Featured letter: The day Mulroney closed schools

Article content

The Prime Minister of Canada, the Honourable Brian Mulroney came for a visit to Fredericton High School. He was quite impressed when he found out that the school was believed to be the largest high school in the Commonwealth. In those days, Fredericton High School was the only anglophone high school in Fredericton with a student population of more than 3,000 students.

We met in the principal’s office. Raymond Woodward was the principal and I was superintendent of schools. We shared with the prime minister that a short while ago we had a visit from The Right Honourable Jeanne Sauve, Governor General of Canada. She actually got to meet the students as they lined both sides of the hallways on each of three floors. Later that morning, in a general assembly, Her Honour announced that she would close the school for the rest of the day.

Prime Minister Mulroney said he always wanted to do that. He asked me if he could. I replied, with a smile, “You are the prime minister.”

We had invited the students from Ecole Ste. Anne to come over that morning so they could share the experience of having an address by the prime minister.

It was during his presentation to the full assembly that he said he had always wanted to close schools. Needless to say, there were loud cheers from the students and teachers to hear that the schools were closing.

This announcement wasn’t really part of the daily schedule so the administration had to move quickly to get the word out to school bus drivers that the schools were closing at noon.

Later that month at a school board meeting I was asked “Mr. Superintendent, who authorized the closure of schools?” I related the enthusiasm and excitement of the prime minister. Some board members didn’t like that I had agreed to let the prime minister close the schools. My reply was that I certainly would not want to publicly challenge the authority of the prime minister.

It was a wonderful, memorable day and I personally appreciated meeting and getting to know briefly our 18th Prime Minister of Canada, the Honourable Brian Mulroney.

W. Barry Miller

Hanwell