I never voted for Brian Mulroney. The Neo-Conservative Era -- which he ushered in with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan -- to me always seemed wrong-headed. I agreed with John Kenneth Galbraith. "Trickle Down," he said, "is what comes out of the back end of a cow."
That said, Mulroney accomplished some remarkable things. He helped end Apartheid in South Africa. The Montreal Protocol, which put an end to acid rain, was a world-changing agreement. And he had the eminent good sense to appoint Stephen Lewis as Canada's ambassador to the U.N.
For those of us who have Irish blood in our veins, the blarney was easy to spot. And for those of us who grew up in the Two Solitudes, Mulroney's attempt to bridge the gulf between the two was easy to support. Meech Lake failed. Bridging those differences remains Canada's essential problem.
Mulroney -- like all of us -- was a flawed human being. But history will be kind to him. May he rest in peace.
Image: Times Colonist
