The Legacy of Brian Mulroney

Matt Cundill  0:01  
You may also like a show about the things you may also like things like the legacy of Brian Mulroney. Stuart Murray is the host of the podcast humans on rights. We'll talk about that shortly. But did you know that he worked closely with Brian Mulroney? Yeah, I didn't either. The former Prime Minister of Canada died the week before this recording and Stuart Murray share some of his memories about the late Prime Minister

Stuart Murray  0:31  
in 1983. At that time, Joe Clark was the Prime Minister and I was the leader of the PC Party of Canada. And I had just been involved in the music business. And I started to, in Ontario started to do some volunteer work for Bill Davis. And part of that Matt was really looking at, you know, when a politician comes into a room, I kind of looked at it from a rock'n'roll perspective and said, Why don't we sort of jam the music like up and get this crowd going and make it work? So I started doing some volunteer stuff with Bill Davis in Ontario. And then of course, Brian Mulroney came along in 83, and became the new leader of the PC Party of Canada. And during the election campaign of 1984, I spent a fair bit of time on the road with him as a volunteer, just kind of setting up events for him. And the classic story on this thing that is that velocity election campaign, we're doing his massive rally in London, Ontario at the airport, 1000s of people out, and at the end of it, he's flying to his home base in Bay como for election night in 1984. And if you wouldn't know, he looks around and turns to me in front of all these people and says, I'm gonna give you a call. And I thought, This guy is so good, like in front of all these people, right? Sure enough, about two weeks later, after he won in a massive majority in September of 84. He called me and said, Look, would you come and run my tour office and organize all my trips and travel with me and all that stuff? And so I did. I did that in from 84 to 88. Matt, and it was, I guess it's one of those things with the passing of Mulrooney. Last week, it's just become very evident that I was very blessed to frankly, be in places that a lot of people never will ever get to. And it was an honor to, to work with him. Pretty

Matt Cundill  2:15  
wild time. So were you at the Ottawa Civic Center in 1983, when he won the leadership?

Stuart Murray  2:21  
I was not. But yeah, that was some pretty crazy stuff as those all those conventions were, but that was before cellphones. I mean, people had walkie talkies. And were you there? No,

Matt Cundill  2:32  
I watched it on TV. But I was living in Ottawa at the time. I mean, there's another story to the whole thing. I think the year after Trudeau passed me on his walk in the snow. I happened to be outside and he passed me and said hello. But I didn't know that he was thinking about resigning at the time, which eventually led to the election of Mulroney. But I remember at three, I remember all the buzz and activity that was going along. I think there was about eight or nine people who were running for the leadership of the party, and it was gonna come down to Clark and Mulrooney. But what about the election campaign of 84? Were you a part of that in any particular way?

Stuart Murray  3:08  
Yeah, in a big way, that was really where I got a chance to sort of understand that when you set up an event, I mean, it's like setting up a mini rock show, right? I mean, you got to stage you've got a backdrop you got lights, you have to have media spaces for the traveling media. And then of course, the mass of public, as many people as you can get out. And of course, the old adage, Matt, was you always book a room that is way too small for the crowd that you're expecting so that they can spill out onto the street? And yeah, that was where I got a chance to watch Brian in action and got a sense, really, that there was a big change happening in Canada didn't know the numbers at that time, of course. But it proved out that he won a massive election on September of 84.

Matt Cundill  3:50  
So now that we're all looking back at that somebody did mention that that was really the last time that conservatives had any form of true relationship inside Quebec. Is that true? Yeah,

Stuart Murray  4:02  
I think that is very true. I mean, I think that that was one of Mulroney's, you know, when he was out on the stump, and I think when he said, you know, this is the reason you need me to be the leader. And this is the reason you need as a Canadian, you need me to be the prime minister is I will bring Quebec into the Progressive Conservative family. And he did that in a big way. And I think that really sort of changed the face of Canada, of course, you know, we can project forward Matt to things like Meech Lake and some of the things where he tried to bring Quebec into Confederation, which unfortunate at the end of the day was not successful. But yes, he very much was kind of the first guy to really sort of open Quebec up for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

Matt Cundill  4:42  
Was that the promise, get in bed with some of the sort of soft nationalists and in our time, we will bring Quebec into the Constitution and it just he just couldn't capitalize and make it happen in the end. Yeah, I

Stuart Murray  4:55  
think that was very much the the hope and the intent. I mean, I think he was seen as a homeboy Becker, I mean, not that Trudeau wasn't for sure. But I think that that was kind of where he wanted to go. And he saw, you know, Trudeau was amazing to bring the the Constitution here to have that signed in Parliament. But you know, he was short one major province being Quebec and Mulrooney looked at that and said, you know, leave it to me, I know how to negotiate. I know these folks, I have to get to be Prime Minister. But once I get to be Prime Minister, let me bring this country together from coast to coast to coast.

