Mulroney was probably the first prime minister of Canada who did not see the United States as a threat to Canadian nationhood. At the "Shamrock Summit" of 1985 in Québec City, Brian and Mila Mulroney joined US president Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy in singing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." It was meant to symbolize a new era of Canadian-American harmony after years of Liberal prickliness.
Polls taken during the 1984 election showed that Canadians wanted Mulroney to achieve that harmony. But public opinion is fickle, and many Canadians were soon registering their opposition to Mulroney's pro-Americanism, which was all too easily interpreted as subservient or worse. Cruel cartoons depicted Mulroney as an American stooge.
Mulroney did work hard to make the country a good world citizen: carrying on the peacekeeping tradition, urging international cooperation, fighting apartheid in South Africa, even sending a token force to the Gulf War in 1991.
He became a respected international figure, one probably more at ease abroad than at home, where his deep personal unpopularity soured his government's policies and prospects.
