Time & Perspective Quote by Brian Mulroney

It sounds like a bland observation until you hear the defensive music under it: the quiet insistence that governing is not just a contest of ideas, but a constant triage of scarcity. Mulroney’s line is the language of executive reality, where every “yes” spends something finite: hours, money, political capital, and the less tangible currency he names most pointedly, prestige. That last word is doing the real work. “Prestige of the government” is a reminder that authority isn’t only constitutional; it’s psychological, an asset that can be depleted by overreach, scandal, or simply promising more than the state can deliver.

The specific intent reads like a caution to colleagues, critics, or a public hungry for action: you cannot ask the government to be everywhere at once without eroding the very credibility that makes intervention effective. Mulroney governed in an era when Canadian federal power was being tested on multiple fronts - constitutional negotiations, free trade battles, fiscal pressures, regional resentments. In that setting, “demands” aren’t abstract; they’re political fires, each one insisting it’s the most urgent.

The subtext is a gentler version of “manage expectations,” but also a subtle bid for discretion. If prestige is on the line, the leader must pick fights carefully, speak carefully, and sometimes decline to engage. It’s a statesman’s way of justifying restraint while sounding responsible, not evasive: a reminder that government, like any institution, can spend its legitimacy faster than it can earn it back.