1969 OUR BELOVED SOCIALIST PM- #PierreElliottTrudeauPM- changed the
world-The bill that (mostly) decriminalized gay sex
Trudeau's 'indelible
imprint' Daily Xtra http://www.dailyxtra.com/canada/news-and-ideas/news/trudeaus-indelible-imprint-52691#.V1IEjrbyxEs.twitter …
October 20th, 2015
From prime minister’s son to prime minister: Justin Trudeau family compilation
From a prime minister’s son to a prime minister-designate: a look at the highlights of Justin Trudeau’s childhood in the spotlight while his father Pierre Elliott Trudeau led the Liberal Party and the government, to his own rise in Canada’s political ranks. Justin Trudeau was named the prime minister-designate of Canada on Oct. 19, 2015.--------------
AFGHANISTAN- Canada's 158 troops KIA- We remember - October 11, 2015 Canada's Thanksgiving Day
Here are Canada’s fallen heroes:
Sgt. Marc Leger, 29, Lancaster, Ont.
Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, 24, Toronto, Ont.
Pte. Richard Green, 21, Hubbards, N.S.
Pte. Nathan Smith, 26, Porters Lake, N.S.
Sgt. Robert Short, 42, Fredericton, N.B.
Cpl. Robbie Beerenfenger, 29, Ottawa, Ont.
Cpl. Jamie Murphy, 26, Conception Harbour, Nfld.
Pte. Braun Woodfield, 24 , Eastern Passage, N.S.
Glyn Berry, 59, British-born Canadian diplomat.
Cpl. Paul Davis, 28, Bridgewater, N.S.
Master Cpl. Timothy Wilson, 30, Grande Prairie, Alta.
Pte. Robert Costall, 22, Thunder Bay, Ont.
Cpl. Matthew Dinning, 23, Richmond Hill, Ont.
Cpl. Randy Payne, 32, Gananoque, Ont.
Bombardier Myles Mansell 25, Victoria, B.C.
Lieut. William Turner, 44, Toronto, Ont.
Capt. Nichola Goddard, 26, Calgary, Alta. (Canada’s first female soldier killed in combat)
Cpl. Anthony Boneca, 21, reservist, Thunder Bay, Ont.
Cpl. Francisco Gomez, 44, Edmonton, Alta.
Cpl. Jason Warren, 29, Montreal, Que.
Cpl. Christopher Reid, 34, Truro, N.S.
Sgt. Vaughn Ingram, 35, Burgeo, Nfld.
Cpl. Bryce Keller, 27, Regina, Sask.
Pte. Kevin Dallaire, 22, Calgary, Alta.
Master Cpl. Raymond Arndt, 31, Edmonton, Alta.
Master Cpl. Jeffrey Walsh, 33, Regina, Sask.
Cpl. Andrew Eykelenboom, 23, Edmonton, Alta.
Cpl. David Braun, 27, Raymore, Sask.
Sgt. Shane Stachnik, 30, Waskatenau, Alta.
Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, 38, Truro, N.S.
Pte. William Cushley, 21, Port Lambton, Ont.
Warrant Officer Richard Nolan, 39, Mount Pearl, Nfld.
Pte. Mark Graham, 33, Hamilton, Ont.
Pte. David Byers, 22, Espanola, Ont.
Cpl. Shane Keating, 30, Dalmeny, Sask.
Cpl. Keith Morley, 30, Winnipeg, Man.
Cpl. Glen Arnold, 32, McKerrow, Ont.
Pte. Josh Klukie, 23, Thunder Bay, Ont.
Sgt. Craig Gillam, 40, South Branch, Nfld.
Cpl. Robert Mitchell, 30, Owen Sound, Ont.
Trooper Mark Wilson, 39, London, Ont.
Sgt. Darcy Tedford , 32, Earltown, N.S.
Pte. Blake Williamson, 23, Ottawa, Ont.
Chief Warrant Officer Bobby Girouard, 46, Bathurst, N.B.
Cpl. Albert Storm, 36, Fort Erie, Ont.
Cpl. Kevin Megeney, 25, New Glasgow, N.S.
Pte. Kevin Kennedy, 20, St. John’s, Nfld.
Sgt. Donald Lucas, 31, of St. John’s, Nfld.
Cpl. Aaron Williams, 23, Perth-Andover, N.B.
Pte. David Greenslade, 20, Saint John, N.B.
Cpl. Brent Poland, 37, Sarnia, Ont.
Cpl. Christopher Stannix, 24, Dartmouth, N.S.
Master Cpl. Allan Stewart, 31, Newcastle, N.B.
Trooper Patrick James Pentland, 23, Geary, N.B.
Master Cpl. Anthony Klumpenhouwer, 25, Listowel, Ont.
Cpl. Matthew McCully, 25, Orangeville, Ont.
Master Cpl. Darrell Jason Priede, 30, Burlington, Ont.
Trooper Darryl Caswell, 25, Bowmanville, Ont.
Sgt. Christos Karigiannis, 31, Montreal, Que.
Cpl. Stephen Frederick Bouzane, 26, Toronto, Ont.
Pte. Joel Vincent Wiebe, 22, Edmonton, Alta.
Cpl. Cole Bartsch, 23, Whitecourt, Alta.
Capt. Matthew Johnathan Dawe, 27, Kingston, Ont.
Pte. Lane Watkins, 20, Edmonton, Alta.
Cpl. Jordan Anderson, 25, Iqaluit, Nunavut
Master Cpl. Colin Bason, 28, New Westminster, B.C.
Capt. Jefferson Francis, 36, Halifax, N.S.
Pte. Simon Longtin, 23, Longueuil, Que.
Master Warrant Officer Mario Mercier, 43, Weedon, Que.
Master Cpl. Christian Duchesne, 34, Montreal, Que.
Maj. Raymond Ruckpaul, 42, Hamilton, Ont.
Cpl. Nathan Hornburg, 24, Calgary, Alta.
Cpl. Nicolas Raymond Beauchamp, 28, Valcartier, Que.
Pte. Michel Levesque, 25, Valcartier Que.
Gunner Jonathan Dion, 27, Val-d’Or, Que.
Warrant Officer Hani Massouh, 41, Valcartier, Que.
Cpl. Eric Labbe, 31, Rimouski, Que.
Trooper Richard Renaud, 26, Alma, Que.
Sapper Etienne Gonthier, 21, St. Georges, Que.
Trooper Michael Yuki Hayakaze, 25, Edmonton, Alta.
Bombardier Jeremie Ouellet, 22, Matane, Que.
Sgt. Jason Boyes, 32, Napanee, Ont.
Pte. Terry John Street, 24, Hull, Que.
Cpl. Michael Starker, 36, Calgary, Alta.
Capt. Richard Steven Leary, 32, Brantford, Ont.
Capt. Jonathan Sutherland Snyder, 26, Penticton, B.C.
Cpl. Brendan Anthony Downey, 37, Dundurn, Sask.
Pte. Colin William Wilmot, 24, Fredericton, N.B.
Cpl. James Hayward Arnal, 25, Winnipeg, Man.
Master Cpl. Josh Roberts, 29, Prince Albert, Sask.
Master Cpl. Erin Doyle, 32, Edmonton, Alta.
Sgt. Shawn Eades, 33, Hamilton, Ont.
Sapper Stephan Stock, 25, Campbell River, B.C.
Cpl. Dustin Wasden, 20, Spiritwood, Sask.
Pte. Chad Horn, 21, Calgary, Alta.
Cpl. Michael Seggie, 21, Winnipeg. Man.
Cpl. Andrew Grenon, 23, Windsor, Ont.
Cpl. Mark Robert McLaren, 23, Peterborough, Ont.
Pte. Demetrios “Dip” Diplaros, 24, Toronto, Ont.
Warrant Officer Robert John Wilson, 38, Keswick, Ont.
Cpl. Thomas James Hamilton, 26, Truro, N.S.
Pte. John Michael Roy Curwin, 26, Mount Uniacke, N.S.
Pte. Justin Peter Jones, 21, Baie Verte, Nlfd.
Pte. Michael Freeman, 28, Peterborough, Ont.
Warrant Officer Gaétan Roberge, 45, Hanmer, Ont.
Sgt. Gregory John Kruse, 40, Campbelltown, N.B.
Trooper Brian Richard Good, 42, Ottawa, Ont.
Sapper Sean David Greenfield, 25, Pinawa, Man.
Warrant Officer Denis Raymond Brown, 38, St. Catharines, Ont.
Cpl. Dany Olivier Fortin, 29, Baie-Comeau, Que.
Cpl. Kenneth Chad O’Quinn, 25, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Nfld.
Trooper Marc Diab, 22, Mississauga, Ont.
Master Cpl. Scott Vernelli, 28, Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Cpl. Tyler Crooks, 24, Port Colborne, Ont.
Trooper Jack Bouthillier, 20, Hearst, Ont.
Trooper Corey Joseph Hayes, 22, Ripples, N.B.
Trooper Karine Blais, 21, Les Méchins, Que.
Maj. Michelle Mendes, 30, Wicklow, Ont.
Pte. Alexandre Peloquin, 20, Brownsburg, Que.