Matt Cundill  5:28  
And invariably, what happened on the other side, there was a couple of unpopular decisions that happened that alienated the West, I think back to some airplane contracts in Winnipeg around you know, late 80s, early 90s. And also Preston Manning going off to start the Reform Party, because just generally being disgruntled with the type of conservatism that was that was happening. So was that partially a result of trying to work with Quebec? Or was it just a different form of conservatism, that how did the Western alienation come about?

Stuart Murray  5:59  
I'm not sure that I can give the definitive answer on that map. But I will say this, that when you look at what was happening in Western Canada, I mean, first and foremost, Don, Maslin kowski from Alberta was the deputy prime minister and Mulrooney leaned on him a lot. And so you have the second most powerful person from Western Canada. And then you start loading up all of the cabinet ministers that we hear from the west. I mean, I remember Mulrooney was used to say, you know, as Prime Minister, I get a chance to appoint the postmaster of, you know, some small town in in in Manitoba, I make one person happy and I upset, you know, 500. So, I think when you make decisions and clarity, I think the CFA teen contract and the CFI contract that would really polarized what happened between Manitoba and Quebec, this is a bit of a rabbit hole for a second, Matt. But financially, it was a much better contract to get the CFX five Bristol contract here in Winnipeg and Manitoba. And it was the 18th. But it was the fact that it went on and on and on. And then it appeared as if Manitoba became a second cousin, and in politics when things don't go well, if somebody's sharp on the other side, and Preston Manning was, uh, you know, he's an intelligent guy, and I have my love and my love affair and hate affair with Preston Manning. He was an intelligent guy, but you'd West once in and one thing that happens and you see it down across the border, you know, Magna, what does that mean? Make America Great Again? Well, you know, for some people, a slogan like the West one Senate, people started looking at saying, Yeah, we do, they don't necessarily understand what it means. But you can kind of grab onto it, and certainly was very successful for Preston Manning. He

Matt Cundill  7:36  
did some things whether it was in the first term or or in the second term, and not everyone was a fan of free trade. And he got reelected based on that work, getting free trade with the United States and Mexico. I remember an early clip, she pulled people twice. So say bye, bye, Charlie Brown, the bye bye, Charlie Brown clip that ran on French media. The GST was not popular everywhere. It replaced the manufacturers tax. But essentially, it was a consumers tax. Doing unpopular things. There were some unpopular things that were good for Canada, but he was stood them. Yeah.

Stuart Murray  8:12  
And I would say that that just if you step back for a moment, I think when you look at where we are today, and you look at politics today, I mean, it's social media, it's 140 characters. I do think that a good fair question to ask all leaders of all political parties is where has the big thinking gone? Like where has the risk taking gone? And, you know, I mean, one thing about Brian, he was never afraid to take a risk. I mean, he took some and when he didn't succeed like Meech Lake, he was crushed. But, you know, that didn't stop him from trying to make a big, big decision or have a vision for a country that he felt was was worthwhile. And you look at the free trade agreement, that 1980 election was really a free trade election. And you know, when I traveled with them on the bus, the election bus, I mean, there were times like in Kingston, Ontario that we had to bring in, I guess it would be the opp on horses, because they were people, they were rocking the bus, and they were against that. And I mean, it really polarized people, but it got people engaged. And I'll make two comments on it, Matt. Number one is, I think, and I could be wrong, and I stand to be corrected, but I believe that voter turnout for that at the election was one of the highest we've ever seen in Canada, which showed that people got engaged whether they voted against or for, I mean, they got engaged. But the second thing is and I think that this is a lesson for a lot of political leaders, is that in 84 Mulrooney mopped the stage with Turner, I mean, it was you had a choice or you could have done better, so that changed things amazingly, in 88. It was a different debate because Mulrooney had four years of governing Turner was on the other side and sort of pointed some things out and was very negative on free trade. And the bait didn't go quite the way we wanted it. And I know that there was some meetings afterwards and there's A lot of political advertising were the liberals would show a map of North America and they would show a big eraser rubbing out the line between Canada and the United States saying that that's what's going to happen. They're going to take us over. And we came back with a big red line and drew it back in and said, That's not accurate. It's not the way it's going to be. My point, simply, Matt, is that there was a lot of concern that maybe the tide was turning against the prime minister at that time around free trade. And there were meetings that happened at the very highest level where people said, you know, what, Brian, why don't you take free trade out of the discussion and say, Look, if we win, if we win, we'll have a referendum on free trade. So let's talk about something else. If we win, it will happen. And he literally stared everybody down in the room and said, do you understand I am running on free trade? That is my referendum. That's what this election is about. And so he stared everybody down. And really what I might take away from it was that those politicians that feel like you know, David Cameron over in the US or even to some extent, we had a referendum on taking down barricades here. referendums never go the way that a leader would like them to go. So my will take away from that as anybody who wants to be a political leader, referendums, put them on the shelf, run on what you believe on, and, you know, live or die by it,

