Daughter of former PM also receives key endorsement from rumoured candidate Rod Phillips
The Canadian PressPosted: Feb 04, 2018 3:40 PM ET Last Updated: Feb 04, 2018 10:16 PM ET
Caroline Mulroney, the Toronto lawyer and daughter of former prime minister Brian Mulroney, is running to become the leader of Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party.
Mulroney confirmed the news, which has been rumoured for over a week, in a series of interviews Sunday afternoon at a hockey arena in north Toronto. She took questions from reporters between watching her two boys play on their Triple A teams.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Milica "Mila" Mulroney (Serbian Cyrillic: Милица "Мила" Пивнички – Milica "Mila" Pivni?ki; born July 13, 1953) is the wife of the 18th Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney. They have one daughter, Caroline, and three sons, Ben, Mark, and Nicolas. Their youngest child, Nicolas, was born while the family was living in 24 Sussex Drive.
Mila Mulroney after an official visit in 1984
Life and work
Mulroney was born Milica Pivni?ki to SerbianOrthodoxparents Dimitrije "Mita" Pivni?ki and Bogdanka (née Ili?) in Sarajevo, PR Bosnia-Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia. Her first years were spent in the city of Sarajevo where her father was assigned to practise medicine by Yugoslav Titoistauthorities. In 1956, Dr. Pivni?ki took a research fellowship position at the Royal Victoria Hospital'sAllan Memorial Institute of Psychiatry in Montreal in order to circumvent the strict exit rules in Yugoslavia and get his family out of the country. While his pregnant wife Bogdanka waited to join him, she moved with young Milica back to their hometown of Novi Be?ej, Serbia. Finally, two years later, in 1958, she and their two children (five-year-old Milica and one-year-old Jovan) emigrated to Canada and joined Dimitrije in Montreal. Mila, the elder child, studied engineering at Concordia University, but did not graduate.[1]
Mila was a radical change from the wives of recent prime ministers — the feminist Maureen McTeer and the “wild child” Margaret Trudeau. Being a housewife, she greatly appealed to that demographic, especially in her responses to criticism from prominent feminists (including, in 1987, remarks from Sheila Copps). Many PC campaign buttons featured both Mulroney’s face and hers, and OntarioPremierBill Davis commented to Brian, “Mila will get you more votes for you than you will for yourself.”[2]
She took on a greater role than many Prime Ministers’ wives while Mulroney was in office, acting as a campaigner for several children’s charities. Her role, which some claimed was trying to become a “First Lady,” was criticized (especially when she hired a personal office and staff and for her lavish redecoration of the Prime Minister's residence). Her frequent shopping sprees became tabloid fodder, with some in the press dubbing her “Imelda” for her love of shoes (she allegedly had over 100 pairs).[3] In her book On the Take, Stevie Cameron accused Mila of trying to sell her old furniture to the government for much more than its value.
September 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signs the agreement to compensate the Japanese-Canadians for the expropriation of their property and their internment during World War II (photo by Mike Binder).
Martin Brian Mulroney, PC, CC, GOQ, lawyer, businessman, politician, prime minister of Canada 1984 to 1993 (born 20 March 1939 in Baie-Comeau, QC). As prime minister and leader of the Progressive Conservative party, Brian Mulroney brought in the landmark Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and oversaw passage of the unpopular Goods and Services Tax. Mulroney’s tenure was also marked by his efforts to persuade Québec government to sign the Constitution; despite extensive consultation and negotiation, both the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord were unsuccessful. In foreign affairs, he took a strong stance against apartheid. Mulroney has also been recognized for his environmental record, including the Acid Rain Accord with the United States and passage of the Environmental Protection Act.
Education and Early Life
The son of Irish immigrants, Brian Mulroney's father was an electrician, anxious that his children escape the paper mill that dominated Baie-Comeau. Brian Mulroney attended the private St Thomas High School in Chatham, New Brunswick, and then St Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where he studied political science, joined the campus Conservative club, and was prime minister in the Combined Atlantic Universities Parliament. He worked for John Diefenbaker's successful leadership campaign in 1956. Smooth beyond his years, fluently bilingual and gregarious, Mulroney returned to Québec in 1961, receiving a law degree at Laval.
Lawyer and Businessman
Brian Mulroney joined a major Montréal law firm (now Norton Rose Fulbright) in 1964, soon specializing in labour negotiations for concerns such as Iron Ore Company of Canada and Power Corporation of Canada. His father died in 1965, and Mulroney took on heavy family responsibilities. Later, in 1973, he married Mila Pivnicki.
In 1974–75 Mulroney won public attention as an articulate and hard-hitting member of the Cliche Commission on violence and corruption in the construction industry in Québec. By now he was the leading Conservative organizer and fund-raiser in the province. Despite never having run for office, he was a strong candidate for the leadership of the federal party in 1976, finally being eliminated on the third ballot.
