Mr. Poilievre it’s not too late to learn from Mr. Mulroney!

​(The State Funeral of Brian Mulroney, the Right Honorable Prime Minister of Canada occurred on Saturday, March 23 in Montreal. We thank him for his service and wish his family well. May He Rest in Peace).              

The would-be Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Poilievre has much to learn from Brian Mulroney, the “greenest” Prime Minister in the history of the country.

Mr. Mulroney was extraordinarily successful in his long-range thinking about many subjects, but especially the environment. Take for example, the banning of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) that were causing a hole to open in the sky and threatening the planet. Back in 1987 Mulroney played a pivotal role in persuading over 40 world leaders, including then U.S. President Ronald Reagan to sign the Montreal Protocol. This was an international treaty to protect the planet’s ozone layer from CFC’s, which were then very heavily used in aerosol sprays.

If he were alive today, Mr. Mulroney would be equally concerned with unchecked climate change. In just a few more months spring and summer weather we will very likely see more examples of the terrible consequences of climate change in Canada:  wind, drought, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods.  And yet, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the national Conservative Party, continues to run around saying things like “Axe the Tax”, referring to the current Liberal government’s tax on carbon.

Carbon is to climate change what CFC’s once were to the ozone layer.
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Yet, Mr. Poilievre still garners votes around the country by opposing the tax and not coming up with any alternative that will save the planet for our children and grand children.

Mr. Poilievre has also embraced the use of personal attacks against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, not just as an opponent in the natural ways of politics, but as an enemy.  In doing this, he demeans politics, laying at Mr. Trudeau’s feet everything that is wrong in the country, in fact that as a result of Mr. Trudeau and his government, Pierre Poilievre argues Canada is “broken”. This is a description of the country which Mr. Poilievre could soon have to defend himself as the next Prime Minister, as appears likely in public opinion polling. How long will it take him to change his theme song to: “The country is now unbroken.” 

Yes, the Trudeau government should have done a much better job of explaining and defending the carbon tax. It allowed affordability concerns to overtake the longer term concerns for the Earth.

But with Mr. Poilievre’s worship of the sound bite and his social media over-simplification, why would any well-meaning parent encourage his or her kids to go into public service, let alone politics, as a career?

Mr. Mulroney had a skill, one he shared with another former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, of not turning politics into a hate game.  They both believed it is possible to disagree very strongly with someone of another political party in the House of Commons, without turning that person into a vile enemy. The way Mr. Chretien has described it, politics is like a hockey game where you can slam an opposing player into the boards with a hard check, and then go out with them for a beer after the game.

There are legions of people (including, opposing politicians, journalists or just plain window cleaners, who received a phone call from Mr. Mulroney at a difficult point in their life. An excellent example is that recalled by well known CBC broadcaster, Rosemary Barton, who at one time was having a hard time with social media abuse because of her job and the fact that she is a woman in that demanding job. Mr. Mulroney telephoned her, saying to the effect that, “the winds blow hard when you’re at the top.”  Speaking about this on national television, “Rosie” was obviously touched by the Prime Minister’s gesture. Mr. Poilievre doesn’t like to do such things, in fact he goes out of this way to make it clear he doesn’t like journalists, especially young ones just making their mark.

Perhaps the most personal and heartfelt tribute to Brian Mulroney in the House of Commons this past week was that delivered by Elizabeth May, the leader of the country’s Green Party.  One aspect of her remarks noted that Mr. Mulroney could be especially hard on his friends, to convince them to change their minds on the right and wrong of world issues. One example was Mr. Mulroney’s persuasion of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to stop opposing the removal of then apartheid South Africa from the Commonwealth.  When the revered African opponent of apartheid, Nelson Mandella was released from prison, the first foreign visit he made was to Canada at the invitation of Prime Minister Mulroney.

When Pierre Poilievre has ventured into the international scene, he has done so with a blunt instrument. He has used his same tendency to over-simplify, in the midst of highly complex world crises such at the Hamas-Israeli war. Seemingly without hesitation, Mr. Poilievre came down publicly on the side of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Yes, we must be ever mindful of the Jewish holocaust before and during World War II, likely the worst crime against humanity in the history of the world.  But with the Netanyahu-ordered Israeli offensive in Gaza, there has been nary a peep from Pierre Poilievre about the starving and dying Palestinians in Gaza, also a terrible example of man’s inhumanity to man.

Meanwhile, Poilievre has avoided the very real divisions faced by the Liberal government in Ottawa and the whole country, to balance the very serious and difficult Middle Eastern situation.

So here we are Mr. Poilievre, you are way up in the polls.  You could soon be Prime Minister.  When all that time is done and you leave politics, are you going to be remembered as a leader who cared for the planet and was deeply concerned about the people around you? In short, will you leave Canada and the world in a better place than where you found them?
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It’s not too late to listen and learn, Mr. Poilievre!