Brian Mulroney's long bet on history paid off

Former Quebec premier and former leader of the Progressive Conservative party Jean Charest honours late prime minister: 'Because of Brian Mulroney, we live in one of the greatest countries in the world.'

Conservatives have taken a particular interest these past few weeks in Mulroney's efforts to contain government spending — through the privatization of numerous Crown corporations, among other things — and tame inflation.

But it fell to Charest to remind the assembled at Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica that the Goods and Services Tax, and the reliable source of revenue it provides for the federal government, is still with us.

But three decades after Mulroney's memory needed to be locked away, it's now not hard to imagine Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre invoking his name on the campaign trail in the next election.

A few days after Mulroney announced he would be resigning, Dalton Camp, the political strategist and wordsmith, wrote in the Toronto Star that "being prime minister is a bruising, over-rated and misunderstood occupation, one which invites ingratitude and inspires mistrust."

Recalling a figure he'd covered and had then come to know, Anthony Wilson-Smith, the former editor of Maclean's, wrote last month that "Mulroney spent much of his life doing everything — emotions, ambitions, achievements — on an oversized scale."