Mulroney became Vice President of Iron Ore Company in 1976; as president 1977–83 he emphasized management-labour relations and was able, at the end of his term, to close the company's operation in Schefferville, Québec, without serious political repercussions. Mulroney again ran for the Progressive Conservative leadership in 1983, a low-key effort in response to charges that his 1976 campaign had been too slick and showy. He beat Joe Clark on the final ballot: 1584 votes to 1325.
Leader of the Opposition
As leader of the Opposition and Member of Parliament for Central Nova in 1983–84, he proved a skillful manager, concentrating on healing party wounds and building a solid electoral machine. Moderate and conciliatory by nature, he called for a strengthened private sector and less government intervention in the economy, minority French-language rights, and closer Canadian-American and federal-provincial relations.
In the general election of 1984 he ran an almost flawless campaign against Prime MinisterJohn Turner's Liberals and won 211 seats, the largest number in Canadian history. Mulroney, who had always emphasized the importance of Québec to the Conservatives, captured the seat of Manicouagan, his home riding. His pledge to bring Québec to the Constitution "with honour and enthusiasm" was decisive in persuading many Québec nationalists to support the Conservatives. The party took 58 of its seats in the province, the breakthrough that Mulroney had promised would take place under his leadership. He was sworn in as the 18th prime minister on 17 September 1984.
Economic and Constitutional Reform
The first two years of Brian Mulroney's administration were marked by indecision and scandals in his Cabinet, but by the spring of 1987 he had launched the two important initiatives that would mark his first term: the negotiation of the Meech Lake Accord (see Meech Lake Accord: Document) and the conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, which was reached that October. The FTA became the central issue in the 1988 federal election, and the Conservatives overcame a resurgent Liberal Party around whom opposition to the FTA coalesced. The FTA went into effect 1 January 1989.
However, the Meech Lake Accord slowly unravelled, and its collapse in June 1990 was at least partly attributed to Mulroney's widely quoted "roll of the dice" in scheduling the final first ministers' conference so close to the deadline. His government reached a new low in popularity with the imposition of the new Goods and Services Tax (GST), which went into effect 1 January 1991. Mulroney had to stack the Senate with supporters in order to get the bill through the upper house.
Critics blamed the severity of the recession of the early 1990s on the FTA, but the Conservatives continued their policy of open trade and negotiated a North American free-trade agreement which this time included Mexico. Mulroney's popularity according to the polls was lower than that of any other prime minister in history as he attempted to arrange yet another constitutional pact in the fall of 1992. The so-called Charlottetown Accord (see Charlottetown Accord: Document) was pieced together after numerous commissions and negotiations, but it was rejected in a nation-wide referendum.
Environment and Apartheid
Although Brian Mulroney is best known for his economic and constitutional policies, his record in foreign affairs and the environment is also significant. In contrast to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and American President Ronald Reagan, Mulroney took a strong stand against apartheid, recommending stiff economic and diplomatic sanctions against South Africa. Shortly after Nelson Mandela was finally released from a South African prison in 1990, the anti-apartheid activist publicly thanked Canada for its support (see Nelson Mandela: A Soft Spot for Canada).
Mulroney also took strong measures to protect the environment. In 2006, he was voted the “greenest” prime minister in Canadian history in a survey by Corporate Knights: The Magazine for Clean Capitalism. In 1991, Mulroney negotiated the Acid Rain Accord with the United States, an air quality agreement that has significantly reduced acid rain levels and sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions (see also Air Pollution). While prime minister he also passed the Environmental Protection Act (1988) and created eight new national parks.
Retirement from Politics
After much speculation, Brian Mulroney announced his decision to leave politics in February 1993. Despite his skill in putting together a coalition of Québecois and Westerners and in uniting the traditionally fractious Conservative Party, Mulroney's constitutional failures, the economic problems brought on by the persistent recession, the lingering bitterness over the GST and his personal unpopularity had made his political future and that of his party look bleak. He turned over the office of prime minister to Kim Campbell on 25 June 1993. His Conservative coalition disintegrated in the 1993 election. Only two Conservatives were elected in all Canada and the party lost its status as an official party in the House of Commons. Many blamed Mulroney's failures and his personal unpopularity for the most unprecedented disaster in Canadian political history.
Post-Political Career
Brian Mulroney has been senior partner at the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright (formerly Ogilvy Renault) since 1993. In June 1997, the federal Liberal government apologized to Mulroney for the false accusations that he had committed fraud in the Airbus scandal.
In 1998, Mulroney became chairman of Forbes Global Business and Finance, the English-language international edition of Forbes magazine, and he was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada.
A director on several corporate boards, in 2014 Mulroney was named chairman of Quebecor Inc., a Montréal-based media company.
