He acted as a dignified and civilized first minister
To the Expositor:
R.I.P. Brian Mulroney.
In 1985 I was employed by the Ontario Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs and found myself seconded to the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat (CICS).
During my two year secondment I was the secretary to all cross-Canada intergovernmental conferences of: provincial-territorial deputy ministers; provincial-territorial ministers; federal-provincial-territorial (FPT) deputy-ministers; and FPT ministers; and responsible for the Health, Social Services, Justice and Juvenile Justice portfolios.
As part of its 1982 repatriation of its Constitution in 1982, Canada promised the Crown that it would hold at least two First Minister level Constitutional Conferences intended to attempt to define and entrench the rights of Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples within our Constitution.
It is noteworthy to say that the Assembly of First Nations, the Métis and Inuit peoples (as well as the Native Council of Canada) each had two delegates seated at the table of all FPT minister-level conferences held between 1982 and the second of the two guaranteed First Ministers Constitutional Conference held in 1987, a conference that I coordinated.
I provided this rather lengthy introduction as background to the context of the three occasions during which I got to personally see Brian Mulroney in action as our prime minister. Specifically, during the publicly televised 1987 First Ministers Constitutional Conference on Aboriginal Rights, during the impromptu in camera session held during said conference and during the first (1987) of two First Minister Meech Lake conferences.
While none of these constitutional conferences resulted in the desired ends, I should say that I was most impressed with the dignity, the comportment and the wisdom that Brian Mulroney exhibited as my prime minister during each of those occasions. (NB – and most particularly so during the closed session, sleeves rolled up, rather heated, no bars held back, down in the gutters behaviour exhibited by some.)
Our prime minister, I must say, acted in the most dignified and civilized manner I can only hope will always be becoming of our First Minister.
Do I agree with all he did during his tenure as prime minister? No. But I’ll leave those to another day.
Gary Champagne
Ottawa
(formerly of Mindemoya)