Matt Cundill  11:17  
when I forgot how good that liberal ad was about taking out the line, and I'll put that one right up next to again, another referendum in 95, where Lucien Bouchard and the Paris Oh yes, campaign used the Canadian loonie to spell out the word we as if we're going to be using the Canadian dollar. So you know, we're going to be a kind of little bit half pregnant with the with the sovereignty thing. And as the, you know, Charlottetown Accord goes down. He's tremendously unpopular at the end, even though some other some other I was also talking about some other great conservative things that did happen in that time, including, you know, acid rain, you know, became the party of the environment. And as well, I think there was an introduction to gun control as well, the latter of which the liberals, you know, began to really move forward afterwards. But those are things we associate with liberals now. Matt,

Stuart Murray  12:08  
I'll just correct you on one gun control, potentially, yes. But Brian has been acknowledged by all of the environmental organizations as the greenest Prime Minister in Canada. I mean, that that is on record. That's a fact. And that has a lot of that to do with with what he did with Reagan and Bush was the vice president. And it was all around, you know, the treaty on acid rain and, you know, having an opportunity. I mean, I remember distinctly that we read a g7 summit in Bonn, Germany, and I know that Mulroney was trying to get ready to talk about acid rain. And Reagan came out and went to the washroom and I was standing outside the room and Mulrooney came out in the shot. And he looked at me said, Where'd you go? I said, Well, he's in the washroom. So Brian folded him in. And I can tell you that during that moment, they started a conversation about how do we start, from a Canadian perspective, engage the Americans on acid rain. And of course, the combination was Bush, vice president coming up to Ottawa and some conversations that that obviously led it to fruition. But, you know, those are the kinds of some of the things that from time to time you see, and you realize there's a story to be told there. So it was a fascinating moment, for me personally,

Matt Cundill  13:14  
did a lot of deeply personal relationships with a lot of powerful people, I mean, good friends with Lucien Bouchard till he wasn't George Bush, attending family functions together, weddings and whatnot, a lot of deeply personal relationships. You

Stuart Murray  13:30  
know, when you look at Brian, and his legacy, and those that don't like him, they might as well just tune out right now it won't change them. But for anybody that wants to look at the sky, and sort of just try and judge some of the some of the things that he did, he loved as you say, deep relationships, he worked hard to have a great relationship with both Reagan and Thatcher. He wanted to be part of that club. But on a parthenolide, he parted company with Margaret Thatcher. But he didn't do it in a malicious way. He didn't do it in a way that caused all sorts of media stories and cycles. He basically took a stand, he talked to Thatcher, he knew that she was going to disagree. But he knew that he'd be on the right side of history because of his relationship and his understanding of apartheid. And so, you know, history would show that Mandela then came to Canada and was very, very thankful for what Brian Mulroney did. But the other one you talk about in terms of personal relationships is when Reagan wanted to bring in this whole thing called Star Wars that was going to sit up in the sky and protect everybody from from what might come from enemy fire from across the way. And again, you know, Mulrooney knew that Star Wars was not something that Canadians would embrace. But again, what he did was I think one of the things that made him such a great leader is he took a moment he called Reagan and said, Look, President Reagan, I gotta tell you, we cannot stand with you on this, but we're not going to attack you on it. We're simply going to say that we can't stand with you. And so I think to this day, Matt some of those relationships that he fought sure because he did it in a principled way.

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Matt Cundill  15:23  
the end. Again, not terribly popular, the party was not terribly popular. But I thought I wondered in 30 years, would we be sending our kids to Brian Mulroney Elementary? Would there be an airport named after not terribly revered? But in passing, we all look back and go here, you know, we remember the good times. Well,

Stuart Murray  15:47  
you have to look at the battle that he went through in the goods GST that, you know, people looked at that and said, one of even his own caucus members called it the gouge and Scrooge tax. And you know, what all mo really was trying to do from a business perspective was to take a hidden tax and make it very visible.

