- Frank McKenna ‘quite broken-hearted’ by Mulroney’s death
- Former premier recalls friendship with former prime minister
By Andrew Macdonald
Days after former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney died at age 85, in a Palm Spring, Florida hospital – he had a residence in that city – his close friend, Frank McKenna, talked of his legacy.
Mulroney roared to power with the largest Canadian majority election in 1984 and stayed in power until 1992.
They were opposing politicos. McKenna was Liberal premier of New Brunswick from 1987 to 1997, when Mulroney was a Tory PM from 1984 to 1993.
They became close friends, and post-politics for both gentlemen, they talked on the phone every week, sharing many similar experiences.
“I am quite broken-hearted. We were the best of friends. We talked every week.”
In the 1950s, Mulroney attended what was then St. Thomas High School, a Catholic school, in Chatham, N.B. That school later morphed into St. Thomas University, where Mulroney, post-politics, received an honourary degree, with his wife, Mila.
McKenna and Mulroney shared many similar experiences.
“We had a lot in common,” McKenna said. “We had the Miramichi in common. We had STFX University in common, we had politics in common. We had our Irish families in common.”
McKenna graduated from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S. in the 1970s. Mulroney also went to that school and graduated with a political science degree in the class of 1959.
Mulroney’s passing, says McKenna, “will leave a big hole in my life and an awful lot of other people, like you, and others across the country.”
After their respective political careers the pair hit the speaker’s circuit.
“One of my pleasant jobs was to introduce him to a lot of events, including the Atlantic Economic Forum. He called me a few days before (that event in June 2023 at ST FX), and he asked, ‘How is your introduction’. I said, ‘it is coming along.. But I said, ‘It’s a little too laudatory, I might have to dial it back.’ He said, “Frank, you can not be too lavish in your praise. I can handle a lot’.”
I am quite broken-hearted. We were the best of friends. We talked every week.
Frank McKenna
Mulroney once told me that McKenna was giving speeches and suggested the Mulroney government did more for Atlantic Canada while prime minister, than any other prime minister in the country’s history.
“It is true. I said it in more than one speech. In fact, I did interviews this week, and I said, ‘History will make its judgment about Canada’s best prime ministers in the fullness of time, but in terms of Atlantic Canada’s best prime minister, there is no doubt about it, it is Brian Mulroney by a mile,” McKenna said.
In recent years, Mulroney raised $100 million from his friends, including wealthy American businessmen, to create the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at ST FX. It includes a building named Mulroney Hall, which opened in 2019.
In the past, Mulroney told me future speakers would include such giant politicos as Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Next week, a former premier of Ontario will speak at Mulroney Hall, Kathleen Wynne.
I asked McKenna if those giant politicians of the past will still speak in the future at Mulroney Hall.
“That is the intention. We will see. There is a speaker coming up in the spring, I do not think I’m at liberty to tell you his name, but, he is a headliner. He will receive an honourary degree and Brian has been working on this for some time, it’s a spectacular choice,” adds McKenna.
“Mulroney’s intention was always to bring in global leaders. And, I suspect from the grave he will do exactly that,” adds McKenna.
In my last conversation with Mulroney last summer, he told me he had to push the civil service when it came to his prime minister files on the Atlantic.
“There is a lot of resistance in Ottawa to doing things in Atlantic Canada, so you have to have a prime minister there who is favourably disposed to the region, to make the big decisions,” explained Mulroney.
“Hibernia would not have gotten off the ground without a $3.8 billion loan and equity purchase by my government, which today is about $8 billion. I had to take that decision by myself, there was resistance to it because we didn’t have that much money at the time,” recalled Mulroney.
“I felt Newfoundland and Labrador got Hibernia going, they didn’t want a handout, they wanted a hand up. And, this would do it for them, and indeed, Newfoundland and Labrador became a ‘have’ province, attributing to equalization and Ontario was drawing from the equalization fund and that is how quickly you can make changes.”
Mulroney’s government also built the $1 billion Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island, which opened in 1997.
“There was resistance (in Ottawa) as well when I decided to proceed with Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island and that has done an enormous amount to PEI and New Brunswick,” he added.
“Then when I intervened to give New Brunswick sole source contracts for the shipbuilding of 12 frigates, $6 billion at the time. Well, that is now migrated to Halifax and the Irving Shipbuilding Yards, which has done a tremendous amount for Halifax,” Mulroney said.
“Then with regards to ACOA, I created that in 1987.
“You need a prime minister there, who will take the big decisions and make things happen in Atlantic Canada.”
“The only way they get done is if the prime minister says, ‘We are going to do it. And that is the position I took with Hibernia, the Atlantic Accord, Confederation Bridge, and ACOA — all of these things required a decision by the prime minister, nobody else, it has to be by the prime minister.”
Thirty-six years later, ACOA still operates in the region and Mulroney said last summer he believed it continues to be a government economic development success story. Mulroney as prime minister made the decision to make Moncton ACOA’s headquarters.
“ACOA has dispersed billions of dollars to small- and medium-sized companies and has created tens upon tens of thousands of jobs in Atlantic Canada. It is very much a success story.”
Mulroney believed government has a role to play in economic development.
“Absolutely and I am very proud of ACOA’s record,” he said.
Before the Confederation Bridge, there were two main industries in P.E.I.: agriculture and tourism. “You had to get over to the island by ferry, you have to get your products out by ferry. So we built the bridge, and what happens? Tourism booms, and I remember the agriculture exports on the island increased by 100 per cent a year for nine years.
“Why was that? Well, there is also a backdrop to that, because I had negotiated a free trade agreement with President Reagan of the United States. All of the agriculture production from Atlantic Canada was pumped right into the United States because of the free trade agreement,” he said.
Mulroney’s schooling at ST FX, Chatham’s St. Thomas High School and one year at Dalhousie University gave Mulroney an insight into the life of the region.
All told, Mulroney spent seven years in schooling in the Maritimes.
“I consider myself a Maritimer by the baptism of desire,” he said.
Mulroney, McKenna Led Fundraiser at St. Thomas University
In 2022, Mulrone, and McKenna concluded a very successful fundraiser at St. Thomas University.
The fundraising campaign launched in 2016 had raised $16 million by 2022, surpassing the $10 million target.
Mulroney went to St. Thomas College when it was a public high school and graduated Grade 12 in 1955 as a lanky 16-year-old. He had arrived at the school from Baie Comeau, and after graduating from St. Thomas went directly to St. F.X University.
St. Thomas began as a public high school and once was located in Chatham, before moving to Fredericton when it became a university in 1964.
Jodi Misheal, the vice president of advancement and alumni relations, said in a previous interview with BNI that Mulroney and his wife Mila both received honorary degrees from St. Thomas in 2018, where the 18th prime minister of Canada gave the convocation address.
In his biography, Mulroney opens up with an opening chapter re-telling his St. Thomas education. He credits the college with giving him, as he says, the kick in the pants to go on and finish his education.
Mulroney’s father, who worked in a mill in Baie Comeau, wanted his son to get an education, while a teenage Mulroney wanted to work in the mill, like his dad before him, who was an electrician.
Mulroney has publicly spoken about the impact and credit he gives St. Thomas, putting him on the road to a leading corporate career and later occupying the highest political office in the nation in two terms as prime minister.
“It gave him a head start,” added Misheal, in a previous interview.
Last July, Mulroney disclosed to me he was being treated “for aggressive prostate cancer”.
