rain and and these other wonderful measures that we look at positively but let's just address the fact that in in 1995 the RCMP accused Brian Mulroney of accepting kickbacks on the sale of Airbus airplanes to the government owned airline during his time as Prime Minister. What is your what are your thoughts on those those allegations those serious allegations that were made in the mid-90s?

Well, it was a scandal. I mean, Brian was, as all of us are, an imperfect man. His first term in office from 84 to 88, had, because the Conservatives were coming to power with very little experience in the previous decade and a half of being in government and there were scandals. He appointed a number of friends who let him down and there were a number of scandals, none of which involved him, but they reflected badly on his leadership as prime minister. Still he was elected, re-elected in 88 and there was the purchase of the air buses for

Air Canada, and it came to light that there had been, after he left office, some dealings with a German lobbyist for the Airbus sale who had delivered large amounts of money in paper bags to Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber was the was the guy's name. The RCMP never found anything material in the 90s. But in the 2000s, after the turn of the century, there was a judicial inquiry to as further information had become available. And there was a judicial inquiry. Mr. Justice Oliphant, I think, was the judge. And there were some very embarrassing details that came out in that inquiry about the paper bags of money. And there disagreement over between Karlheinz Schreiber's testimony and Mr.

Mulroney's testimony over how much money had been involved, $200,000 or $300,000, I think. And the judge criticized a number, some of the testimony from Brian, but at the same time when the inquiry was over, he found that there was no criminal wrongdoing. And I think the line again, I'm not good on precise quotes, but he said something to the effect that Mr. Brian Mulrooney had broken his own personal ethical code but hadn't committed a criminal offense. Still, it was a stain and it was a mistake and it was, it reflected again, human fallibility. But I think that Brian Mulroney's accomplishments through his life, that Brian Mulroney's accomplishments through his life, both in and out of office, far outweigh the negatives and say the Airbus Scandal. Now, Peter, you might not be great at precise quotes, but what a fantastic memory. So you make up for the, you have a fantastic memory.

The reason we are friends today, Peter, is because of Banjo Dunk and Framelin. That's right. Had lunch with him yesterday. Oh, okay. He said to note last night, maybe he got inspired by having lunch with you. He wrote, I told him I was going to chat with you. Okay. There you go. Cause he wrote on my first thing you notice Banjo Dunk has to promote a sub stack page. So he writes on my sub stack page and then he wants you to know it's banjo dunk dot sub stack dot com. And I'll just tell the listenership dunk is with a C as in Duncan. So everybody go subscribe banjo dunk at sub stack. Sorry banjo dunk dot sub stack dot com. I got to get it right or dunk will be mad at me. But he writes, I wrote about my one and only encounter with Brian Mulrooney in 2017 at

the Hall of Fame event. The story is about Stomp and Tom Connors and Brian Mulrooney, his least favorite prime minister. My question for Peter, did Brian have a sense of humor? He had a great sense of humor, but I think Duncan, as he recounted over Singapore noodles yesterday at lunch, when he confronted him in that situation, Brian must have been preoccupied with something else because he was not amused according to Duncan. I certainly have no reason not to not to accept Duncan side of that story. But oh, yeah, no, Brian had a had a great sense of humor. But in this case, it didn't reveal itself to Duncan. You knew he had a decent sense of humor when he's singing when Irish eyes are smiling there with Ronald Reagan. I mean, there's a good clue right there that he can roll with it.

Well, and he was self-deprecating in a lot of ways. You know, when I was in government, when I was the junior foreign minister, the minister for the Americas, I invited him with some criticism from some of my caucus colleagues at the time because it was so close to the end of the Oliphant Inquiry. But I invited him to foreign affairs and we celebrated the 20th anniversary of Brian leading Canada in 1990 into the Organization of American States, which was important for Canada. I mean, it's our hemisphere. They are our neighbors. Canada has great interests throughout the Americas, the Caribbean, the

Central and South America. And he came to that. He came to that event. He glad handed all of the ambassadors who were there. And then he spoke passionately about the importance of the treaty, about belonging to the Organization of American States, and of all the things we need to do to develop the economy and promote democracy in those member states that are less than fully democratic. And I mean, he was the star that night. Lawrence Cannon, who was the minister, spoke and was always, as always, was eloquent.

