The New Life Of Brian

A new biography reassesses the legacy—and tracks the comeback—of our eighteenth prime minister.

- Ira Wells

When Brian Mulroney re-signed from politics in 1993, among those who eagerly anticipated his leave-taking were his own domestic staff. In a cringe-inducing farewell scene captured in Stevie Cameron’s 1994 political exposé On the Take, the prime minister and his wife, Mila, bound for the French Riviera, paused to say goodbye to the maids, chef, and butler who had assembled outside the PM’s residence. After helping Mila into the waiting limousine, Mulroney mumbled, “We’re just a phone call away.” An awkward silence ensued. “What’s the number, Boss?” someone said. “Uh, just a phone call away,” Mulroney repeated, and the door slammed shut. As the limousine drove off, one maid couldn’t resist hollering, “Don’t come back!”

It would be hard to find a political career that encompassed more triumphant highs and more devastating lows than that of our eighteenth prime minister. In the 1984 federal election, Mulroney delivered the greatest landslide majority government in Canadian history to the Progressive Conservatives, who won 211 seats. Seven years later, the wrath against his party reached biblical proportions. Western Canadians hated him for selling out their interests by awarding a $100 million maintenance contract for new fighter jets to Quebec rather than Manitoba. Quebecers hated him for failing to deliver on promised constitutional reforms that would have finally recognized theirs as a distinct society. And most of the country hated him for introducing the 7 percent goods and-services tax.