Changing of the guard

Woke up to the news that Brian Mulroney had died. He was the 18th prime minister of Canada from 1984 to 1993. He had just resigned when I first came to live in Ottawa, and there weren’t too many people, from what I remember, who were sad to see him go. He was responsible for the catastrophic attempt at getting Québec into the constitution, which ultimately led to the failed Meech Lake Accord, which then in turn led to a major constitutional crisis and Québec as near as dammit leaving Canada. It was quite an exciting time in politics; a province voting to potentially leave the country, and then the hand-wringing about what it could all mean. He was quite charismatic – and he and Reagan had a bit of a double act going on in the 80s. I have a memory of his singing “When Irish eyes are smiling” at some gala or other. I think that put me off Ireland for a bit…

Anyway, later on it came out that he had been on the take, and had accepted a ton of money from a German businessman called Karlheinz Schreiber for various influence schemes relating to Airbus. His reputation took a bit of a nosedive after that, unsurprisingly, but he worked hard to resuscitate it (and pretty much did). He was a Conservative, and his regime was the end of the “decent Conservatism” and the rise of the fuckwits out west. Pastor Manning and his cronies started up the Reform Party, and the country has veered between laughter and disdain for Conservatism ever since. A single life – but he has been called the country’s most consequential PM, mainly for his legacy. The flags were lowered to half-mast on Parliament Hill; fair enough. He was flawed, but decent.

Apart from that, it was a day of little import: except, we took delivery of our new fridge, covered in blue clingfilm. The old one, twice as old as Ottawacker Jr, was beginning to make strange noises and not work. I helpfully suggested changing the bulb – but was shooed away from the Costco website by Mrs Ottawacker. And late pm, I got an email from my doctor telling me he was leaving the practice and that I was going to be doctorless. This is a significant pain in the arse.