Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney spoke to the Royal Commonwealth Society of Toronto at a gala marking the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration.

Brian Mulroney

June 17, 2022

I was born into a working class Irish Catholic family in Baie-Comeau, Québec, a paper mill town about 450 km northeast of Montreal.  My father was an electrician at the company, which provided a small mill house for him, my mother and my five siblings.

One day when I was about 9 or 10, my mother asked me to go down to the basement and retrieve from her private trunk a special item she needed at that time.  When I opened the trunk and retrieved the item, I was surprised to see some yellowed newspapers dedicated to the 1939 Royal visit to Canada by the King and the Queen, before the outbreak of the Second World War.  When I returned to the kitchen with them and asked my mother about the people whose pictures dominated all the front pages, she ran her fingers gently over the old newspapers and said simply: “They protected us”.

About 35 years later, having been sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada a few days earlier, I was in Moncton, New Brunswick, for my first meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, the daughter of my mother’s “protectors”.

I did not keep a daily diary while Prime Minister but made private notes after important events.  I will refer to them briefly tonight because they capture the moment.

Personal Journal: September 22, 1984

“My first private meeting with the Queen took place in her suite at the hotel In Moncton. We were alone, and she struck me as being composed, resolute, and sympathetic.  We chatted about her day.  I had heard a good Man on the Street, CBC Radio program about her earlier and told her about it.  Pursuant to a meeting with Premier Hatfield, and at his suggestion, I told Her Majesty of the strong monarchical traditions in the Progressive Conservative Party, and my intention to ensure they were respected.

We chatted amicably about John Turner’s decision to call an election in the first place, the reasons why and the results.  At this point, Prince Philip entered, poured himself and the Queen a strong Beefeater martini, and offered me one.  When I declined in favour of a soda, he laughed and said, “Thank God those charged with running the government stay away from the evil booze.”

After drinks, we three descended to a private dining room, where Her Majesty offered a private, intimate meal in honour of the new prime minister and his wife.  I think about 20 attended, all told.  At dinner, the Queen told me of her affection for President John F. Kennedy’s mother, Rose, because, when she and Margaret were young, a relative died, and the two girls were banished to a small room when important guests called.  Only Rose Kennedy came into the room and chatted with them.  They were ignored by the other guests – and she remembered it, some forty years later! One shouldn’t really cross the Queen, I concluded.”

The Queen and Canada

Our Queen has a variety of different responsibilities.  She is at once Elizabeth the Second, Sovereign of 15 unique and diverse countries; each with their own histories, customs, traditions and peoples; she is Queen of Canada, our Head of State, and it is in her name that all laws are enacted and authority is dispersed, and she is Head of the Commonwealth.

Here is a woman who has travelled more than any other head of state ever, met more people, been photographed more frequently and appeared on more postage stamps and coins than anyone in world history.  Impressive though this accounting may be, it is Her Majesty’s devotion to service and to others which has been the most compelling and impressive hallmark of her adult life. It harkens back to that sunny afternoon in South Africa where in 1947 she proclaimed: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.”

As the longest serving Head of State in Canada’s modern history, indeed the only monarch 80 percent of Canadians have known, she has come to understand this country like no other person.

It is fitting that we are gathering here in Toronto at the Royal York this evening to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – 70 years as Queen of Canada and Head of the Commonwealth.  It was during Her Majesty’s 1973 Royal Tour, which included the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Ottawa, that our Sovereign was also invited to tour Toronto to see the changes that had transformed the city into a modern and multicultural showcase.  It was here at the Royal York on June 26, 1973, that my old friend Premier Bill Davis hosted Her Majesty to a dinner in honour of her first visit to the provincial capital since 1959.

In replying to Premier Davis’s loyal and endearing welcome, Her Majesty made a few observations which, in the Canadian context, encapsulate her ethos of service and dedication as our Head of State:

“It is as Queen of Canada that I am here, and Queen of Canada and of all Canadians, not just of one or two ancestral strains.  I would like the Crown to be seen as a symbol of national sovereignty belonging to all.”

Her Majesty then went on to reflect on the institution which she heads, something that she has rarely done in any of her Realms during her long and distinguished reign.  Her words offer a special perspective of her understanding of the position of the Crown in Canadian life and society, and her own role in supporting each of us as members of the broader Canadian family:

“The Crown is an idea more than a person and I want the Crown in Canada to represent everything that is best and most admired in the Canadian ideal.  I will continue to do my best to make it so during my lifetime.”