Cpl. Martin Dube, 35, Quebec City, Que.
Cpl. Nicholas Bulger, 30, Peterborough, Ont.
Master Cpl. Charles-Philippe Michaud, 28, Edmundston, N.B.
Master Cpl. Pat Audet, 38, Montreal, Que.
Cpl. Martin Joannette, 25, Saint-Calixte, Que.
Pte. Sebastien Courcy, 26, Saint-Hyacinthe, Que.
Cpl. Christian Bobbitt, 23, Sept-Iles, Que.
Sapper Matthieu Allard, 21, Val d’Or, Que.
Cpl. Jean-François Drouin, 21, Beauport, Que.
Maj. Yannick Pepin, 38, Warwick, Que.
Pte. Patrick Lormand, 21, Chute-a-Blondeau, Ont.
Pte Jonathan Couturier, 23, Loretteville, Que.
Lt. Justin Garrett Boyes, 26, Saskatoon, Sask.
Sapper Steven Marshall, 24, Calgary, Alta.
Lt. Andrew Richard Nuttall, 30, Victoria, B.C.
Pte. Garrett William Chidley, 21, Cambridge, Ont.
Cpl. Zachery McCormack, 21, Edmonton, Alta.
Sgt. Kirk Taylor, 28, Yarmouth, N.S.
Sgt. George Miok, 28, Edmonton, Alta.
Sgt. John Faught, 44, Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Cpl. Joshua Baker, 24, Edmonton, Alta.
Cpl. Darren Fitzpatrick, 21, Prince George, B.C.
Pte. Tyler William Todd, 26, Kitchener, Ont.
Petty Officer Douglas Craig Blake, 37, Simcoe, Ont.
Pte. Kevin Thomas McKay, 24, Richmond Hill, Ont.
Col. Geoff Parker, 42, Oakville, Ont.
Trooper Larry John Zuidema Rudd, 26, Brantford, Ont.
Sgt. Martin Goudreault, 35, Sudbury, Ont.
Sgt. James MacNeil, 28, Glace Bay, N.S.
Master Cpl. Kristal Giesebrecht, 34, Wallaceburg, Ont.
Pte. Andrew Miller, 21, Sudbury, Ont.
Sapper Brian Collier, 24, Bradford, Ont.
Cpl. Brian Pinksen, 22, Corner Brook, Nfld.
Cpl. Steve Martin, 24, Saint-Cyrille-de-Wendover, Que.
Cpl. Yannick Scherrer, 24, Montreal, Que.
Bombardier Karl Manning, 31, Chicoutimi, Que.
Master Cpl. Byron Greff, 26, Lacombe, Alta.
Heaven was needing a hero (Hommage Canadien 2012 Canadian Tribute)- LISE CHARRON
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Girls Matter
GIRL POWER
-----------------
OCTOBER 8, 2015- Canada voted most respected country in the world by tourists - Pierre Elliott Trudeau- u wld b so proud of us...... u raised us up.... stayed true to the poor and neglected and aged and disabled and yet moved us 4ward....
QUOTE: Not only is it the land of maple syrup and ice hockey, but Canada can now lay claim to being the most respected country in the world.
This is the fourth time in the past five years that the country has claimed top honours, after slipping to second place behind Switzerland last year.
A recent poll has found that many foreigners consider Canada to have an effective government, a high level of development and the best quality of life over any country in the world.
Canada named world's most well-respected country in the world by
holidaymakers... but the UK and US fail to crack the top 10
---------------
Thx John for the beautiful share...
Love u Grammy.... in her 70s with that old apron picking vegetables in the field for supper..
I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principle use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..
And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about Grandma's aprons.
REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love
---Hawk Seeker of Truth---
and...
As WWII kids... yes we did...and chamber pots and outhouses... and scrubboards...and wash tubs for bath for Sunday School and Church and Community.... woodstoves...cold cellars...knitting, crocheting, embroidery, quilting, sewing, mending....and the boys and men built everything we used by hand- everything handmade and used again and again... as the oldest u were lucky.... by the 6th kid.... 2 bad... wear it and be grateful... old time music and reading and family gatherings and sing songs and working like dogs and traapsing almost 2 miles by foot to school and back again.... in a one room schoolhouse.... seals saved us... fur saved us... coal saved us..wood saved us...and fishing, farming and hunting. shoes and boots were a luxury.... fish and wild animals kept us alive.... remember.... and we all drank out of the same dipper.... and no body shirked working... ever... and table manners mattered.... thx for the share... God bless us all.... we used to ask our Uncles who did survive the Victory of WWII in Canada... in such horrific poverty... are u sure we won?
--------------
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids..
And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
Send this to those who would know (and love) the story about Grandma's aprons.
REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.
They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love
---Hawk Seeker of Truth---
and...
As WWII kids... yes we did...and chamber pots and outhouses... and scrubboards...and wash tubs for bath for Sunday School and Church and Community.... woodstoves...cold cellars...knitting, crocheting, embroidery, quilting, sewing, mending....and the boys and men built everything we used by hand- everything handmade and used again and again... as the oldest u were lucky.... by the 6th kid.... 2 bad... wear it and be grateful... old time music and reading and family gatherings and sing songs and working like dogs and traapsing almost 2 miles by foot to school and back again.... in a one room schoolhouse.... seals saved us... fur saved us... coal saved us..wood saved us...and fishing, farming and hunting. shoes and boots were a luxury.... fish and wild animals kept us alive.... remember.... and we all drank out of the same dipper.... and no body shirked working... ever... and table manners mattered.... thx for the share... God bless us all.... we used to ask our Uncles who did survive the Victory of WWII in Canada... in such horrific poverty... are u sure we won?
--------------
-----------
O Canada: Who Stands on Guard for Thee?
We are pleased to
repost the following open letter to political leaders that appeared on
the TheVimyReport.com, authored by Paul H. Chapin, Executive Editor
of TheVimyReport.com,J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor
Emeritus at York University, Brigadier-General Don Macnamara (Ret’d),
Board Member of the CDA Institute,
and the Honourable Hugh Segal, Chair of NATO Association of Canada (and recipient of the 2015 Vimy Award). We are pleased to have permission to repost
the letter on our Blog: The Forum.
This letter is to
propose action for the next Government to ensure the continued safety,
security, and prosperity of Canada’s citizens.
The writers have
spent their careers on security and defence issues. Our analysis draws on that
experience and our recommendations have been selected for their practical
character. They are offered in a spirit of political neutrality. We are
partisan only in the interests of Canada.
O Canada
Canada today is a secure and prosperous
nation, but security conditions have been deteriorating. A militant and violent
Islamist terror is rampant throughout the Middle East without an agreed
strategy to contain it, claiming over 100,000 lives, displacing more than 10million, and causing a migration crisis
of global dimensions. Russia and China have coerced neighbours and taken
unilateral action over disputed areas – with the laws and institutions the
world has counted on to maintain the peace for 70 years standing by helplessly. There are concerns about
Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and the lunatic régime in North Korea now has
them. Meanwhile, the United States has retreated from its international
leadership role.
As a highly “globalized” society, Canada
has vital interests at risk – a secure homeland (freedom from fear), economic
well-being (freedom from want), a stable world order, and the human values and
democratic principles we believe in. What sustains our way of life are security
at home and stability abroad. In these uncertain times, we can hope for the
best or try to guess what most threatens us. Or we can build the capabilities a
G-7 country ought to have no
matter what. We think it’s time we put a priority on self-defence and on our
ability to influence global events.
There is work to do. Who actually
“stands on guard” for Canada today? The Canadian Armed Forces have the primary
responsibility, but their overall military effectiveness is small compared to
the job we expect them to do. Why is the world’s second largest country being
defended by the world’s 58th
largest military force?
Governments routinely declare defence to be a vital public
policy, then treat it as a discretionary rather than mandatory activity, with a
licence to raid the defence budget to finance other things. There is a
callousness to this which is unbecoming of a people who cherish their country
and want to see it secure. As Jack Granatstein
points out, “Canadian governments, whatever their political stripe,
cynically reckon that the men and women in uniform can get by with obsolete
equipment and insufficient funding. After all, who worries about the need to
protect Canada’s national interests?” (See accompanying
article)
Canadian industry
has not helped by insisting on being a preferred supplier of military equipment
it has limited capacity to produce. This has been costly: equipment has been
much more expensive for the Canadian Armed Forces than for the militaries of
other countries, it takes much longer to enter into service, and the delay
requires millions in refits to keep old equipment running.
Allies have played a part too,
criticizing Canada for not “pulling its weight” in NATO — by which they really mean not doing more for the
defence of Europe. This has distracted us from doing more for our own defence.
As an ally in good standing we have a role to play in deterring Russian
aggression, but Europe today is an economic giant fully capable of underwriting
its own defence.
Canadian Interests
How to fix this?
The starting point has to be Canada’s vital interests and what it will take to
protect them. It’s what citizens understand, will support, and will pay for.
Defence budgets have gone up and down over the decades, but they’ve never gone
down when citizens were part of the discussion.
What capabilities
should citizens be entitled to expect?
