Talk:Brian Mulroney

Michael McCaffertyof Regina,Saskatchewan says that Brian Mulroney is truly a great Canadian statesman and history will judge him as a very great Prime Minister.

Where's "clucking faster"?

(By this, I assume the previous editor is referring to a political skit song produced by the CBC comedy group "Double Exposure", parodying an episode in Canadian parliamentary history where Brian Mulroney was accused of calling members of the Liberal opposition party some a impolite name that happen to rhyme with "clucking faster".)

Unsourced

 * "The only person who has ever [been] appointed around here, for the last 20-odd years, has been [the leader of] your party. And 99% of [your cabinet members] have been Liberals...and you ought not to be proud of that. Nor should you repeat something that I think you know to be inaccurate. You know full well that that was a figure of speech that was used, and I don't deny it, in fact, I've gone so far-because I believe what you did was so bad-I've gone so far, sir, to apologise to the Canadian people for even kidding about it. The least you should do is to apologise for having made these horrible appointments! I've had the decency I think, to acknowledge that I was wrong in even kidding about it. I shouldn't have done that and I've said so. You sir, at least owe the Canadian people a profound apology for doing it. The cost of [those appointments]-$84.4 million-is enough to the ordinary Canadian taxpayer...we could pay every senior citizen in this country, on the supplement, an extra $70 at Christmas rather than pay for those Liberal appointments! And I say to you sir, two things: a) You should produce that letter, because you keep coming back to this situation. Please produce the [rhetoric] of that secret letter that you signed that you undertook to make those appointments. And b) May I say respectfully, that if I felt I owed it to the Canadian people, and I did, an apology for 'bantering' about the subject, you sir owe the Canadian people a deep apology for having indulged in that kind of practice with those kinds of appointments."


 * "You had an option, sir. You could have said, 'I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.' You had an option, sir--to say 'no'--and you chose to say 'yes' to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party. That sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Canadians."
 * Speaking to John Turner during the debate before the 1984 federal election.


 * "You do not have a monopoly on patriotism, and I resent the fact of your implication that only you are a Canadian! I want to tell you that I come from a Canadian family, and I love Canada! And that's why I [signed the deal], to promote prosperity, and don't you impugn my motives or anyone else's!!"
 * Replying to John Turner's attacks on the Free Trade Agreement during the debate before the 1988 federal election.


 * "Popularity's bad for you. I avoid it like the plague.


 * (On one of his cabinet ministers) "Slit her throat."


 * "In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all, an enemy"

Quotes about Mulroney (unsourced)

 * "My pleasure. Good guy. Brian Mulroney, the former prime minister of Great Britain."
 * Larry King


 * "In 1993, Brian Mulroney was the most unpopular prime minister in the history of Canadian polling and the Progressive Conservative Party was at historically low levels of support. The question that begs asking is why he then gave me, as his successor, only two and a half months to turn the party fortunes around before an election had to be called. The effect of hearing Brian Mulroney in his own voice is, sadly, to remind Canadians of why they didn't like him and delay what he so clearly craves and feels he deserves - respect for the achievements of his government."
 * Kim Campbell, responding via e-mail[published where?] at the request of the Vancouver Sun in a response to Mulroney's remarks about her campaign activities in his book The Secret Mulroney Tapes