As many of you are no doubt aware, Her Majesty first visited Canada in 1951 as part of a five-week tour across Canada when she was Princess Elizabeth, all of 25 years of age.  In a documentary made at the time, there is a segment of the film which shows the young Princess and her consort, the Duke of Edinburgh, enjoying a relaxed afternoon in the snow travelling by horse drawn sled in rural Quebec.  As the royal party stops for a rest, our future Queen gets out of the sleigh and feeds carrots to the horses as the November snow filled the air.  It was an idyllic Canadian scene, something that could have been painted by Krieghoff a century earlier.  What surpasses the magic of this unscripted and natural moment is the sparkle in The Queen’s eye.  It is a sparkle of joy and interest.  This sense of enjoyment of people and places is something that, as Prime Minister, I was able to witness first hand on more than a few occasions.  Even at 96 years of age, and after 70 years on the throne, this sparkle has not diminished.

Le respect que voue la Reine à l’histoire du bilinguisme au Canada a été maintes fois apparent : sa maîtrise du français, qu’elle parle à la perfection, son désir de favoriser l’épanouissement et la vigueur de la langue française, son respect inestimable pour le rôle unique joué par les Canadiens français dans l’avancement du Québec moderne et du remarquable pays qu’est le Canada de même que son engagement profond pour l’unité canadienne, qu’elle voyait comme un gage d’équité, de possibilités et d’égalité pour tous.

For nine years I had the privilege of serving as the Queen’s Canadian Prime Minister.  As you would expect, that time afforded me a rarefied window into Her Majesty’s role as our Head of State in an up close and formal sense.  We had many interactions on a wide variety of matters, and I would like to think that the Queen and I developed a personal relationship, beyond that of just Head of State and Head of Government.  There were many issues on which we were keenly aligned – especially in relation to the Commonwealth and Canadian unity. In an intimate way I was regularly struck by the interest in, and care she demonstrated for, Canada and Canadians, beyond simply carrying the title Queen of Canada. She is our Queen, shared with other countries, yet with a deep love for Canada, its diversity, geography and history.  Unquestionably she has an abiding enthusiasm for the future and youthful vigour of her largest realm.

In 1989, following a trip to Europe and meetings in the United Kingdom, Mila and I were invited to the Palace for a private luncheon with Her Majesty.  Again, I refer to my private notes: “We both enjoy and admire her a great deal.  She is intelligent and pleasant and, in my judgement, a woman without the slightest intention of stepping down in favor of anyone.  She appears to deeply understand the nuances of the monarchy and her personal value to it.  On that she is entirely right because I believe she should remain at the helm.  During our quite frank and open chats about politics, policy and people, she points out scenes in the Palace gardens and I casually comment – never quite, however, entirely overcoming my own sense of awe and quiet reverence for the office and the setting which has dominated so much history, for so long.  I am not sure that either Mila or I in our youth ever contemplated private luncheons with the Queen at Buckingham Palace!  In any case, it could not have been more enjoyable – as usual – because neither of us recalls an unpleasant moment in her company.”

Even during her very first visit, in 1951, she noted, “From the moment when I first set foot on Canadian soil, the feeling of strangeness went, for I knew myself to be not only amongst friends, but amongst fellow countrymen.” To President Reagan in 1983, as she prepared to leave California for British Columbia, she remarked: “I am going home to Canada tomorrow.” During her most recent homecoming, she noted during a speech in Halifax that “My mother once said that this country felt like a home away from home for The Queen of Canada. Prime Minister, I am pleased to report that it still does.”

The Queen and Commonwealth

There is much I could say about Elizabeth the Second: Veteran of the Second World War, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, selfless servant of a great institution and remarkable person, are all appropriate.  But it is to her role as Head of the Commonwealth I now wish to turn.  Just as Canada has transformed over the course of Her Majesty’s reign, so too has the Commonwealth undergone a most remarkable evolution.  It is an organization that I have seen in action in the promotion of democracy and human rights.  It is in her role as Head of the Commonwealth that I witnessed The Queen deftly navigate the international stage like few others.  Throughout her long reign, there is scarcely a territory she has not visited or a head of government she has not known – which makes her uniquely effective among world leaders, as none can claim such a personal knowledge of the world and its peoples.

The abolition of apartheid and establishment of majority rule in South Africa was a signal moment in the life of the Commonwealth, that international, multicultural and expansive collection of countries that includes more than a third of the world population – 54 countries and 2.5 billion people.  It put on display the hard work that had commenced with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s own efforts towards racial equality and democracy in the Commonwealth more than 30 years before when he led the effort to expel South Africa from the Commonwealth because of its odious, discriminatory and morally unacceptable policy of apartheid that allowed a white minority to dominate all aspects of human existence, while crushing entirely the legitimate hopes and aspirations of the black majority.  It was also directly linked with the efforts undertaken by my Government and other Commonwealth countries throughout the 1980s and the 1990s to place strong and comprehensive economic, political and social sanctions on South Africa.  Throughout all of it, Her Majesty was a constant and positive force.  In fact, success would never have been achieved without the discreet, gentle and persuasive leadership of Her Majesty, the Queen.

