Canada: Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, aged 84, has passed away at a hospital in Palm Beach, Florida, where he was being treated following a recent fall. Mulroney served the country as Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993.
The Conservative leader, who led Canada to a comprehensive free trade agreement with the United States, died peacefully with his family by his side, his daughter Caroline Mulroney reported.
According to Mulroney’s family, last summer he was improving daily after a heart procedure that followed treatment for prostate cancer in early 2023. In a post on X, Caroline Mulroney said that, “On behalf of my mother and our family, it is with great sadness we announce the passing of my father, The Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Canada’s 18th Prime Minister.”
The former PM was born in the French-speaking province of Baie-Comeau in eastern Quebec. The former leader, who worked as a lawyer and later as a business executive, strongly challenged for the leadership of the centre-right Progressive Conservatives in 1983 and parliament later that year.
Mulroney’s Conservatives won a landslide victory over Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals in 1984 and owned power in 1988. During his nine-year term, Mulroney pursued the neoliberal economic policies of the US and UK in the 1980s, under Reagan and Thatcher.
In 1988, the former leader signed the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement with Reagan, which was one of his most noteworthy achievements. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) helped raise Canadian exports but was criticized for outsourcing jobs.
Canada’s last Cold War leader, also opposed apartheid in South Africa, brokered a landmark agreement with Washington on acid rain and led efforts to respond to the 1984 Ethiopian famine. Mulroney stepped down in 1993 as the most unpopular Prime Minister in Canadian history due to growing separatist sentiments in Quebec. As a result in the next election, the Progressive Conservative party had a crushing defeat, winning only two seats in parliament.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his condolences and said that he was “devastated” to hear of Mulroney’s death. Trudeau said on X, that, “He never stopped working for Canadians, and he always sought to make this country an even better place to call home. I’ll never forget the insights he shared with me over the years – he was generous, tireless, and incredibly passionate.”
“As we mourn his passing and keep his family and friends in our thoughts, let us also acknowledge – and celebrate – Mr. Mulroney’s role in building the modern, dynamic, and prosperous country we all know today,” he added. After leaving politics, Mulroney faced scrutiny for allegedly taking bribes from a German-Canadian arms dealer, Karlheinz Schreiber, which was revealed in a leaked letter.
In 1997, the former Canadian Prime Minister filed a lawsuit against the Liberal government and won an apology and damages over false claims. Later on, Mulroney apologised for accepting payments from Karlheinz Schreiber, but denied any illegal conduct. He called his decision to meet Schreiber the “biggest mistake in life, by far.”
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