Honours and Awards
Privy Council (1984)
Companion, Order of Canada (1998)
Grand Officer, National Order of Quebec (2002)
Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service (2003)
Order of Kniaz (King) Yaroslav the Wise, First Class, Ukraine (2007)
Grand Cordon, Order of the Rising Sun, Japan (2011)
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney welcomes British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to the Economic Summit at Toronto City Hall in this June 19, 1988 file photo.
FRED CHARTRAND/THE CANADIAN PRESS
BRIAN MULRONEY CONTRIBUTED TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED APRIL 9, 2013 UPDATED MARCH 26, 2017
In a friendship that extended over 30 years, I argued passionately with Margaret Thatcher, I fought with her, and I won and lost battles with her.
But at the same time, I loved Margaret Thatcher.
If you admired strength and vision, if you respected a political colleague who could endure the most powerful blows and never flinch, if you respected a leader who stood on principle no matter how politically painful was its defence – you had to love Margaret Thatcher.
I remember most vividly the end of her time in office. We were together at a high-level summit in Paris, in November of 1990, on the very weekend of the caucus revolt that removed her from office. I was stunned that after winning three strong majorities she could be turfed out in such a manner – and indeed, so was she. She would not have come to the meeting if she had understood how serious was the conspiracy against her.
Margaret and I had a complicated friendship. I admired her position on most issues, and we supported each other at international meetings on issues as diverse as bringing Mikhail Gorbachev into the circle of the G7, on free trade and on expanding NATO to broaden and deepen the boundaries of democratic Europe. But on one issue we clashed, repeatedly.
Mrs. Thatcher could not see the importance, the inevitability even, of the end of a system as patently cruel as apartheid. We had our most difficult conversations about it for more than five years, including an especially intense one-on-one at Mirabel Airport. The photo of the two of us makes clear how wrenching was our exchange. Margaret left office before the astonishing transformation that was Nelson Mandela's arrival on the world stage, and I avoided renewing our debates on the subject after that. She certainly wasn't for the turning, as she said, but we remained friends. I know she suspected me of being what she would call "a wet" – not sufficiently hardline by her standards.
She came to visit in her retirement years, spending one glorious weekend with my family and me at the prime minister's residence at Harrington Lake. We talked and laughed and shared memories of the grand battles we had fought and won together until well into the evening. We had other fine holidays together in South Hampton in New York and in Palm Beach in her retirement years.
Margaret was careful not to interfere in other countries' domestic politics, sensitive to how difficult such meddling would be for a fellow leader – most of the time. ... However, when she came to Ottawa in the midst of our free-trade debate, to my amusement and the horror of many colleagues, critics and reporters, she used part of her speech to the House of Commons to laud not only the free-trade agreement and but our government for having attempted it. She gave me an "aren't I wicked?" smile as she sat down.
It was only two years later though that she was attempting to maintain the same confident zeal in a tough negotiation. We were together at the then-new Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Margaret drove her security policy views backed by her usual intensely detailed homework. In all my public life, I only met one other leader who prepared so meticulously for important meetings – Peter Lougheed.
During the discussions, she maintained her confident, even jaunty air, but late that night before a formal dinner at Versailles she turned to me and said, "Brian, I need a friend to talk to. As I said in my diary note later, "I was overwhelmed by the sadness in her eyes and by her loneliness..." I shared with her the story of John Diefenbaker and his similarly painful defeat. We chatted about the vagaries of political life. Then Mila and I escorted her into the room.
This was a side of Margaret I had never seen, and that she did not permit the world to see, then or later. Margaret Thatcher was never going to go quietly – and she did not. Setting up a large foundation devoted to her political values, writing a two-volume memoir and offering advice to leaders in private – and sometimes with her typically razor-sharp acuity – in public.
I was pleased to have a chance to share memories with her and then share them with those gathered at the memorial for Ronald Reagan in 2004. Our last time together was over lunch at Claridge's in London. Margaret was almost as sharp in her judgments of people and events as the first time I met her 30 years earlier.
It is always tempting for one generation to regard the leaders of the generations that follow with some condescension. But I believe I am safe in saying that at a crucial chapter in her country's history, without Margaret Thatcher's resolute leadership, the United Kingdom would have suffered far more deeply.
And I am confident in saying that, at an equally crucial moment in global history – the collapse of communism and the reunification of Europe – the world was blessed to have had leaders of the stature of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the first George Bush and Helmut Kohl, to lead us through that fateful transition. I feel blessed to have known and worked many late nights with each of them – and most blessed of all to have had that privilege with Margaret Thatcher, an Iron Lady indeed.
Brian Mulroney was Prime Minister of Canada from 1984 to1993.