Matt Cundill  16:03  
It's simply a consumer tax.

Stuart Murray  16:04  
That's exactly right. And I mean, you know, at some point, that was the simple message, but you look at your free trade. I mean, I remember talking to some of my friends when we Mulrooney was talking about free trade, and people are saying, You know what, I love it, I think it's gonna be fantastic. I'm not sure what it is. But every time I come across the border, you know, I always lie about what I have. So we don't have to lie anymore, because, you know, we got free trade and was like, Well, hang on for a second. That's not exactly the intent of this. But that today, I mean, you look at how free trade has built this economy in Canada. And it's due to obviously free trade, and then NAFTA as it went on. But you know, that was Mulrooney looking at it and saying, you know, if you're making a widget and Bay como, do I want to sell it to 20 million Canadians or 200 million in the States? Why don't we send it to 200 million in the States? And I think history will show that that was a very big, big, big decision to make. And I think it speaks volumes about his his vision and his capability.

Matt Cundill  17:00  
What did he do post 1993

Stuart Murray  17:03  
The history will show there was the issue that too, with Carlson Schreiber. I mean, I think he dealt with that. And I think following that, I mean, the fact of life, Matt, is that where Brian may have had some challenges in Canada. He was an I maybe I'm using too strong of a word when I say revered, but he was very, very well liked outside of Canada. I mean, major boards wanted him on their board. For one reason he knew people he was connected. He understood how the global economy worked. And so, you know, he put himself I think, in in some really good positions, advising and working with Bush 41 and bush 43. I think he also opened himself up to people like Stephen Harper, or he opened himself up to people like Justin Trudeau, when he was working with Trump on the renegotiating the the US trade agreement, you know, and of course, he wrote a book, which I think most politicians do, they want their story to be out. And he did that, I think pretty effectively. But I think what he did very consciously, and I think he spent a bit of time kind of figuring it out. But again, this I think, goes to the intelligence of Mulrooney is he recreated himself. And so when you think about the past number of years when Brian Mulroney was on CBC national or on CTV national, or, you know, if he were to come on your podcast, he would speak as an honest, open, committed true statesman about this country of Canada, and how we need to move it forward. I saw a piece the other day that Hugh Siegel had written something about, we should look at having sort of a level of income for those people in Canada that don't have a certain level of income. And so more when he was talking about how should explore that, and I think the comment was made, can you imagine any Conservative Prime Minister having that conversation today? So I think he looked at what the challenges were of being a prime minister of a very complicated country. And I think he basically wanted to say, if I can help somebody from my experience, call me, oh, help as best as I can.

Matt Cundill  19:05  
And you've been a conservative leader yourself. So what impact did he have on you and your aspirations of being a leader and becoming one? This

Stuart Murray  19:15  
isn't to rile people up, but this is really just to be factual. I was the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. I've always felt that progressive on social issues, conservative and fiscal issues was a great place to be I believe it in my bones today. But yeah, I mean, I put my hat forward to be the Progressive Conservative leader in a product in the province of Manitoba after Gary filmin was defeated by Gary dewar. And it was a great experience didn't end how I wanted it. I jokingly today when because Gary Dewar and I mean, it's one of the things you you make friends. I've always joked with him afterwards and I said, you know, do our I trained you for seven years to be the ambassador to the United States and so you owe me big time. Of course that's completely tongue in cheek but I can say my that this is A great province we have in Manitoba, being a leader of a party, you get a chance to go to every nook, cranny corner, every party, every kitchen, every saw turning every whatever it is throughout the province, and you get a chance to see it up close and personal with with real people. And that was a great experience. For me. I've always said, I think I could go to any town in the province of Manitoba and go in and have a coffee with somebody and I'd be invited in. And I think that's because they just want to talk to people that they think they can help. And I got involved in politics like most people do, because you, you want to make life better for people. As I say, it didn't work out the way I wanted. But it's an experience that I feel really good about. You

Matt Cundill  20:36  
touched on it earlier. And that was Brian Mulroney's approach towards South Africa and Apartheid. And you yourself now have been working in human rights. How did you get started in human rights and human rights advocacy?