· Effective response to domestic crises with the
military on hand when first responders cannot cope.
· Protection from terrorist attacks.
· The exercise of sovereignty over all of
Canada’s land, sea, and airspace, including the strategically important and ecologically
vulnerable North.
· Full partnership with the United States in the
common defence of North America.
· An influential voice on international security
issues.
· The capacity to make a significant military
contribution to shaping a favourable international security environment.
· Strong support for humanitarian operations.
This is an
entirely reasonable and feasible agenda, but citizens are not getting much of
it.
How to Think about Defence
So what’s blocking
things? Mainly how we think about defence.
First off, let’s
agree Canada is worth it. That means Canadians should have armed forces able to
defend their country and support their international goals. Not leave it to
others. This is partly a matter of ensuring the forces have the means to do
what we ask of them. It’s also a function of how we manage them, equip them,
and finance them.
Canadians need to
understand better how important military human resources are to their security,
not allow them to be deployed for capricious reasons when vital national
interests are not at stake, and respect the “social covenant” between the
military and citizens. When service members put their lives on the line for the
nation, citizens owe them the best training, equipment and care available.
Governments should spare no expense to look after wounded veterans and their
families. Without limits? Are there limits to the liability service members
accept?
Military procurement has been a
disaster because it has been driven by just about every consideration other
than getting the troops the equipment they need when they need it. Bordering on
the Atlantic and Pacific, Canada needs a deployable blue-water navy to meet
its strategic requirements, not to fulfill industrial and regional development
aspirations. Occasionally, procurement works well. In 2006, the government decided it wouldn’t
settle for leasing Ukrainian cargo planes to move supplies to Canadian troops
in Afghanistan and gave notice it would purchase four large Boeing C-17 transport aircraft. It took
delivery of the first one just a year later. The lesson: you can do it if you
want to.
We also have to stop being sad-sacks
about whether we can “afford” something. Canada is fabulously wealthy and could
spend much more on defence. Its closest friends all spend more proportionately
– and they don’t have to close hospitals, fire teachers, or throw single
mothers into the street to “afford” it. Those who predict this sort of thing
need to be asked why they didn’t even notice, let alone complain, when Canada’s
defence budget doubled to help finance the Afghanistan campaign. If the budget
can go from $10 billion to $22 billion in ten years without anyone
noticing (maybe a few folks at DND and
Finance), why not to $30 billion?
That’s not an outrageous number. It would represent about 10% of the federal budget, not an
unreasonable portion to devote to protecting the other 90% and the kind of country that that
budget helps sustain. It’s more like 5%
today.
Finally, let’s end Canadians’
irrational love affair with “UN peacekeeping”
which many believe can and should be Canada’s role in the world. They worship a
myth, not grounded in reality. First, peacekeeping is a dangerous
business; 3386 members
of UN peacekeeping missions
have been killed since 1948,
including 121 Canadians,
and the trend is worsening. Second, peace operations are no less worthy just
because they are not UN-led. Increasingly, the UNhas had to mandate other organizations (NATO, EU, African
Union) to undertake the really difficult peace operations (Balkans,
Afghanistan, East Africa, Congo). And third, Canadian decisions to participate
in peacekeeping have been motivated by realpolitik not
altruism – to keep otherwise inconsequential regional disputes becoming major
wars and leading to nuclear confrontation. Bottom line: the creation of
conditions for peace today requires combat-capable forces not observers in
blue berets.
Eight Practical Suggestions
What to do? The
list of good things to do could fill a volume. We have selected eight practical
measures which will make a difference.
Click here to
read the rest of the open letter on the TheVimyReport.com. (Image
courtesy of the Canadian Press.)
-----------
to Paul Martin
RMR: Rick's Rant - Canada's Defence in Afghanistan
------------
---------------
-
COMMENT:
PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU- OUR HERO.... and our batik red roses
Ts and T-dresses and rose petals..... many of us WWII kids supported our troops
always as we dressed as Jackie Kennedy during our work day and as a free wild
child in the evenings.... life was good.... Pierre Elliott Trudeau was us.... a
huge believer in civil liberties... a socialist to the core and a true believer
in China and Russia..... and their magnificant history.... how we loved him... and
stayed loyal.... and in our old country home.... Diefenbaker still hung on the
old tory walls.... and card games still played out in the kitchen on Saturday
nights to the Grand Ole Opry... and homemade wine.... and brew.... until 5
minutes b4 midnight.... and our sorry heads for taking the younger to sunday
school... and church.... 3 hours.... and that dinner and Sunday drive... then
we youngbloods would back our beautiful selves up and head back to the city...
our Halifax....
In 1970.... the horrific vicious deliberate cruetly of the FLQ
.... shook us like no other.... and living in Toronto.... we stood strong with
Trudeau on 'JUST WATCH ME'..... what many don't realize that the Red Brigade in
Italy was throwing babies off balconies.... and Ireland went to hell over
Catholics and Protestants.... forgetting they were IRISH FIRST....
CBC Archives: Just Watch Me, 1970
Pierre LaPorte
TRUDEAU, PIERRE ELLIOTT
(baptized Joseph-Philippe-Pierre-Yves-Elliott), lawyer, author, university
professor, and politician; b. 18 Oct. 1919 in Outremont (Montreal), son of
Joseph-Charles-Émile Trudeau* and Grace Elliott; m. 4 March 1971 Margaret Sinclair
in Vancouver, and they had three sons, the youngest of whom predeceased him;
they divorced in 1984; he also had a daughter with Deborah Coyne; d. 28 Sept.
2000 in Montreal and was buried in Saint-Rémi, near Napierville, Que.
On his
father’s side, Pierre Trudeau (he would add Elliott in the 1930s and sometimes
used a hyphen) was a descendant of Étienne Truteau (Trudeau), a carpenter from
La Rochelle, France, who had arrived in New France in 1659. Pierre’s father,
known to his friends as Charlie or Charley, was born on a farm in Saint-Michel,
south of Montreal. Although Charlie’s father, Joseph, was semi-literate, his
mother, Malvina Cardinal, was a mayor’s daughter who insisted that their sons
be given a good education. Charlie became a lawyer and practised in the heart
of Montreal’s business district.
Grace
Elliott, Trudeau’s mother, came from a prosperous Montreal family. Her father,
Phillip Armstrong Elliott, an Anglican of loyalist stock, had married
Sarah-Rebecca Sauvé, a French Canadian Roman Catholic, and, as was required by
the Catholic church for children of interfaith marriages, Grace was raised as a
Catholic. Phillip Elliott’s wealth came from real estate investments in
Montreal. In 1903 he removed Grace from her convent school there and placed her
in the Dunham Ladies’ College, an Anglican women’s finishing school in the
Eastern Townships. Although she spoke and wrote French, she preferred English,
which would be the language of the Trudeau home.
Charlie and
Grace married in 1915 and they soon had children, first Suzette in 1918 and
then Pierre in 1919. Another child, Charles, whom the family would call Tip,
followed in 1922. By this time, Charlie had largely abandoned his commercial
law practice in favour of a business career. Success had come with his creation
in 1921 of the Automobile Owners’ Association, which comprised two Montreal gas
and service stations and offered a program whereby car owners paid a yearly fee
for guaranteed service. It was a brilliant device. The number of automobiles in
Quebec swelled from 41,562 in 1920 to 97,418 in 1925 and would almost double
again by 1930, when it reached 178,548. At the end of the 1920s the family
moved from a modest row house in Outremont to a much larger but unpretentious
dwelling there that could accommodate not only the Trudeaus but also a maid and
a chauffeur. Although he would have apartments elsewhere, Pierre would consider
it his home until he moved into the prime minister’s residence at 24 Sussex
Drive in 1968.
In the Great
Depression of the 1930s Charlie Trudeau became wealthier and his automobile
business, with some 30 service stations, was sold in 1932 to a subsidiary of
the Imperial Oil Company for approximately $1,000,000, which he quickly
invested. An ebullient, rough-edged businessman, he often gambled long into the
night. There is evidence of hard living, including records of his large losses
and wins, as well as family memories of his frequent absences. Yet he was a
doting and demanding father who deeply impressed Pierre and they exchanged
extremely affectionate letters. Subsequent rumours that Charlie abused Grace
when he returned late at night are almost certainly false, although there is no
doubt that the polished graduate of Dunham found her husband’s antics
difficult. They took their toll on Charlie as well. In the spring of 1935 he
had a heart attack and died at age 46. His death deeply affected Pierre, who
concluded, probably correctly, that it was the result of the social demands of
the business world. Pierre became resistant to these practices and an ascetic
in many of his own tastes. He did not gamble, disdained smoking, drank very
little, and avoided wild parties. Such aloofness was made easier by the
considerable fortune he had inherited, which gave him a freedom enjoyed by few
others of his generation.