Brian Mulroney remembers the 'commanding' force of Margaret Thatcher
Brian Mulroney says his old friend Margaret Thatcher was commanding and fierce in her political battles, but also a dear and thoughtful friend.
Margaret Thatcher leads the way as Ronald Reagan, Brian Mulroney and Helmut Kohl follow her into a courtyard at Hart House in Toronto in June 1988.
OTTAWA—Former prime minister Brian Mulroney last saw Margaret Thatcher about a year and a half ago, when he took her to lunch at Claridge’s in London.
Though suffering from dementia, she still remembered her old friend and conservative ally from the 1980s, and as always, she called him “Brawn.”
Toward the end of the lunch, Thatcher said: “Brawn, I’m sorry. I’m going to have to leave because I have to go home and make tea for Denis.”
Thatcher had brought Lord Charles Powell, her former foreign adviser, along to the lunch and he gently reminded her that Sir Denis had passed away in 2003.
Mulroney wasn’t sure what to say. “She looked at me, she didn’t say anything, and then, very softly, she said: ‘Yes, of course I remember. But you know Brawn, I still have to go home and make tea.’”
Mulroney took her arm and escorted her out through the opulent lobby at Claridge’s. Instantly recognized by the crowds, resplendent in a maroon suit and diamond jewelry, Thatcher was applauded as she made her exit with her old Canadian friend.
On learning of her death on Monday, Mulroney had a flood of recollections about his dealings with Thatcher, whom he said will be remembered as a “commanding figure in history.”
There were many times when they stood shoulder to shoulder with U.S. president Ronald Reagan — the three of them known as a powerful, conservative triumvirate on the world stage in the 1980s. Mulroney credits Thatcher for blazing the conservative trail with her election in 1979 — proving that it was possible, indeed necessary, to repudiate the social-welfare-state policies of the 1970s.
“I would say that her agenda had a very significant influence, not only on Canada and the United States, but elsewhere,” Mulroney said, citing his own record in reversing the legacy of Liberal rule under Pierre Trudeau, and how Thatcher’s example had emboldened him to do so.
Even so, he said, Thatcher always saw him as a little soft when it came to conservatism. “Margaret thought I was too progressive and not conservative enough,” he laughed.
And then there were the battles, too — in particular, a large blowup between Mulroney and Thatcher in 1986 over the issue of sanctions against apartheid in South Africa. Mulroney was for them, Thatcher was adamantly opposed.
“That was not a polite skirmish,” Mulroney said. That was the only fundamental disagreement on policy that we had.”
At one point, during a tense meeting at Mirabel airport near Montreal, Mulroney said he had to shout at her: “Margaret. I am not a member of your government. I am the prime minister of a sovereign nation . . . . If you want somebody to follow you, go get someone from your own government.”
There were no lingering hard feelings over that row, though, Mulroney said, and the two went on to build a deep and enduring friendship that lasted well beyond Thatcher’s 1990 ouster as prime minister. Mulroney was actually with her at a global conference in Paris as the Conservative forces in London were massing to unseat her. Mulroney wrote extensively in his memoirs of her sad but stoic demeanour in the face of the caucus uprising that was brewing back at home. Indeed, when she returned, Thatcher was removed as leader.
Mulroney continued to see her throughout the years, sometimes on long-weekend vacations he and his wife Mila took with Nancy Reagan and the Thatchers.
“In private, she was a gentle, kind, thoughtful, polite, hugely enjoyable person,” he said. “She was a truly wonderful human being.”
Brian Mulroney on Thatcher: ‘The world has lost one of its giants’
U.S. President Ronald Reagan, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney chat at a G7 leaders' summit on June 20, 1988. HANS DERYK
The world today has lost one of its giants. Margaret Thatcher was the most transformative leader of her country since Churchill. She played a crucial role in the successful navigation of the end of the Cold War and the launch of a new era.
Mila and I share with her family and friends around the world deep sadness at her passing. Margaret was an inspiration to a generation of leaders around the world, with her courage, her conviction and her ability to stand up to dictatorship and to lead her country in war. The Britain she took charge of in 1979 was a country burdened with illness, social and economic. By the time of her departure more than a decade later Britain was a confident winner again.
I was privileged to work with Margaret, with Ronald Reagan and with Helmut Kohl, François Mitterrand as we attempted to persuade first European colleagues and then the world that the death of the Soviet Union meant an entirely new set of relationships in the world. Those leaders found the path to a new future for Germany, for Europe and for the world. It was an achievement in which Margaret was a driving force.
Like every great leader, with strong convictions and a bold vision, she made enemies. Some Canadians were unconvinced by her approach. But in a series of visits to Canada she won many friends here. By her final visit in 1988 she was recognized as the founder of modern Conservatism, a leader who had dragged her country from the brink of economic and social crisis, and a beacon of strong principled leadership to the world.
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