Brian Mulroney Quotes

Once you articulate an agenda, you have to follow it.

Nobody has achievements like this ... you cannot name a Canadian prime minister who has done as many significant things as I did, because there are none.

Every cabinet minister gets a mission statement from the Prime Minister.

In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy.

The Conservatives over the years have done a great deal, from Sir John A, to Diefenbaker, and others.

First, President Reagan was not enthusiastic. But I built up a relationship with him in other areas and then persuaded him that this was important to us and to me, and that we had to at least be in the process of looking at this seriously.

For example, the Prime Minister earlier this year talked about the importance of the Arctic to our future. He's right. A hundred years from now, the strength of Canada is going to be coming from our resources in the Arctic.

When I appointed the Minister of the Environment to major cabinet status, the Planning and Priorities committee, the signals that that sent through Ottawa were major, because that's what the bureaucracy understands.

I would go to them and I would explain this is the price of going forward. We're going to move ahead in all these other areas. We're moving ahead in tax reform and GST, we are moving ahead on trade, but this will not be done at the cost of the environment.

If your only objective is to be popular, you're going to be popular but you will be known as the Prime Minister who achieved nothing.

Trudeau's contribution was not to build Canada but to destroy it, and I had to come in and save it.

I am not denying anything I did not say.

We decided that the environment was an integral part of our policies and the political thrust of our government. We gave it the priority and we sustained it with the money required to make it happen.

The biggest trading partner of the United States is not West Germany or Japan, it's right here.

Whether the process proves to be Kyoto or something else, let's acknowledge the urgency of global warming.

You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.

Margaret Thatcher inherited the sick man of Europe in 1979 and transformed it into a powerhouse. When she left office, it was Britain redefined. And of course the frosting on the cake was her action in the Falklands, where she gave Britain back some of its pizzazz, addressed some past yearning and great memories. So she gave them back their pride. That was the first great thing she did.

And look, I was a big, brassy guy who won and won big. I did what I wanted.

I commend Sri Chinmoy for his faith and serenity, and I hope he will continue to exert his calming and constructive influence on the international community for many years to come.

There are so many demands on your time, on your resources, and on the prestige of the government.

So that was Reagan's political problem. As a rancher in California, he was an environmentalist himself. But the President of the United States doesn't control everything that happens in Washington.

You can't be chasing 15 rabbits. Otherwise, the public mind cannot follow you.

Like all of us, there were many facets to Margaret Thatcher's personality. In private she was kind, thoughtful, charming. Very attentive to her interlocutors. She took time to be concerned - she knew all about my children and wife Mila and so on.

At summits Margaret Tatcher was the only woman. Always perfectly coiffed, splendidly dressed - beautiful maroon or dark blue suits. That lovely diamond brooch. She would never speak to an issue without having absolutely exhausted the research on the file. She spoke very confidently because of it.

Every argument that Margaret Thatcher ever made internationally didn't have a great deal to do with her contempt for Communism - she never really got into that. What she talked about was giving freedom to tens of millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe. She was an inspirational leader when it came to discussing her belief in freedom. More visceral and moral.

This country is made up of small towns and big dreams.

My second biggest mistake in life, for which I have no one to blame but myself, is having accepted payments in cash from Karlheinz Schreiber for a mandate he gave me after I left office... My biggest mistake in life, by far, was ever agreeing to be introduced to Karlheinz Schreiber in the first place.

I can see now a vision emerging how Canada is going to profit in the future from our Arctic resources without destroying the environment on which it is all based.

I think the government has to reposition environment on top of their national and international priorities.