Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney says he believes newly crowned King Charles III. “Amazing everyone” and “excellent” as the new monarch, partly because he has been “continuously underestimated throughout his life.”
King Charles III and his wife Queen Camilla were crowned at Westminster Abbey on Saturday.
Mulroney has spent much time with King Charles III since the two first met four decades ago, and the former Prime Minister said he considers him a “good friendly acquaintance” after last seeing him just before the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. pandemic had visited.
He said he felt the new monarch had always been underestimated, sometimes unwittingly, because he was overshadowed by his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, who served “in the most impeccable, impressive style possible”.
“I never thought he would get the recognition he deserved during that time,” Mulroney told CTV Question Time host Vassy Kapelos in an exclusive interview that will air on Sunday.
“But… I mean, for a politician, for example, there’s no better position than to be underestimated,” he also quipped. “So I think Canadians and others can look forward to him becoming a fantastic king.”
“I think he’s going to be excellent,” added Mulroney. “He has great ideas. He’s a very modern man. He’s a very thoughtful, generous, very funny guy.”
Mulroney also said he believed the personality and interests of King Charles III. – for example in relation to human rights and the environment – “will endear him to the people”.
He told Kapelos of his last visit to the King, then Prince of Wales, at a “small dinner party for a very close mutual friend in London” a few years ago.
Mulroney said he and King Charles were both fans of the late English singer Vera Lynn, who sang the “very sentimental song” “We’ll Meet Again” to troops boarding ships to fight in France during World War II.
“And for some reason, as we both got up from the table, we both started humming ‘We’ll Meet Again,’ and then we broke into song,” Mulroney said. “I wish I had a tape recorder because if I had one and there was a music agent I would be way ahead of the competition. And we sang a little together.”
Despite Mulroney’s faith in King Charles, recent polls show many Canadians have waning interest in the monarchy.
In Canada, too, there was renewed interest in the complete abolition of the monarchy, including from Yves-François Blanchet, leader of the Bloc Québécois, who presented a corresponding motion in October 2022, but it failed in the House of Commons.
Severing ties with the monarchy in Canada would require approval of the House of Commons, Senate and all 10 provinces in an “unanimous consent amendment” to the constitution.
“I get it,” Mulroney replied to questions about Canadians’ waning connection to the monarchy. “It’s a bit anachronistic for a great country like Canada, for example…which has 40 million people, has a huge GDP, is very influential globally, and lives side-by-side with the United States, and yet is the head of state that we’re sitting in London .”
“But then you have to ask,” he added, “how did we cope with this system? And the answer is that we did an excellent job.
“But I realize that a younger generation is coming, our country has changed,” he said. “But so far it has served us well.”