Stuart Murray  20:49  
So you know, I was the inaugural CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights that started here in Winnipeg, I mean, when it started it way before me, I mean, Gail Asper, is the Osprey, the Asper family, but we broke ground in 2009. And I was a part of that to oversee the actual construction, and then the working of the content inside the building to sort of how we would use it from an educational tool, a building, it was amazing, the gorgeous little sidebar, Matt, by the way, the architect, Antoine Predock, just passed away, I think, yesterday or today, I just got a note on that. So that's a tragedy, who is an artistic genius, that building is pretty spectacular. But I got a chance to be the president, CEO of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Matt, I'm not a human rights expert. Never will be. But I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a lot of people who were and so I learned a tremendous amount from them and their passion and their commitment. And when I left the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in 2014, I started to get a sense of who is engaged in the province or the City of Winnipeg on human rights issues. And one of the people that I met was a young woman who was at the University of Winnipeg, who had started a Human Rights Hub. It was a kind of a calendar. Her name was Christy McLeod, and she was trying to find out how we could engage more people with events happening in Winnipeg. And she graduated, I got to know her and I took over the Human Rights Hub, just as COVID hit. And it was at that point that I was fortunate enough to be introduced to you and start a podcast called humans on rights. And I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to it's, again, it's not my show. And I think you've been a great mentor for me, by the way on that Mac, you've been very helpful in giving me a sense to understand how you can try to make the program as as positive as possible, by allowing people just as you're doing here with me, by the way, allowing people to sort of tell their own story. So I love the idea of of engaging people, experts, educators on issues, because I learned and I'm just hopeful that the audience that's listening that's engaged learns, and it's a chance for us to feel I think, pretty positive about how passionate we are in the City of Winnipeg about human rights and making life better for people as best as we can. Knowing that there's a lot a lot of challenges.

Matt Cundill  23:08  
You can make a case for Winnipeg becoming a world capital, or a hub, as you like to call it for human rights. Matt,

Stuart Murray  23:15  
that is a goal of mine to work with people. I really think that we need to establish an International Human Rights Award here in Winnipeg, one that is on the same size as the Pulitzer Peace Prize. I mean, I think we need to, to really dream big. You know, Izzy Asper gave us an amazing opportunity when he was another big dreamer like Mulrooney, when he brought the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to Winnipeg, you know, where everybody said why Winnipeg, he fought for it, we have it. I think one of the things that would help us to further the conversation about making Winnipeg that international human rights education city is to establish an international award here of magnitude, and let people put their eyes on Winnipeg and understand why is that a word here? What's the history? And of course, I think the start of it would be through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Matt Cundill  24:02  
You know, if you propose this 15 years ago, and you said to me, Winnipeg should be the capital for this. I would probably say, Well, why, and then wonder, but now here we are 15 years into the future. And I said, yeah, it totally makes sense. You look at the French and the English. And the indigenous populations that had been here. Winnipeg was the gateway for Ukrainians and Jewish and everybody who's come to you know, to shape all the parts of Canada. So yeah, make sense to me.

Stuart Murray  24:34  
And Matt, you bring up some exactly some of the great history and, and I think that it was art moral that gave a speech once to the Winnipeg Jewish Foundation. And he talked about why not Winnipeg, when you talk about the Geneva of the prairies. I mean, you know, we've got such great history. And at that point, of course, he was starting the moral center for peace and justice. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights was coming out of the ground. You know, Lloyd Axworthy, is doing something in University of Winnipeg or around human rights, University of Manitoba was active. So I think what he was trying to say is just what you just hit on. And that is, look at our history. Look how we've been able to sort of solve this working together. How do we now not establish what the next steps are, and that is to make Winnipeg in international human rights education city.

Matt Cundill  25:20  
Well, continued success on the podcast, I love to keep counting. I do my best, but I think you're 70 Plus episodes into the show that started in the pandemic. And here we are 2024. And we are chugging along nicely, and lots more guests, and it comes out every two weeks, of course,

Stuart Murray  25:35  
ya know, and listen again. Thank you, Matt, for all the great work that you do. And yes, last issue was 74. Episode 74 was Chef Rob Thomas, who, you know, talking on Black History Month about the importance of what food has to do with culture and was a great program, again, not because of the host, but because of the people that were on.

Matt Cundill  25:53  
Thanks so much for talking today, Stuart. I

Stuart Murray  25:55  
appreciate it. Matt, as always, thanks for everything you do much appreciated.

Matt Cundill  26:01  
My thanks to Stuart Murray for joining me on the show. His podcast is called humans on rights, give it a follow and it's everywhere you would expect it to be Apple, Spotify, Amazon. I also put links in the show notes where you can connect with the Human Rights Hub, the Canadian Human Rights Museum, and the podcast. This episode was produced by Evan Surminski and edited by Aidan Glassey and built for your ears by everyone at the sound off media company.