There was no in-between with Martin Brian Mulroney.
Canadians loved him: In 1984, they handed the youthful charmer a blank cheque and the largest majority mandate in history so he could change the country.
Canadians hated him: When he announced his departure from politics in 1993, his charm was dismissed as blarney, his youth faded into a lugubrious middle-age.
He entered the job with massive support; he left with the lowest approval rating in the history of polling.
Voters pleaded for reforms when they elected him. When he tried to deliver that change — be it free trade, tax reform or a new Constitution — they reacted with wariness at best and hostility more often.
News of Mulroney’s death Thursday at the age of 84 elicited a very different response.
“I was an opponent of him all my political career, but in politics, opposition is opposition,” former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien said in a rare appearance on Parliament Hill.
“It’s like playing hockey. You can fight on the ice and have a beer together after that. And we had a lot of things in common.”
A spokesman for Mulroney’s daughter Caroline said he died surrounded by family at a Palm Beach hospital, where he was being treated after a recent fall.
“He was committed to this country, loved it with all his heart and served it many, many years in many different ways,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Thunder Bay.
“He had the courage to do big things.”
