How can I describe the pain I have felt since the news of Brian Mulroney's death?
• Also read: Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has died
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Even though we have been on “you and yours” for several years, I have such great respect for this huge man that I refer to him in these pages as “Mr. Mulroney.” The last time we saw each other was on October 29th at the baptism of the two children of Pascale Bourbeau and Pierre Karl Péladeau.
That Sunday at Saint-Viateur church in Outremont I had never seen Mr Mulroney so frail and his wife Mila so worried. With good reason, because her husband was as brittle as glass. Together with my wife Maryse, we spent the entire ceremony at her side. I couldn't take my eyes off Mr. Mulroney. Well dressed as always, he was also smiling, the slightest movement he made making him smile. Before we left the church we hugged her and I gave Mr. Mulroney a long hug.
In the weeks that followed, we sent him a few emails of friendship and hope, then Christmas and Happy New Year wishes. I suspected they might be the last. Since then, I have kept to myself all the worried thoughts I had about him, wishing without believing it that the cancer that was plaguing him would progress as slowly as the one I was diagnosed with eight or nine months ago had been. When Mr. Mulroney found out about this, he was kind enough to call me at length to reassure me “that everything would go well,” citing the almost miraculous recovery of Luc Lavoie, a mutual friend who also suffered from brain cancer.
Little self-confidence
This wasn't the first time Mr. Mulroney had paid me attention. Two years earlier, the month I turned 90, he and Mila invited us to dinner on the patio of their apartment. The Péladeau couple was also there. I won't be fooled. It was certainly Pierre Karl who brought my birthday to Mr. Mulroney's attention. That evening, as the sun did not set behind Mount Royal and the company ate an aperitif, Mr. Mulroney and I exchanged confidences.
He spoke to me of his love for Mila that had never faded, of the immense pride he felt towards his children, of apartheid in South Africa which he had helped to destroy, of free trade (which made me vote twice for… to vote for the Conservatives) and, obviously, the dismal failures of Meech and Charlottetown. Then, with the wry but warm smile he often showed, he reminded me that one evening in July, a few years earlier, he had shown me a list from McGill University (I think) of Canada's most important prime ministers since of the Confederacy were listed. “Look,” he said, “I’m standing in front of your friend Trudeau!”
NO NEED FOR A SURVEY
No need for a poll, no need for university scholars at McGill or elsewhere to determine Mr. Mulroney's place in politics. He comes first in the hearts of Quebecers, ahead of Trudeau and all those who have held the office of Prime Minister of Canada.
Tonight I am emotionally tempted to write that Mr. Brian Mulroney was by far the greatest Prime Minister of Canada. And by far the nicest and warmest man I have ever known.