Above All, a Transcendent Talent for Friendship: Brian Mulroney, 1939-2024

One night in September, 2022, at the Atwater Library in Montreal, the famed cartoonist Terry ‘Aislin’ Mosher was hosting a launch for his book Montreal to Moscow, recalling the 1972 Team Canada-Soviet Union Summit hockey series. Terry’s co-host was Yvan Cournoyer, the legendary ‘Roadrunner’ member of the Canadian team, who wrote the book’s introduction. Another guest, standing quietly at the back, quite content to be a spectator, was Brian Mulroney.

After his own opening remarks, Terry invited the former prime minister and fellow Montrealer to the podium.

Mulroney spoke for five minutes, without notes — equally at home, as always, in both official languages — praising the authors in ways alternately funny, touching, entirely on point, and without a single awkward pause. [MORE]