The 18th Prime Minister in Canadian history, Brian Mulroney, died on February 29, 2024.
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On September 4, 1984, Brian Mulroney was elected Prime Minister of Canada.
Radio-Canada
Please note that this article published in 2019 may contain information that is no longer current.
On September 4, 1984, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, Brian Mulroney, won the largest majority in the history of Canadian federal politics. Return to this event.
Bernard, Brian Mulroney is the fifth Quebecer to become first Minister of Canada after Sir John Abbott, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Louis Saint-Laurent and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
A quote from Daniel Lessard, September 4, 1984
This sentence, the parliamentary correspondent of Radio-Canada in Ottawa Daniel Lessard said it to the host Bernard Derome during the program Elections 1984, which analyzed the result of the federal election on 4 September 1984.
The two journalists, like all Canadians, were attending a historic event.
Brian Mulroney, 1939-2024
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The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada had just ousted the Liberal Party of Canada from power after an almost uninterrupted reign of 21 years.
With more with 211 MPs out of 282, new Prime Minister Brian Mulroney will have the largest majority ever in Canada's House of Commons.
How did Brian Mulroney achieve this feat?
Report by parliamentary correspondent Daniel Lessard who takes stock of Brian Mulroney's electoral campaign during the 1984 federal election.
The recipe for success of Brian Mulroney is explained by parliamentary correspondent Daniel Lessard in a review of the Conservative campaign broadcast on August 23, 1984 on the program La campaigne d'été.
After 21 years of Liberal rule, Canadians yearned for political change in Ottawa.
Brian Mulroney imposed this theme as a leitmotif of the Progressive Party campaign -conservative.
From Newfoundland to British Columbia, the Conservative leader insisted that new faces were needed to lead Canada and that the Liberals were discredited.
What Canadians were particularly tired of, he said, was the favoritism that the Liberal Party government seemed to practice without any shame.
Before his departure, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau made several partisan appointments.
These would have torpedoed, according to several observers, the electoral campaign of his successor at the head of the Liberal Party, John Turner.
Moreover, Brian Mulroney's promise to bring Quebec back into the Canadian constitutional fold also greatly contributed to the Conservative victory in 1984.
In a speech given in Sept-Îles, captured by Radio-Canada on August 6, 1984, the Conservative leader formally committed to bringing Quebec back into Canada “with enthusiasm and honor.”
This commitment from Brian Mulroney appealed to a majority of Quebecers.
In the 1984 election, the Progressive Conservative Party won 50.2% of the vote in Quebec.
This result constitutes a reversal of the historical situation.
In 1980, during the previous federal election, the Conservatives obtained barely 13% of the votes cast in Quebec.
One last element may have played a role in Brian Mulroney's landslide victory: a certain form of courage.
His advisors recommended that he try to be elected as an MP in the riding of Brome-Missisquoi, which had a conservative tradition.
Brian Mulroney instead chose to run in Manicouagan on the North Shore, historically unfavorable to the conservatives.
On September 4, 1984, the Conservative leader nevertheless won handily the riding where he was born.
Brian Mulroney was elected Prime Minister of Canada on September 4, 1984.
September 5, 1984, as recalled in a report by journalist Jean Bédard broadcast on Téléjournal, one of the first gestures of the new Prime Minister was to thank the voters of Manicouagan.
His recognition was particularly keen for the citizens of the city of Schefferville, who gave him the majority.
This support may have surprised more than one.
After all, Brian Mulroney, as executive vice-president of the Iron Ore mining company, had approved the closure of the town a few years earlier.
Brian Mulroney was sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada on September 17, 1984. He left office on June 25, 1993.
The former premier died on February 29, 2024 at the age of 84.
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