And so, on my arrival in Nassau for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in September 1985, in a gesture that spoke volumes about Canada’s stature in the Commonwealth, the Queen invited me to a private meeting and personally asked me to work with other leaders to prevent a major and some thought, imminent split within the group.  I assured Her Majesty that Canada would do everything in its power to prevent that from happening.  But there was a sense in the air that we were facing a major crisis.  In my opening remarks I warned that “we must be aware that the effectiveness of the Commonwealth will be judged against the challenges of major current issues.  An urgent case in point is, of course, South Africa”, the festering and explosive situation there with a white population of approximately 4 million holding 30 million non-whites in a state of humiliating and destructive servitude.  The apartheid regime was in full command and Nelson Mandela was in the process of serving some 27 years in prison.

Her Majesty knew of course of Prime Minister Diefenbaker’s initiative at the 1961 Commonwealth meeting and was fully aware of my government’s decisions a year earlier to place the liberation of Mandela and the destruction of the apartheid system at the very top of our foreign policy agenda.  In the execution of this plan over the years, Foreign Minister Joe Clark was to play a highly significant role.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other African National Congress (ANC) leaders in exile had come to see me early on in my first term and told me that Canada could play a very influential leadership role in ending the ongoing calamitous situation in South Africa because it was a largely white, wealthy, respected industrialized country that was member of the G7, the Commonwealth, La Francophonie and the United Nations, thereby in a position to influence much of the industrialized world’s attitudes and activity in this regard.

Archbishop Tutu turned out to be right because in 1987-1988 Canada chaired the Commonwealth meetings in Vancouver, the Francophonie in Québec City and the G7 in Toronto and I was therefore able to influence both the agendas and the outcomes in favor of our objectives in South Africa.

Prime Minister Thatcher was a firm opponent of apartheid, but she did not agree with the general strategy developed in Nassau, by Prime Ministers Ghandi of India, Hawke of Australia, Pindling of the Bahamas, Presidents Kaunda of Zambia, Mugabe of Zimbabwe and myself.  As a result, I had a number of major disagreements with Mrs. Thatcher as she fought to defend her own national interest while, as Commonwealth Chairman, I looked for a formula that would find favor with all Commonwealth members, the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela himself.

In spite of our strong disagreements at that time, Mrs. Thatcher and I remained very close friends until her death.

We pursued that strategy, amended from time to time over some years, overcoming deep opposition in many quarters and ending only on that glorious day in 1990 when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison into the sunlight of freedom and with the subsequent political victories that saw him elected President of the Republic of a democratic, non-racial, multicultural South Africa, thereby ending the egregious, criminal and brutal policy of apartheid forever.

Canada’s outstanding ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis waged a major complementary battle in that forum in New York and over many years developed a close friendship with Mandela and his second wife Graça Machel.

Reporting in the Toronto Star in 2013 on his recent visits to South Africa and private conversations with Mandela, Lewis wrote: “For Mandela, Canada was the indispensable key to his freedom.  And, in his eyes, the man who turned the key was Brian Mulroney.”

If I was able to do this, it was only because of the overwhelming support I received on this issue from the people of Canada and the unfailing encouragement and gentle but unerring guidance I received throughout from Queen Elizabeth II.      As one who has had the privilege of a significant relationship with Her Majesty for many years, I can simply say this: She is extremely intelligent, a woman of impeccable judgement, resolute, selfless, witty and kind.

Events around the world tell us regularly of violence, political coups, and instability, ordinary people in sorrow and distress, as their countries descend into war, devastation and ruin.

Compare that with Canada, in two weeks 155 years old: strong, proud, prosperous, united and serene – with setbacks and challenges of course, but largely unaffected by the major spasms of social and political discontent that have destroyed so many other countries around the world.

The success of Canada – so deeply admired everywhere as a model of civility, fairness, equality and achievement – did not happen by accident.  The system of government chosen by our founders had much to do with it – the British parliamentary system led incomparably by the Monarchy.

Today, our system might appear anachronistic to some.  I understand that.  But to others – who constitute the overwhelming majority of Canadians – the role of the monarchy and in particular the irreplaceable role of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II for 70 years, has been absolutely indispensable in our country’s hugely impressive, achievements and contributions to peace, prosperity and stability at home and around the world.

In 1990, the Queen was in Canada again during a tense time, in the aftermath of the rejection of the Meech Lake Accord.  In a speech on Parliament Hill for Canada Day, she said “I am not a fair-weather friend, and I am glad to be here at this sensitive time.  I hope my presence may call to mind those many years of shared experience and raise new hopes for the future.  The unity of the Canadian people was the paramount issue in 1867 as it is today.  There is no force except the force of will to keep Canadians together.”

So spoke a person whose brilliant contributions over seven decades have done so much to sustain and elevate the golden concepts of freedom, liberty and democracy both here and around the world and have brought such honor to Canada and all of her people.

God save the Queen.

The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney served Canada and the Queen as Canada’s 18th Prime Minister from 1984 to 1993.