Charlie
Trudeau’s influence on his son was indelible; in assessing it, one must not
conclude that his English-speaking home and association with the largely
anglophone Montreal business class reflected his political views and private
beliefs. Although Pierre had begun classes in English at the bilingual Académie
Querbes in Outremont, he was quickly shifted to its French classes as soon as
his English became fluent. In 1932 his father enrolled him in the Jesuits’ new
Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, already the favoured school of the francophone elite
and a centre for Catholic and youthful nationalist debate and thought in the
1930s. Charlie was a nationalist, supportive of the Catholic Church, the French
language, and Quebec’s place within the Canadian confederation. In politics he
was a Conservative who was also a financial adviser of Le Devoir
(Montréal), the principal voice of nationalism among Quebec newspapers. He was
close to Camillien Houde*,
the mayor of Montreal and the former leader of the provincial Conservative
Party.
Pierre
Trudeau’s pride in his father, which he never lost, derived in large part from
his admiration of Charlie’s success in business, a field from which
francophones were largely absent in the early 20th century. He appears to have
seldom discussed politics with his father, but Brébeuf was alive with political
debate. Trudeau was introduced to nationalist thought and took part in rallies
against perceived threats to the church and the French Canadian people. In a
play he wrote in 1938, performed at Brébeuf, he satirized the tendency of his
compatriots to patronize Jewish merchants and, implicitly, supported the Achat
Chez Nous movement. An outstanding student, he reflected the milieu in which he
thrived, one that was increasingly nationalist, supportive of corporatism,
critical of capitalism and democracy, and wary of British and Canadian foreign
policy as it moved hesitatingly forward on the road to war. Yet Trudeau could be
a contrarian, cheering the victory of Major-General James Wolfe*
over Louis-Joseph de Montcalm*, Marquis de Montcalm, in class and
challenging what he termed exalted patriots, those students who attacked
bilingualism and mixed marriages. After he learned that another student thought
he was “Americanized, Anglicized,” he wrote in his diary that he was proud of
“my English blood which comes from my mother.”
After his
father’s death, Trudeau turned to his mother, who became the predominant figure
in his adolescent life. He doted on her and she on him. His exceptional
academic record pleased her greatly and she granted him the freedom that a
favoured child so often obtains. With no financial concerns, he travelled
frequently to New York, spent summers at Old Orchard Beach in Maine, took long
canoe trips through the Canadian Shield, wildly drove a Harley-Davidson
motorcycle, and bought books, records, and concert tickets few of his
classmates could afford. In his final year at the college, 1939–40, he edited
the school newspaper, Brébeuf, in which he challenged the college
administration, and finished first.
Brébeuf remained largely silent during the
first months of World War II. Few students enlisted and indifference was the
prevailing mood. Attitudes changed quickly, however, when France fell in June
1940 and the government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King*
passed the National Resources Mobilization Act, introducing conscription for
home defence. Earlier, Trudeau had casually suggested to his American
girlfriend, Camille Corriveau, that he might enlist for the sake of adventure.
Now he took up the call of Mayor Houde and others who denounced conscription
and urged French Canadians to defy mandatory registration for military service.
Resentfully, he entered the compulsory Canadian Officers’ Training Corps, which
required regular drill and more extensive summer training. He began studies in
law at the Université de Montréal in the fall and immediately attended lectures
on Canadian history by the nationalist Abbé Lionel Groulx*, but two other priests were far more influential
in shaping his thoughts and actions at this time.
Trudeau had
met Marie-Joseph d’Anjou and Rodolphe Dubé* at Brébeuf. Father d’Anjou was one of his
favourite teachers. Father Dubé was renowned not only for his teaching but also
for his writings, published under his nom de plume, François Hertel. He became
influential in debates about faith, politics, and Quebec’s destiny, especially
among the young. Charismatic, brilliant, and often outrageous, Hertel
increasingly drew Pierre and his brother Charles into his circle. In the case
of Pierre, he became a confidant, a confessor, and an inspiration in the early
1940s, even though his superiors moved him to Sudbury, Ont., because of his
unorthodox approaches to religious teaching. Trudeau wrote to him regularly and
visited him in Sudbury. An advocate of personalism, Hertel encouraged Trudeau
to read philosophers Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier and the devout but
rebellious young Catholic found their approach to personal liberty
emancipating, although he also found corporatist thought and the conservative
nationalism of Charles Maurras compelling. Personalism has many
interpretations, but for Trudeau it meant that “the person ... is the
individual enriched with a social conscience, integrated into the life of the
communities around him and the economic context of his time, both of which must
in turn give persons the means to exercise their freedom of choice.” Refined by
later studies, this personalism formed the core of Trudeau’s religious
understanding of the relationship between the individual and society. That full
understanding, however, would come slowly.
Hertel’s
unorthodoxy intrigued the young Trudeau as he sought answers to the question of
identity. His anger mounting, Trudeau followed Hertel’s counsel to become
active in the struggle against conscription and to become revolutionary. He
participated in the Frères-Chasseurs, who planned to rise up against the
oppressors in Ottawa. Adopting a revolutionary pose, he signed his letters to
Hertel “citoyen,” took part in street riots, and worked in a secret society,
the LX, with his friends François-Joseph Lessard, Jean-Baptiste Boulanger, and
others to overthrow what they considered a corrupt system. Hertel placed the revolution
within the anti-bourgeois and anti-democratic traditions in Catholic thought.
He and Trudeau debated how the latter should be involved; radical approaches
ranging from the anti-Semitic and conservative ideas of Charles Maurras to the
revolutionary theories of Georges Sorel and Leon Trotsky all had appeal.
Although Trudeau hesitated between being a “philosopher” of the revolution or a
“man of action,” he certainly chose action in the streets during the
conscription plebiscite of 27 April 1942 and especially during the federal
by-election in Outremont in November 1942 when he gave a fiery speech, reported
in detail in Le Devoir, which ended with a call for revolution.
Then, the
spirit of violent revolution passed, although Trudeau was involved in the Bloc
Populaire Canadien, which had taken the lead in the anti-conscription campaign.
Father d’Anjou pressed him to take on the editorship of a nationalist journal
promoting the notion of Laurentia, which at this time meant to Trudeau a
French-speaking autonomous state. Trudeau’s activism waned, however, as his law
studies came to an end in 1943. Although he had disliked law school intensely,
he finished first in his class. He continued to maintain close ties with
Hertel, met several times with Abbé Groulx, favoured French marshal Philippe
Pétain’s government at Vichy, and supported nationalist causes, but he moved to
the sidelines. He appears to have wanted to escape and to seek a new
experience, initially soliciting a diplomatic post and then applying to Harvard
University for graduate work. In the fall of 1944 he obtained permission to
leave the country in order to study politics and economics at Harvard.
The
university made a deep impact on Trudeau, although he frequently resisted the
Anglo-American liberalism that pervaded it in the mid 1940s. His views changed
while he was there. He was influenced by the numerous European exiles, many of
them Jewish, who taught him brilliantly, notably Wassily W. Leontief, Joseph
Alois Schumpeter, Carl Joachim Friedrich, and Gottfried Haberler. He heard
about John Maynard Keynes for the first time and came to believe that his
earlier classical education had been sadly deficient. He was also intrigued by
liberal and democratic traditions and the separation of the spiritual from the
secular in public life. He wrote in his notebooks, “The spiritual will have
[the] decisive voice in education, consultative in action.” And he began to
reconsider what World War II had meant for the broader civilization he was
learning to know better. He wrote to his girlfriend Thérèse Gouin that he had
kept his eyes on his desk while “the greatest cataclysm of all time” occurred.
Puzzled, she asked what he meant. He replied, “The cataclysm? It was the war,
the war, the WAR!” In the mid 1940s Trudeau wanted to marry Gouin, a psychology
student at the Université de Montréal, the daughter of Liberal senator Léon
Mercier-Gouin and the granddaughter of former premier Sir Lomer Gouin*,
but she broke off the relationship, principally because of his intensity and
his opposition to her desire to study psychology and continue her own
psychoanalysis.
In 1946
Trudeau left Harvard with many questions, an abiding interest in the promise of
Keynesian economics for democratic renewal, and a new scepticism about his
earlier education and beliefs. He decided to continue his studies in France,
where he audited courses at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, but
where his major interest was the stirring debates among French post-war
intellectuals, particularly among Catholics. Like Trudeau, Mounier was
discarding corporatist, collectivist, and elitist aspects of pre-war
personalism and shaping the doctrine for the post-war era. Trudeau
enthusiastically attended lectures and meetings with Mounier and other Catholic
intellectuals such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Étienne Gilson. In a
nation where communism thrived, Mounier’s attempt to find a balance between
Soviet communism and Christianity impressed Trudeau, who decided that his
proposed Harvard doctoral thesis should explore the potential areas of
reconciliation between Catholicism and communism. From Paris he went to England
in the fall of 1947 to study at the London School of Economics and Political
Science. He quickly found that the eminent Labour Party intellectual Harold
Joseph Laski shared his belief in the need for reconciliation between the west
and Soviet communism and his doubts about the fervent anti-communism of
Britain’s Labour government. Laski and the London School of Economics had a
greater intellectual influence on him than his experiences in Paris,
particularly in spurring his understanding of democratic socialism.
