[LINK] "Mulroney blasts Harper over Supreme Court spat"

[rfmcdonald]

The slagging by Brian Mulroney, last prime minister from the Progressive Conservative Party ancestral to the currently ruling Conservative Party, is noteworthy. Things, it seems, are starting to fall apart.

Brian Mulroney is pulling no punches on the 30th anniversary of his historic majority election win, chastising Stephen Harper on everything from foreign affairs to the prime minister’s spat with Canada’s top judge.

In an interview with CTV’s “Power Play” to mark this week’s anniversary, the former prime minister sternly rebuked Harper for his public spat this year with Beverley McLachlin, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

“You don’t get into a slagging contest with the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, even if you thought that he or she was wrong,” Mulroney said in the interview broadcast on Thursday.

“You don’t do that.”

The spat centred around the failed appointment of Federal Court judge Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court. Harper drew stiff criticism for suggesting McLachlin had acted inappropriately by trying to flag potential problems with the appointment.

Mulroney’s criticisms of the government’s approach on other issues were equally harsh, particularly on foreign affairs and the Conservatives’ tense relations with the United Nations.

“When Canada, for the first time in our history, loses a vote at the United Nations to become a member of the Security Council … to Portugal, which was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, you should look in the mirror and say: ‘Houston, I think we have a problem.”’