Mulroney, Brian

Related Category: Canadian History: Biographies

(Martin Brian Mulroney)(mŭlrō´nē, –r´nē), 1939–, Canadian prime minister (1984–93). Raised in Quebec in a working class family, Mulroney was a successful bilingual lawyer who became active in provincial politics in the 1970s. In 1983 he was elected both national leader of the Progressive Conservative party and to Parliament. In 1984 he became prime minister. In 1987 he negotiated a free trade agreement with the United States; in 1992 Canada, the United States, and Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mulroney tried, through the failed Meech Lake Accord, to settle the problem of the constitutional status of Quebec. In 1992 he engineered a subsequent constitutional compromise on the problem of provincial autonomy; it was defeated in a national referendum. Mulroney resigned in 1993 in the midst of a recession.