While his
views were changing, Trudeau kept in touch with old friends in Quebec. He produced
articles for the conservative Catholic Notre Temps (Montréal) in 1947,
denouncing Prime Minister Mackenzie King, the arbitrary internment of Quebec
Fascist leader Adrien Arcand*
from 1940 to 1945, and the policies of the wartime government; simultaneously
he argued for increased civil liberties, greater democracy, and more state
involvement in economic life. There was an opacity in his writings; highly
expressive language accompanied sometimes contradictory and confused views. To
Lessard, he still wrote about the dream of Laurentia. After his London
experience, he set out on a world tour in the spring of 1948. He justified the
trip as research for his thesis, but there is little evidence of sustained work
on the topic. He would never complete his doctorate, although he had received a
master’s degree from Harvard. His journey was, however, an adventure during
which he was thrown into a Jordanian jail as a Jewish spy, eluded thieves at
the ziggurat at Ur in Iraq, witnessed wars in India, Pakistan, and Indochina,
and barely escaped Shanghai, China, as it fell to Mao Zedong’s Communist army.
Finally, he returned home to Montreal in May 1949 with a broad international
experience, a solid knowledge of political economy specifically and the social
sciences more generally, and a better appreciation of the possibilities of the
law than he had had when he left the Université de Montréal as a celebrated but
disappointed student.
In his own
words Trudeau came back to a Quebec that was at “a turning point in [its]
entire religious, political, social, and economic history.” He believed he
discovered that decisive moment when he set off with Gérard Pelletier, a
journalist with Le Devoir, to the Eastern Townships to join striking
asbestos workers. Pelletier, who had often met with Trudeau in Paris, sided
with Jean Marchand*,
general secretary of the Canadian and Catholic Confederation of Labour, to
press the cause of the strikers. The Union Nationale government in Quebec under
Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis* reacted harshly to what it considered
an illegal strike, but the Catholic clergy was divided on the issue. Wearing a
scraggly beard, Trudeau played a small role, marching in a head-cloth and
shorts. The amused miners called him St Joseph; the police arrested him. He
soon returned to Montreal, but the strike profoundly affected him as he linked
the evidence of working class action with his study of socialism, labour, and
democracy. He met with members of the Canadian Congress of Labour and
considered becoming its research director. During the following years he acted
as legal counsel for unions throughout the province. In 1956 he would use the
strike as a prism through which to illuminate the social and economic
development of Quebec in his most sustained analytical work, a chapter in La
grève de l’amiante (Montréal); the volume, which he edited, would present a detailed
study of the asbestos strike.
Trudeau now
believed that in the new Quebec the “social” should take precedence over the
“national,” as his close friend Pierre Vadeboncoeur put it in the summer of
1949. Although Notre Temps, in which he had invested $1,000 in 1944 and
which had published his major articles while he was in Europe, became
increasingly drawn to Duplessis’s conservative nationalism, Trudeau moved in a
completely different direction, towards the democratic socialism whose main
Canadian expression was the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. In the
federal election of June 1949, he had been this party’s agent in the riding of
Jacques-Cartier. As the attraction of socialism intensified, his affection for
Quebec nationalism waned, especially since nationalism was so strongly
represented by the conservative forces within the Quebec Catholic Church and,
of course, by the Duplessis government, which he regarded as archaic and out of
step. Like many of his generation, he was angry. Once again, he left Quebec.
In the late
summer of 1949 Trudeau became a federal public servant in the Privy Council at
Ottawa. Although the choice shocked Pelletier and other friends, Ottawa
beckoned to many highly educated francophones. Trudeau’s experience there was
important in providing him with a better understanding of the character of
Canadian federalism. He came to believe that it had played an important part in
limiting extremes while simultaneously affording the opportunity for political
experimentation and the correction of social inequities. While retaining the
notion that provincial and federal governments had clearly delineated
responsibilities, he shared the assumption, common in Ottawa, that Keynesian
economics provided the federal government with the opportunity and the
responsibility to intervene in the economy to assure prosperity and security.
He worked long hours and quickly impressed his superior, Robert Gordon
Robertson, and his colleagues with his intelligence and diligence. His
socialism and, even more, his criticism of Canada’s Cold War alliances did not,
however, fit well with Ottawa’s mood as Canada entered the Korean War in 1950.
He chafed against the anonymity imposed on public servants. He also concluded
that Ottawa was an unwelcoming “English capital” and spent most weekends in
Montreal. Relief from Ottawa’s bleakness came as well from an intense romance
with Helen Segerstrale, a young employee of the Swedish embassy. In the summer
of 1951, after writing an anonymous attack on Canadian involvement in the
Korean War, he quit his job. His romance ended when Segerstrale refused to
convert to Catholicism. Unlike many of his francophone colleagues, Trudeau
would remain a devout Catholic.
In Montreal
in 1950, Trudeau had begun discussions with Pelletier and, later, with others
about the establishment of a journal similar to Mounier’s Esprit
(Paris), which had enormous influence on Catholic thought in post-war France.
Pelletier had quickly persuaded Trudeau to become his principal partner in the
creation of Cité Libre (Montréal) in the summer of 1950. He had a more
difficult time getting his other colleagues to accept the wealthy and
idiosyncratic Trudeau, who many believed would be “a disturbing influence.”
Writing in the 1980s, Pelletier would admit that he had been.
Despite the
uncertain nature of his start at Cité Libre, Trudeau became closely
identified with the magazine in the 1950s. His co-editorship carried him to the
heart of the opposition to the Duplessis government and permitted him, in
Pelletier’s words, “to find his place ... in his generation.” His presence was
dominant from the first issue, when he wrote emotional but anonymous tributes
to his mentors Mounier and Laski, both of whom had died recently. He also wrote
an article on “functional politics,” the first draft of the political program
that he would develop in the 1950s. He urged Quebec to open itself to the world
while still bearing “witness to the Christian and French fact in America.” He
concluded with a call “to borrow the ‘functional’ discipline from architecture,
to throw to the winds those many prejudices with which the past has encumbered
the present, and to build for the new man.” The new generation should break the
old taboos: “Better yet, let’s consider them null and void. Let us be coolly
intelligent.”
Things were
not always cool. Cité Libre appeared irregularly, its finances were
always wobbly, and it quickly attracted criticism. The conservative historian
Robert Rumilly*
warned Duplessis that Cité Libre’s editors and contributors were
“extremely dangerous” and “subversive.” Trudeau’s earlier mentor Father d’Anjou
wrote a savage attack on an article of his that claimed priests had no more of
a divine right than politicians. As a result of these and other comments,
Archbishop Paul-Émile Léger of Montreal summoned Pelletier and Trudeau.
Despite some insolence on Trudeau’s part during the meeting, Léger did not
condemn the review, an action that could have had dire consequences. Cité Libre
survived. Through his work as editor, Trudeau came to know the leading
intellectuals of the time and Radio-Canada sought out Cité Libre authors and
editors to comment on public affairs. English Canadian intellectuals became
curious about the publication and invited Trudeau to their gatherings,
especially the conferences of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs
and the Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs. His flawless English,
familiarity with contemporary social science, and striking physicality
intrigued those who encountered him in such settings. So did his thoughts.
A close
reading of Trudeau’s writings and speeches in the 1950s reveals that some of
his ideas changed little, others much more. He remained consistently wary of
the Cold War and sympathetic to the view of Le Monde (Paris) and others
that there was a “middle way,” between the fervent anti-communism of North
American governments and the stern communism of Joseph Stalin, a view rarely
heard in English Canada or in the Quebec Catholic Church at that time. He also
continued to call for francophones to be “functional,” which towards the end of
the decade came to mean a strengthening of the technical, scientific, and
social science sectors of Quebec society, especially in the universities.
However, his strong anticlericalism abated when it became clear that the church
itself faced enormous strain in adapting to the rapid changes in Quebec as the
economy became more sophisticated and modern communications, especially
television, transformed daily life. He began to shift his attention to
political institutions, notably the governments in Quebec City and Ottawa. He
considered the provincial administration corrupt, autocratic, and socially
regressive; the federal, he complained, ignored the French fact even when
Louis-Stephen St-Laurent* was prime minister, too casually
embraced the American approach to the Cold War, and too often ignored the constitution.
The last grievance became evident when Trudeau, to the surprise of many of his
friends and some of his enemies, supported the Duplessis government’s rejection
of federal grants to universities on the grounds that “no government has the
right to interfere with the administration of other governments in those areas
not within its own jurisdiction.” Yet even in agreeing with Duplessis he
condemned his government. “Let Mr. Duplessis establish an administration as
efficient and honest as the federal government, and we shall then consider the
rivalry to be a fair one.”