And the OAS ministers all spoke. But Brian again stole the show. He had a great sense of humor. Stanley Hart, one of his chiefs of staff used to say, Brian had a talent for hiring smart people, for making smart, bringing smart people into the circle. And he brought Stanley in, and Stanley joked and was part of all of the big initiatives that that Brian embraced. But Stanley said, I make the snowballs and Brian throws them. And Brian was generous in saying, yeah, I didn't do this on my own. I was surrounded by people who were smart, who had talent.

And then I carried I got to carry the ball and got either the approval or the disapproval, depending, depending on how the day went. And of course, when he left office, his his poll numbers were terrible. You know, 10 years for a prime minister, he didn't quite make 10 years, almost nine years, or just over nine years. 10 years is sort of the best buy date for a prime minister. Some of them were a little earlier.

I won't go further with that. But yeah, no, when he left office, he was not loved or adored as he was when he came into office in 84. But that, again, in the 30 years since, more than 30 years, he has again been embraced. And as we saw at his unfortunate passing, he was on the front page of all the newspapers across political stripes and recognized for the great things he had done for Canada. Absolut is going to ask you about your relationship with Brian as an MP, but it sounds like it was great.

It was good. Well, both as a junior foreign affairs minister, which I would have stayed in forever, and in my slightly more challenging two and a half years as environment minister, he was always available and encouraging to get us to go the extra mile. He had the reputation, as you know, of Canada's greenest prime minister, acid rain, Montreal Protocol, ozone, so forth. He was encouraging, he was supportive, and I enjoyed those times in government when we did have the opportunity to chat. Now, late last year, I was preparing actually for his son Ben to visit the basement here. And around that time, Brian came out in great support of Pierre Poliev. Again, I can't remember the exact line either, but it was quite glowing.

When was the last time you, Peter, spoke to Brian Maroney? The last time that we spoke was at length. The last time was when we did our fireside chat for Stanley Hart at a downtown Toronto hotel with... He drew a huge audience and folks who graciously gave for the Stanley Hart Education Foundation. And we had a great chat before and after, but paths didn't cross in, I guess, the year and a half since his health deteriorated somewhat. You mentioned Ben Mulrooney. Yes. He gave a wonderful interview last night on global television, global national, eloquent, articulate, loving. And anybody who I'm quite sure that's somewhere up

on the global website who has time to drop in and take a look at that. It really captured the family side of Brian Mulroney. Right, because you and I are speaking of Canada's 18th Prime Minister and Ben will speak about daddy. It's a completely different perspective. Absolutely right.

And I hope that Ben is among those who will speak at the state funeral, because as Justin did at Pierre's funeral, and I remember covering that funeral live in Montreal in the day, it's important to hear from family. The measure of the man by family is always hopefully heartwarming and insightful. Robert Leonard Peter, thanks for speaking with me today about Brian Mulrooney. I appreciate this. Brian Mulrooney No, anytime.

Always good to jam. And one of these days we have to get going on music. One of the times we, as I slowly increase my fumbling proficiency with a bass guitar. I can't wait for Peter Kent in the basement kicking out the jams later in 2024. Thanks, Peter. All the best. Thanks, Mike. And that brings us to the end of our 1,446th show. You can follow me on Twitter or Blue Sky. I'm at Toronto Mike and much love to all who made this possible.

That's Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, RecycleMyElectronics.ca, Raymond James Canada, and the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team. And of course, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow when Randy Druzen makes her Toronto Miked debut. And wander around And drink some goodness from a tin If it's my UI, check ass, just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is coming out Rosy and gray

Yeah, the wind is cold But the snow's so Warm to me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is Rosie and Grey