The Daily Chase: Ex-PM Mulroney dead at 84, big bank earnings week ends

Here are five things you need to know this morning.

Ex-PM Mulroney dead at 84: A giant of Canadian political history has left us, as former prime minister Brian Mulroney has died at the age of 84. From a business perspective, Mulroney’s biggest legacy is without question being one of the architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement that dominated the political discourse in the 1988 election and in large part continues to guide Canada’s economy to this day. We’ll have extensive reaction from his peers, compatriots and former political adversaries including Sheila Copps, Frank McKenna, Perrin Beatty and Jean Charest throughout the day on BNN Bloomberg.

Glass ceiling broken in the oil patch: Calgary-based oilsands company MEG Energy says chief operating officer Darlene Gates will succeed Derek Evans as the company’s new chief executive officer in May, making her the only woman to helm a major oilsands producer. Evans, who has led MEG for more than five years, will step down as CEO and leave the board on May 1. Gates is set to become one of only a handful of female CEOs in the history of the country’s energy industry. Prior to joining MEG in 2021, she had previously worked at Exxon Mobil Corp. and its Imperial Oil Ltd. Canadian unit, holding positions in Canada, the U.S., Germany and Qatar.

More trouble in the U.S. banking sector: Shares in New York Community Bancorp lost as much as 30 per cent of their value at one point in premarket trading on Friday after the regional U.S. lender revealed it has found "material weaknesses" in its accounting protocols and disclosed other issues that would prevent it from filing its annual report on time. The company also announced a major executive shakeup including a new CEO. At issue is the value of the lender’s commercial real estate loan portfolio.