Trudeau,
then, was never predictable. A social democrat, he became increasingly
sceptical of the CCF and disappointed his friend Thérèse Casgrain [Forget*], the
provincial party leader, with his unwillingness to make a fuller commitment. A
strong opponent of Duplessis and the Union Nationale, he refused to join the
coalition that emerged under the leadership of the Liberal Party to defeat the
government. The essay he contributed to the study of the asbestos strike of
1949, published in 1956, revealed his deep distrust of the Quebec Liberal Party
and his disillusionment with the detritus of earlier political and ideological
battles. The past, it seemed, bore mainly bad lessons for the future. In a 1958
article, “Some obstacles to democracy in Quebec,” published in the Canadian
Journal of Economics and Political Science (Toronto) and in French in his Le
fédéralisme et la société canadienne-française (Montréal, 1967), he wrote,
“Historically, French Canadians have not really believed in democracy for
themselves; and English Canadians have not really wanted it for others.” He
increasingly argued that both English and French Canadians were imprisoned in
their past, the English in the fusty British imperial tradition and the French
in a sterile clerical nationalism, exemplified in his mind by the attacks on Cité
Libre from conservative church voices such as Father d’Anjou or historian
Rumilly. His assaults on Quebec nationalism, which had been less virulent than
those of other Cité Libre authors in the early 1950s, now became intense
as he blamed nationalism for closing the windows to the fresh winds of the
modern world. He became an eloquent defender of federalism as a “safety valve”
through which individuals and groups might obtain redress denied by an
autocratic provincial government and a strong supporter of the courts which,
during this decade, began to establish a Canadian tradition of civil liberties.
Like McGill University law professor and poet Francis Reginald Scott* and
journalist Jacques Hébert, he looked to the courts to protect individual rights
that, in the past, had so often been denied.
As Trudeau
became clearer in his writings, he seemed more muddled in politics. In 1956 he
had joined with Pelletier, Hébert, journalist André Laurendeau*, and others who lacked party
affiliation to form the Rassemblement, which he would describe in his memoirs
as a “fragile and short-lived body [that] undertook to defend and promote
democracy in Quebec.” While others began to rally behind the Liberal Party to
defeat Duplessis, he continued to urge a non-partisan coalition. His vehemence
in promoting the Rassemblement angered his friends both in the Quebec wing of
the CCF, known since 1955 as the Parti Social Démocratique du Québec, and among
the reformers who believed they were taking control of the provincial Liberal
Party. He attended the Quebec Liberal Party’s convention of 1958 and dismissed
it as undemocratic. As the Rassemblement crumbled, he turned to a new grouping,
the Union des Forces Démocratiques, which in October 1958 issued “Un manifeste
démocratique,” written mainly by him, in Cité Libre. Now a familiar
figure on Quebec television and a target for attack not only by Duplessis but
also by Quebec socialists, Trudeau took the leadership of the union. His
decision to accept the position seemed a whimsical gesture to many. A student
newspaper, the McGill Daily (Montreal), summarized the general
perception of Trudeau, stating that “the author is considered to be a brilliant
man but to many [he] still remains a dilettante.” His ideas were interesting
but his influence was limited.
The death of
Duplessis in September 1959 dramatically changed the political landscape; the
impact of his departure was amplified when his successor, Paul Sauvé*, suddenly
died on 2 Jan. 1960. The ambitious and the practical rallied to the Liberals
under Jean Lesage*,
but Trudeau did not follow. He continued to lead the Union des Forces
Démocratiques and to urge unsuccessfully the formation of a new coalition. On
the eve of the provincial general election of 22 June he finally and grudgingly
endorsed the Liberals in Cité Libre. His reservations about them grew after the
election even though Lesage’s determination to secularize Quebec society had
his solid support. The administration was progressive but also nationalist and
its nationalism increasingly troubled him. Although the Lesage government’s
nationalism or “neo-nationalism” differed from that of Duplessis in its
secularism and its fervent embrace of modernity, Trudeau saw in the official
rhetoric and actions a nationalist approach in which the state was identified
with the “nation.” These doubts augmented during his regular meetings with René
Lévesque*
on weekends when the new minister of public works and hydraulic resources
returned from Quebec City. To Trudeau, Lévesque’s anger and his determination
to proceed with the nationalization of hydroelectricity seemed irrational.
Trudeau believed that secularization and modernization were imperative but also
that Quebec should, as he wrote in Cité Libre in 1961, “open up the borders.”
“Our people,” he argued, “are suffocating to death!”
That year
Trudeau finally obtained the position with the faculty of law at the Université
de Montréal which had been denied him by the Duplessis government. He found the
atmosphere “sterile,” with “the terminology of the Left ... serving to conceal
a single preoccupation: the separatist counter-revolution.” In 1962 he wrote a
bitter attack on Quebec nationalism and separatism that placed the blame for
these movements squarely on the intellectuals. In “La nouvelle trahison des
clercs,” published originally in Cité Libre and six years later in English in
Federalism and the French Canadians (Toronto), he denied that decolonization
was relevant to Quebec because the province had rights that colonists had never
possessed. Nationalism had produced the worst wars of the century and the quest
for “complete sovereign power” was inevitably a “self-destructive end.” Nationalism,
then, was reactionary, an attempt by a new francophone bourgeois elite to
consolidate its power through such devices as the nationalization of
hydroelectricity. “French Canadians,” he wrote, “have all the powers they need
to make Quebec a political society affording due respect for nationalist
aspirations and at the same time giving unprecedented scope for human potential
in the broadest sense.”
The Quebec
election of November 1962 with the Liberal party’s slogan “Masters in our own
house” and its major issue, the nationalization of hydroelectricity, placed
Trudeau in a role he had often held, that of a critical voice without a party.
After Lesage’s triumph, he considered turning to federal politics at the urging
of Jean Marchand, who had developed ties with the Liberals under party leader
Lester Bowles Pearson*. These plans collapsed when Pearson
changed his position on nuclear weapons in January 1963. The reversal prompted
an angry denunciation of Pearson in Cité Libre, where Trudeau echoed
Vadeboncoeur’s memorable description of Canada’s Nobel Peace Prize winner as
the “defrocked prince of peace.” Other disappointments came with Cité Libre,
whose expanded editorial committee bickered constantly.
More
difficult were his breaks with Vadeboncoeur, perhaps his closest friend from
childhood and adolescence, and Hertel, his early mentor. Both approved of
separatism, but Trudeau became particularly enraged by an article in which
Hertel seemed to advocate the assassination of Laurendeau for having accepted,
with Arnold Davidson Dunton*,
the co-chairmanship of the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism
in July 1963. He publicly attacked his former teacher.
Long ago
Trudeau had heeded Hertel’s call for revolution, but he now believed that what
Hertel and Vadeboncoeur thought revolutionary was truly reactionary, an
unrealistic approach to a world where science and social science offered real
prospect for positive change. With some new friends – economist Albert Breton,
sociologists Raymond Breton and Maurice Pinard, lawyers Marc Lalonde and Claude
Bruneau, and psychoanalyst Yvon Gauthier – he issued a manifesto in both
languages in May 1964. It appeared in English as “An appeal for realism in
politics” in Canadian Forum (Toronto). The group denounced the lack of realism
in Quebec politics, argued that the traditional nation state was obsolete, and
announced their refusal “to let ourselves be locked into a constitutional frame
smaller than Canada.”
Canada,
however, seemed threatened as Pearson’s government struggled with the pace of
change in the mid 1960s. Hopes for an agreement on a way to amend the
constitution through the so-called Fulton–Favreau formula collapsed, scandals
undermined the cabinet ministers from Quebec, and Pearson groped for a new path
through which his government could find a response to the challenge of Quebec
nationalism and separatism. Trudeau had little faith in the royal commission on
bilingualism and biculturalism, which he correctly believed was moving towards
the recommendation of special status for Quebec.
In these
circumstances Trudeau’s long apprenticeship came to an end. On 10 Sept. 1965
Marchand, Pelletier, and he announced that they would be Liberal candidates in
the federal election which Pearson had called three days earlier. The
declaration stunned most of their Cité Libre colleagues, who expressed their
disapproval in the magazine’s pages and in later articles published elsewhere,
and some of Trudeau’s English Canadian socialist friends. Vadeboncoeur and
other nationalists and separatists scorned Trudeau’s decision. On the whole,
the English press welcomed the “three wise men” to the Liberal team. The French
press called them simply “les trois colombes” (the three doves). The eloquent
labour leader Marchand was the prize candidate and it was he who insisted that
the unpredictable Trudeau, who had so recently denounced Pearson, accompany him
to Ottawa. After some delay, the party opened the strongly Liberal seat of
Mount Royal for Trudeau. He won it with a large margin on 8 November and would
hold it until the end of his political career in 1984. The Liberals failed to
win a majority, however, and parliamentary disorder persisted.
Initially
hesitant, Trudeau refused Pearson’s request that he be the prime minister’s
parliamentary secretary. An angry Marchand rebuked him and Trudeau then
accepted the position; his precise duties were not defined. Gradually, Trudeau
found others in Ottawa who shared his concern that the government’s policy
towards Quebec was one of drift. He met regularly with Lalonde and with public
servants such as Peter Michael Pitfield and Allan Ezra Gotlieb. They began to
craft a more coherent response to Quebec’s constitutional challenges, one that
rejected what they perceived as the weakness embodied in the cooperative
federalism of the first Pearson years. Trudeau became identified by political
commentators as, potentially, the most significant of the “three wise men.” He
did little publicly in 1966 to justify these expectations, but Marchand had
noticed that his colleague possessed political magic. He told Laurendeau he
“bet his shirt” that Trudeau would quickly become the Liberals’ “big man in
French Canada, eclipsing all the others.” Soon he did.
