BRIAN MULRONEY, A TRIBUTE to Our Great Friend and to Canada (Special Edition featuring my stepfather Larry Bulmer)

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Brian Mulroney was a great friend to American Presidents, and one of the big four leaders who helped bring down Communism in the 1980s. He helped George Bush in the Gulf War and was the leader who pushed for the freeing of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He was a man who played an outsized role in his times as the leader of our great northern neighbor. 

Brian Mulroney died on February 29, 2024. In his Obituary The New York Times wrote of him: 

" Mr. Mulroney was known as the Canadian leader who led the country into the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the United States and Mexico, a pact signed in December 1992, and as the author of an overhaul of Canada’s tax regime.... He prided himself on being a confidant of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush; on promoting a thaw between Moscow and Washington in the closing days of the Cold War; and on going much further than either the United States or Britain in imposing sanctions against white-ruled South Africa to press for the release of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of apartheid." 

“I am a centrist, a modern one open to all discussions,” Mr. Mulroney said during the 1984 campaign.  Mr. Mulroney proposed a goods-and-services tax,  he successfully negotiated the NAFTA accord, and tried but failed to bring about a national unity with Quebec and get them to sign on to the country's constitution.  That failure would eventually lead to splits in his own Conservative Party and his resignation and their total wipe out in the election just after he left office. 

In this episode we look back at the life and leadership of Brian Mulroney, and listen to perhaps the speeches that are today how most Americans remember him. The great friend of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher , George H. W. Bush, and his Queen, Elizabeth 2.  He gave the eulogies to three of them, and spoke on television during the period of mourning for Prime Minister Thatcher, this episode will feature those speeches and one of the interviews, plus we will hear from Canadian leaders, the Canadian news coverage of his passing, and an interview with the man himself on the George Stroumboulopoulos Show. 

As we bid farewell to this great friend of the United States.  Our host will also pay tribute to his own Step-Father, Charles "Larry " Bulmer, who was a member of the Canadian Air Force for 35 years and then worked with NATO, and we will hear him briefly retell the story of our host's family trip to the Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump National Park in the Alberta Province of Canada.  It was a trip our host said was one to remember. If you would like to learn more about the Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage site here is the link https://headsmashedin.ca/ 

We hope this is a fitting tribute to a legendary man, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney 

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