Canada’s Building Trades Unions joins Canadians across the country in mourning the passing of former Prime Minister, The Right Honorable Brian Mulroney. As Prime Minister, Mulroney was one of the most consequential in Canadian history, and helped shape the country and the world we live in today. Mulroney never shied away from tough, and sometimes controversial, decisions.
At the time, his decisions on free trade and the implementing of the GST disproportionately and negatively impacted working people. However, the test of time has shown that these decisions, while unpopular and were arguably poorly executed, were the right ones for Canada. Mulroney’s courageous moral leadership on the world stage, where he championed the anti-apartheid cause at the UN, in the Commonwealth, at the G7, in La Francophonie and at the Organization of American States when it was particularly unpopular to do so, also put Canada on the right side of history. Mulroney’s leadership helped end the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Mulroney’s strong environmentalism is also dearly remembered, helping secure a landmark treaty on acid rain, and signing the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, both landmark environmental treaties that set the model for environmental protection today.
Canada’s Building Trades Unions offers our sincere condolences to his family and loved ones in their time of mourning.