The close
attention Trudeau had paid to the constitution while working in the Privy
Council in 1949 suddenly became valuable political capital as constitutional
discussions reached a deadlock in 1966. In March he and Marchand gained control
of the Quebec wing of the federal Liberal Party, which had established its own
administration. At its first meeting the Quebec section supported motions
drafted by Trudeau condemning “special status” or “a confederation of ten
states” and approving the concept of a “bill of rights” within the
constitution. On 5 June 1966 the provincial Liberals went down to a stunning
defeat. The victor, Daniel Johnson* of the Union Nationale, was much more ambiguous about
Canada. His slogan, “Equality or independence,” directly challenged the
platform drawn up by Trudeau for the Quebec federal Liberals. Behind the scenes
in Ottawa, Trudeau worked with Lalonde and, especially, Albert Wesley Johnson,
assistant deputy minister in the Department of Finance, to draft a statement
presented by finance minister and receiver general Mitchell William Sharp* at the
federal–provincial conference held in September. It rejected special status for
Quebec and opting out of federal programs by Quebec alone. Johnson’s thrust
forward met a well-conceived counterattack.
Trudeau was
making his mark privately, not publicly, and he remained largely unknown in
English Canada. Yet events were determining his fate. Centennial year, 1967,
brought not only the celebration of Canada with its wildly successful Expo 67
in Montreal but also constitutional crisis as Johnson pressed his demands. On 4
April 1967 Pearson appointed Trudeau minister of justice and attorney general,
strengthening the left wing of the Liberal Party and his government’s
constitutional expertise at federal–provincial meetings. Trudeau quickly went
to work and displayed an astonishing discipline that shocked bureaucrats who
had heard the many rumours about his playboy lifestyle. He concentrated
primarily on the constitution and the much-delayed reform of the Criminal Code.
The 47-year-old bachelor announced his plan to decriminalize homosexual acts
between consenting adults, allow for easier divorces, and permit abortion if
the mother’s health was endangered. In a Canada that was suddenly becoming
permissive and liberal, he struck the loudest notes. The house unanimously
passed his divorce reforms in December 1967, shortly after Pearson had declared
his intention to resign as soon as a new party leader was chosen.
The race for
a successor began immediately. Pearson told Marchand he must run because the
Liberal principle of alternation between French- and English-speaking leaders
and the Quebec crisis required that he do so. Lalonde, Pitfield, and Trudeau’s
assistant, Eddie Rubin, were already considering how Trudeau might be drafted.
In January 1968, after a vacation in Tahiti, where he had become entranced with
the stunning Margaret Sinclair, daughter of a former Liberal cabinet minister,
Trudeau met with Marchand and Pelletier. Marchand would not run; Trudeau must.
Typically, Trudeau hesitated even though he had seriously considered the
prospect. The Conservatives under their new leader, Robert Lorne Stanfield*, were
ahead in the polls; there were powerful Liberals contesting the race, including
the wily veteran Paul Joseph James Martin, finance minister Sharp, senior cabinet
minister Paul Theodore Hellyer, and several other experienced candidates; and,
finally, Trudeau feared losing the privacy he had long cherished. Yet he had
dreamed of a public career since adolescence and he knew that, whatever its
deficiencies, the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism was
correct in stating that Canada was going through the greatest crisis in its
history. It was no time to step aside.
Many agreed.
Leading Canadian journalist Peter Charles Newman began to tout Trudeau in his
columns. Marchand, who was a superb political organizer, told Trudeau that he
would “handle” Quebec for him but that Trudeau himself would have to “handle”
the rest of Canada. He did so brilliantly. In late December he had captured
attention with his televised comment that “there’s no place for the state in
the bedrooms of the nation.” He then received an enormous boost from Pearson,
whom he had so often criticized publicly and privately. Despite the misgivings
of other leadership candidates, the prime minister sent him on a politically
valuable tour of provincial capitals and gave him the principal seat at the
federal–provincial constitutional conference of 5–7 February 1968. Johnson had
expected Pearson to be his debating opponent, but he faced Trudeau, whose
biting tones, quick repartee, and well-defined positions quickly captured
attention. Trudeau’s sculpted face, penetrating eyes, and confident rhetoric
dominated the nightly news. Marchand concluded that “at the beginning of
February he was really created.”
Not all were
pleased with the creation. Claude Ryan* of Le Devoir strongly criticized
Trudeau’s performance at the conference and his rigidity on the question of
special status for Quebec and constitutional revision more generally, which
became a frequent complaint of others contesting the leadership. His opponents
were already reeling from the publicity Trudeau had garnered. Journalists had
dubbed the resulting enthusiasm “Trudeaumania” when Trudeau announced his
candidacy on 16 Feb. 1968. Very quickly he rose to the top in the polls, but
more important to his ultimate success was the defeat three days later of the
Liberal government in the House of Commons on a money bill introduced by Sharp.
Pearson returned from holidays to save the situation, but Sharp’s leadership
campaign was doomed. On 3 April, the eve of the convention, Sharp withdrew and
announced that he was supporting Trudeau. Powerful Newfoundland premier Joseph
Roberts Smallwood
also offered valuable backing that same night, declaring before a riotous crowd
that “Pierre is better than medicare – the lame have only to touch his garments
to walk again.”
Trudeau
needed miracles nonetheless. Robert Henry Winters* strongly challenged him after he
overcame Hellyer on the second ballot. The fourth and final ballot saw Trudeau
win with 1,203 votes to 954 for Winters and 195 for John Napier Turner, who had
refused to withdraw. On 20 April Trudeau became prime minister and he soon
called an election for 25 June. The leadership campaign had had the desired
effect of boosting Liberal support and the election campaign saw the dour
Stanfield overwhelmed as Trudeau, to the media’s delight, shattered Canada’s
conservative electoral mould by kissing beautiful women, not babies, and doing
jackknife dives clad in a European men’s bikini. His many years of strenuous
physical activity had impressively hardened his body and given him a quickness
and fluidity of movement. His deserved reputation as an excellent swimmer and
diver, skilled canoeist, practitioner of judo, and intrepid adventurer appealed
to the young and the press. But there was substance too. He eloquently attacked
the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, accusing them of favouring a
“two nations” approach, and he directly challenged Quebec’s international
aspirations. His firmness gained credibility when, on the night before the
election, Saint-Jean-Baptiste day, he took his place on a Montreal reviewing platform.
A mob of students and separatists threw bottles, eggs, and stones, but Trudeau
would not budge. Any doubts in English Canada about his personal courage, based
on his lack of wartime service, seemed to disappear. He savoured his greatest
electoral victory as his party won 154 seats, including 56 of the 74 seats in
Quebec, the Conservatives only 72, the NDP 22, and the Ralliement des
Créditistes 14. One Liberal-Labour member and one independent were elected, for
a total of 264.
In the
campaign Trudeau had promised a “just society,” but contemporary observers
remarked on the vagueness of his policy proposals apart from those on
constitutional issues. As a scholar and a polemicist, Trudeau had urged greater
democracy within political parties. His attack on Pearson in 1963 had rested
largely on the argument that Pearson had not consulted his party before he
changed the Liberals’ stance on nuclear weapons. Trudeau stressed political
education and participation despite the doubts of Marchand and others. Lacking
an explicit platform developed by a policy convention, he advocated the concept
of “participatory democracy.” On a range of issues, there would be broad public
consultations that would serve to inform the citizenry while creating
legitimacy for government action. The approach was not a success. It would be
adopted most notably in a foreign policy review; the result, published in 1970,
was a series of pamphlets whose content was so bland that the critical issue of
Canadian–American relations went unmentioned.
This gap
between hope and disappointment became quickly evident after the election
campaign. As journalist Richard Gwyn wrote, “The kissing stopped almost as soon
as the ballots were counted.” Trudeau did receive some praise for the
presentation of his cabinet on 5 July 1968, even from Claude Ryan, who
commended him for the strongest-ever francophone presence. The cabinet included
Léo-Alphonse Cadieux in national defence, Pelletier as secretary of state,
Jean-Luc Pépin
in industry and in trade and commerce (later combined as one ministry), and
Marchand in forestry and rural development (the following year he would become
minister of regional economic expansion). Outside the cabinet, Lalonde was made
chief of staff and Pitfield took on major responsibilities in the Privy Council
Office. The appointments signalled three important themes of Trudeau’s tenure
as prime minister: the strengthening of the francophone presence in Ottawa,
“French power” as it came to be called; the emphasis on regional economic
initiatives or redistributive policies; and the streamlining of the Ottawa
bureaucracy and political decision-making through the introduction of modern
organizational concepts such as systems analysis. Trudeau would take special
pride in the adoption of the Official Languages Act in 1969, a measure which
reflected his political rhetoric and private beliefs. In these areas, the
federal government had much freedom; in contrast, the unfinished business of
the constitution required the cooperation of the provinces.
Daniel
Johnson had died in September 1968. His successor, Jean-Jacques Bertrand*,
reaffirmed minority-language education rights in response to bitter
confrontations in Saint-Léonard (Montreal), where a heavy concentration of
Italian immigrants wished to educate their children in English. The second
volume of the royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism had just
appeared and had called for federal support for minority-language education and
for a constitutional guarantee of parental choice in the language of education.
