Madam Chair, those were wonderful speeches by the last two Liberal members. I want to thank them.

I would like to start by saying that the Irish have a saying: Family is where love begins and never ends. For Martin Brian Mulroney, the love of family never ended. While the country mourns a transformational prime minister and the world mourns a great statesman, his family is mourning the loss of a devoted father of four and grandfather to 16. He was also a true life partner to Mila, and what a life partnership. He often said that without having Mila by his side, without her love, support and guidance, he would never have overcome the challenges he faced in life. She brought him not only immense love but focus and discipline, and had an ability to work a room even better than he could.

Ben once wrote that while his dad was not always present, he was always a presence in their life. He was also present to many others and in their lives. Many of us in the House were blessed to share him with his family. Many of us were lucky enough to receive those famous calls from him to congratulate, console, catch up, reminisce or, sometimes, gossip. In a tough personal time from him, former prime minister Brian Mulroney concluded his eulogy to his friend Ronald Reagan with a quote from the Irish poet Yeats:

Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

In his terms, he would often say, “You dance with the one that brung ya.”

Friendship, loyalty and family were the guiding tenets of Mulroney's life. Upon winning the leadership, the night of it, he stood up in front of all the delegates in the nation and said to MP Erik Nielsen that he was not Erik's first choice for leader, but Erik was his first choice for deputy prime minister, instantly uniting the party after a divisive leadership race.

I had the great honour of serving every single day in his government, from the start until the end, when I was in my twenties. His focus on loyalty and friendship shaped the lives of all of us young political staffers who were lucky enough to serve in his government.

In much of the reminiscing of Brian Mulroney's life, people have rightly referred to his many transformational accomplishments. Many have highlighted what he did, but I would like to take a moment to speak about how he did it.

A staple of his speeches as prime minister was to quote the inscription in the memorial chamber of the Peace Tower, which says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It started with this, a vision that for Canada to prosper, we needed the world to buy what we made. To achieve that consequential transformation, he had to govern not for a political term, but for future decades.

What Brian Mulroney possessed was a unique instinct and caring for people. Former premier Bob Rae said that for Mulroney “all politics is not just local, it’s personal”. He was truly exceptional when it came to the fine art of making friends, winning allies and creating loyalty. He was exceptional at bringing people with disparate opinions and perspectives together in pursuit of a common cause. He knew how to identify and marshal talent, and he was a master negotiator.

Public life is first and foremost a people business. We must like people and want to help them if we are to succeed in politics. Brian Mulroney liked people and wanted to help. He wrapped that desire up with a heaping helping of vision, stoked it with a burning desire to do big, important things that made a positive difference for his country and our people, and then cajoled, charmed, persuaded and dared whomever he needed to by the sheer force of his personality and the overwhelming muscle of his unique powers of persuasion and oratory.

Most importantly, he knew instinctively that to achieve success, we must support allies and friends when they are in need, even at a political cost to ourselves. Their priorities were his and he helped them get them done. He needed to understand why each person, each voter, each worker, each MP, every president and every prime minister believed what they did and what motivated them. He knew that to achieve a great Canada, if we wanted other nations to support us in our needs, we had to support them in theirs. As the only Canadian prime minister to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, he expressed that approach when he quoted Emerson in saying, “The way to have a friend is to be one.” This was his secret sauce.

For a prime minister to achieve great things also requires a great team and getting the most out of them. He attracted talent like few others, and they believed in his vision for Canada. He created the cabinet of Clark, Wilson, Crosbie, Mazankowski, Carney, McDougall, Flora, Charest, Mayer, McKnight, Andre, Wise, Masse, Bouchard, Blais and many more. He knew what area of government fit them best and then he let them get to work. He got the most out of them by letting his ministers lead their departments and drive change forward. He trusted them and they trusted him.

He often said that political capital was to be spent, not hoarded, and he spent much of that political capital in Atlantic Canada. He spent his formative educational years, the first years away from home, in high school in New Brunswick and then at StFX university in my home province of Nova Scotia, where he joined the Tory club.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in Nova Scotia. This gave him a special connection and understanding of my part of the country. Late Prime Minister Mulroney once said, “I consider myself a Maritimer by the baptism of desire”, and so do we.

He wanted to return Atlantic Canada to its rightful place in Confederation. The Atlantic Accord gave provinces the right, for the first time, to receive royalties for offshore resources. His government bought equity in Hibernia. Hibernia would not have happened otherwise. These two things are the direct reason that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians were able to get off equalization.

Late Prime Minister Mulroney thought that regional economic development should actually be done in the regions and not by Ottawa's industry department. The creation of ACOA, based in New Brunswick, accelerated growth as a result of billions of dollars of investments in our small and medium-sized businesses.

The frigate shipbuilding contract for Saint John, New Brunswick, transformed the economy of southern New Brunswick. He gave the financial support to rebuild the entire Trans Canada Highway that runs through that province, understanding that to get New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia's goods to market in Canada and the U.S. with free trade, a modern transportation system was required.

He pushed for the P.E.I. fixed link, the Confederation Bridge, over a lot of resistance, because a province that produced perishables needed quicker, more reliable access to export markets. The creation of Slemon Park Corporation in Summerside was a vision that converted 200 civilian jobs at a military base to five times that today in an aerospace centre for business.

For Nova Scotia, the acid rain accord with the U.S. stopped the destruction of Nova Scotia's rivers, streams and critical forest products. The free trade agreement spurred Nova Scotia's exports to the U.S. and rapid growth in our beef, seafood and dairy products. The result is that today more than 70% of our seafood is exported, with 50% going to the United States.

This is why former premier Frank McKenna said that late Prime Minister Mulroney did more for Atlantic Canada than any other prime minister in history. When the former premier was asked by the former prime minister to comment on how his preparations for an introduction for an upcoming speech were going, Premier McKenna said that it was a little too laudatory and that he might have to scale it back. To that, Mr. Mulroney replied, “Frank, you can not be too lavish in your praise. I can handle a lot.”

My fellow traveller Mark McQueen, as a Mulroney political staffer, observed late Prime Minister Mulroney's approach to life recently when he wrote:

Love and honour your family. Be a loyal and steadfast friend. Seek out new friends and experiences. Own up to your mistakes. Comfort others when they’re down. Find a soulmate and always “dance with the one that brung ya.” Play to your strengths. Let others shine. Live a life of consequence.

I will conclude with late Prime Minister Mulroney's own words. If anyone has read Mulroney's Memoirs, they will know they are filled with extracts from his diary as prime minister. The final entry, on June 27, 1993, two days after he left office, reads as follows:

I actually did govern not for good headlines in ten days but for a better Canada in ten years. I paid the price in media hostility and public disapproval. But I did so knowingly and willingly. Leadership is about courage, strength, and resolve, often in the face of overwhelming criticism and adversity; it is about taking positions you believe to be in Canada’s long-term interest and sticking to them.

He went on:

...I’ll miss the job—caucus, the House, the problems, the achievements, the excitement. But I’ve achieved a degree of serenity.... I leave with a happy heart and a sense of fulfillment at having done much and at all times having done my best for Canada.

History is remembering him fondly today, as are we. Until we meet again, Prime Minister.

Rick Perkins

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