Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy was "clued in about Canada" like few other U.S. politicians have been, and was a great admirer of the health-care system he thought was "the cat's meow," says former prime minister Brian Mulroney.
Mulroney and Kennedy were close personal friends, and Mulroney warmly remembers spending time with Kennedy and his wife and said he was a good neighbour to Canada.
"He admired our health care system, he liked what we had done on the environment and in support of Nelson Mandela against apartheid in South Africa and so on," Mulroney told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday.
"He was clued in about Canada and was a wonderful friend and a wonderful supporter."
Kennedy, a passionate advocate for health care reform in the U.S. -- a subject that is now in the headlines as President Barack Obama fights to change the system -- was always able to remain a statesman, Mulroney said.
"He could be on the attack, defending his principles, and yet walk across the aisle a few minutes after he finished and put his arm around Orrin Hatch or John McCain or any of the others," Mulroney said.
He added: "It was something in his personality. He didn't have any malice in his heart. He wasn't vindictive at all, he was a happy-go-lucky, warm-hearted Irishman and he lived by that rule."
Mulroney remembers when Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital was looking for someone to help launch its fundraising campaign, and approached him for help.
He put a call in to Kennedy, who readily agreed to step in.
"I called Teddy and he came up and was the keynote speaker here in Montreal to launch it. One of the reasons he accepted so quickly was because of his admiration for the universal health care system we have here," Mulroney said.
"He thought the Canadian system was the cat's meow."
Mulroney and his wife Mila and son Nicolas once spent three days at the Kennedy family home in Hyannis Port, Mass.
Over the weekend they talked about politics, Kennedy's brother -- former U.S. president John F. Kennedy who was assassinated -- and the longstanding relationship between Canada and the U.S.
By coincidence, the Mulroneys were visiting on what would have been JFK's birthday, had he not been shot in Dallas, Tx. On Nov. 22, 1963.
"He put Mila and me in president Kennedy's suite of rooms there, and all the pictures were in black and white and it wasn't like a museum, it was like an old family home that was weatherbeaten and most enjoyable," Mulroney said.
"It was a bittersweet experience because had president Kennedy not gone to Dallas he would have been, I think, 74 that day, and he would have been sleeping in his own bed."
