Canada bids farewell to former prime minister Mulroney

MONTREAL — Canada’s dignitaries, political elite, and other well-wishers gathered at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica on Saturday to pay final respects at the state funeral of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who died Feb. 29. He was 84.

A longtime seasonal resident of Palm Beach, he died at a local hospital of complications from a fall at his North End home.

Mulroney’s casket, draped in the Canadian flag, arrived at the Notre-Dame Basilica in a procession that included members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the armed forces, and the Mulroney family, the Reuters news service reported. His body had laid in repose at the nearby Saint Patrick’s Basilica for public visitation since Thursday.

In attendance at Saturday’s ceremony were Canada’s Governor General Mary Simon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Quebec Premier Francois Legault, business mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau, as well as actor Ryan Reynolds.

“It’s the end of the evening for a giant but the music continues in his memory,” Trudeau told the gathering.

More: Obituary: Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney dies at 84; had suffered a fall

Born in 1939 in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Mulroney earned a law degree in 1964 from Université Laval in Quebec City and joined a Montreal law firm now known as Norton Rose Fulbright, where his lucrative career as a corporate lawyer sharpened his innate political skills.

He served as prime minister from 1984 to 1993. He barreled into office in one of the biggest political landslides in Canadian history, yet plummeted to almost single-digit levels of approval nine years later. “Popularity is bad for you,” Mulroney said in a 1992 campaign speech. “I try to avoid it like the plague, and I’ve been reasonably successful."

Highlights of his tenure included a free trade deal with the United States and the introduction of a goods and services tax, which although unpopular helped fix the government's finances.

After leaving politics, Mulroney served on corporate boards and was chair of Quebecor Inc. and Forbes Global Business and Finance. He bought a winter home on the North End of Palm Beach, which he had first seen on a visit to his friend Paul Desmarais.

"I fell in love with the place," he would later say.

Mulroney had a broad smile and booming voice, and was known for his charm. He and his wife Mila had four children.

"My dad held an audience in the palm of his hand. Speeches were such a major part of his life that he told us that when it was his turn to go up to what he called 'that great political rally in the sky,' he wanted us to bury him with his podium," his daughter Caroline Mulroney Lapham, president of the Treasury Board of Ontario, said Saturday in her eulogy.

Mulroney will be buried in a private ceremony in Montreal. A memorial service in Palm Beach has not been announced.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Canada says goodbye to Brian Mulroney, former prime minister