As the Union Nationale divided on the subject, the Quebec Liberals fractured.
René Lévesque had left the party the previous year and he founded the Parti
Québécois, which held its first convention in October 1968. Bertrand was weak,
however, and in April 1970 the Liberals under lawyer-economist Robert Bourassa won a
decisive victory, which appeared to open the path to resolving the thorny
issues that had plagued constitutional discussion since the Johnson–Trudeau
confrontation. In June 1971 the path led to Victoria, where the federal
government and the premiers agreed on the Canadian Constitutional Charter, a
compromise that, understandably, satisfied no one but which offered resolutions
to the differences over a formula to amend the constitution, language rights,
social spending, and the entrenchment of individual rights. Trudeau admitted
the limitations but said at his final Victoria press conference that if all
governments accepted the charter, as was required for its enactment, “we’ll all
wear a crown of laurels.” Bourassa flew home the following day to a storm of
criticism, since the agreement had not met Quebec’s demands concerning greater
provincial control of social policy. One week later he announced he would not
present the charter to the National Assembly of Quebec. For Trudeau, it was a
defeat and even a betrayal by Bourassa who, he believed, had promised his
support.
Trudeau’s
doubts about Bourassa had derived in large part from the October crisis in
1970, which remains, probably, the most controversial event of his prime
ministerial tenure. The crisis began with the kidnapping in Montreal of British
trade commissioner James Richard Cross by members of the Front de Libération du
Québec on 5 Oct. 1970. Although there had been thefts of arms and rumours of
possible kidnappings, the police forces at all levels were unprepared for the
challenge and the governments of Quebec and Canada initially responded by
agreeing to some of the kidnappers’ demands, notably the reading of the FLQ
manifesto and a guarantee of their safe passage.
Then on 10
October the Chénier cell of the FLQ seized the Quebec minister of labour and
immigration, Pierre Laporte*,
at his suburban home in Saint-Lambert. The brazen act stunned the country. The
Bourassa government hesitated. Trudeau had been irritated by the earlier
decision of Sharp, the secretary of state for external affairs, to agree to the
reading of the FLQ manifesto by Radio-Canada. Others, including Ryan and
Lévesque, urged conciliation and considered calling for Bourassa to stand aside
for a new coalition government. On 15 October the federal cabinet met to consider
a request from Bourassa that Ottawa come to Quebec’s assistance. Marchand took
the lead by warning that the situation was “much more serious” than had been
believed. He claimed that the FLQ had two tons of dynamite ready to explode and
urged an immediate raid on the organization, whose numbers he estimated at
anywhere from 200 to 1,000. Trudeau agreed. According to cabinet reports, he
concluded “the longer we gave opinion makers in Quebec, the more we stood to
lose,” a bitter reference to a document published that day in Le Devoir.
Signed by Lévesque, Ryan, and others, it referred to the “semi-military
rigidity ... in Ottawa” and used the term “political prisoners” for jailed FLQ
members. Moreover, the prime minister advised that Bourassa did not want backbenchers
“to sit around too long.” They were “falling apart.” This concern reflected
Trudeau’s belief that the Quebec Liberal Party was not united in its opinions.
In answer to the Quebec government’s request, the Canadian armed forces were
called in to assist the police. Trudeau worried about what future civil
libertarians might think but, after long debate, the War Measures Act was
invoked on 16 October. The following day Laporte, whom Trudeau had known well,
was found dead in the trunk of a car. The strong response had broken the
momentum of the FLQ, however. Cross was released on 3 December and Laporte’s
murderers were captured on 28 December.
Trudeau’s
decision to suspend the normal legal process haunted him and it swelled the
ranks of his detractors on the left and among Quebec nationalists and
separatists. When he wrote his memoirs, he would defend the action, first, as
the only one possible when the “more interested parties,” the Quebec premier
and the mayor of Montreal, pleaded for federal assistance and, secondly, as a
step necessary to “prevent the situation from degenerating into chaos.” The
cabinet record and other evidence support his later claim that he had worried
about the implications. They also suggest that the role of Marchand, who had overstated
the threat posed by the FLQ, was decisive. However, information at the time was
sketchy, confidence in the Bourassa government was lacking both in Ottawa and
Quebec, and the War Measures Act, with its broad powers, was the sole means to
act quickly.
The decision
left an ambiguity concerning Trudeau’s regard for civil liberties. His famous
reply when asked how far he would go, “Well, just watch me,” has lingered as
evidence of autocratic tendencies. Moreover, many innocent people were arrested
– some Trudeau knew well – and the police were careless in their use of their
new powers. Although he had long been active in civil liberties movements and
legal cases, he had also praised autocratic regimes in the Soviet Union in 1952
and China in 1960 and maintained a warm relationship with Cuban leader Fidel
Castro. His views fitted badly into the grammar of human rights that would be
developed in the late 20th century by international non-governmental
organizations such as Human Rights Watch, yet he would argue, as would his
principal secretary, Thomas Sidney Axworthy, in 2003 that what is needed is “an
agreed-upon framework of law in order for us to make all of our individual
choices.” Political and civil rights should be protected with whatever means were
available if they were in danger. Hence in his memoirs he defended “Well, just
watch me” as an indication of his determination to maintain the rule of law in
Canada. Opinion remains divided over Trudeau’s decisions not to negotiate and
to invoke the War Measures Act, but he is correct in stating that the terrorist
threat abated and the FLQ disappeared after October 1970. Nevertheless, the
death of Laporte, the government’s response to the crisis, and the army in the
streets marked a decisive moment in Trudeau’s political life and that of his
government. The buoyant hopes of the 1960s seemed to dissolve and the 1970s
would be a difficult decade for Trudeau and other world leaders as the post-war
boom came to an end.
Despite the
opposition of many opinion leaders in English and French Canada to the
government’s actions, the immediate effect of the crisis was a surge in support
for the government from across the country; 87 per cent of Canadians, with
little difference between anglophones and francophones, expressed their
approval of its actions. Enthusiasm for Trudeau and the Liberals was reinforced
when he suddenly married 22-year-old Margaret Sinclair on 4 March 1971. The
event attracted international attention.
The
completion of Trudeau’s foreign policy review in 1970 had resulted in few
changes of direction. Diplomatic relations were established with China that
year as they had been with the Vatican in 1969; the military commitment to the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization was reduced; and Canada’s foreign service
accepted the need for bilingualism. Trudeau was initially so sceptical of the
Commonwealth of Nations that only the strongest pressure from his staff
persuaded him to attend its Singapore conference in January 1971. He
nevertheless played a major role there in mediating the bitter disputes about
South Africa. He also travelled to the Soviet Union, western Europe, Australia,
and the United States. His relationship with the American administration was
bad, however, principally because President Richard Milhous Nixon disliked him
profoundly and Secretary of State Henry Alfred Kissinger played to Nixon’s
hostility and vanity. In turn, Trudeau barely concealed his distrust of
American foreign policy. Yet despite nationalist calls for disengagement from the
United States and dreams of a “third option,” through which Canada would
establish closer relationships with Europe and the developing world, the
American presence remained dominant albeit difficult.
By 1972 the
Canadian government was stumbling, as were the governments of other western
countries, in trying to adjust to new international circumstances, particularly
the combination of inflation and unemployment that challenged traditional
Keynesian approaches to the economy. Ministers grumbled about Trudeau’s staff,
which, they claimed, lacked political experience; Hellyer and Eric William Kierans* had left
the cabinet complaining, respectively, about the lack of a housing policy and
weak economic guidance; and others warned the prime minister that the Liberal
grass roots were weak. Richard James Hardy Stanbury, the Liberal Party
president, fretted in his diary about Trudeau’s refusal to go to party
fund-raisers and to pamper volunteer officials. This aloofness mingled dangerously
with Trudeau’s actions. Few believed he had really said “fuddle duddle” in
February 1971 to an irritating Tory mp. His explanation amused many, but
commentators and even some colleagues thought it reflected his disdain for
parliament and its traditions. Although an excellent debater, Trudeau did not
conceal his contempt for much of the discussion in the House of Commons and for
most parliamentarians. When he called an election for 30 Oct. 1972, the polls
initially suggested another Liberal victory, but there was no Trudeaumania. The
government had disappointed many. As John Gray wrote in Maclean’s
(Toronto), “the outstanding impression is that, with few notable exceptions,
Trudeau has remarkably few political goals.” The campaign strengthened that belief
with its uninspiring English slogan, “The land is strong.” The Liberal Party
and Trudeau were not. On election night the Conservatives and the Liberals had
to await a recount to learn who would form an administration. A chastened
Trudeau then told the press that the government of the past four and a half
years “was not satisfactory.”
The recount
saved Trudeau, but he now headed a minority government with 109 seats to the
Tories’ 107; the New Democrats under David Lewis* held 31 seats; the Social Credit Party had
15; one candidate was elected as an independent and another was elected with no
designation. Trudeau quickly adjusted. He brought in new political advisers,
slowed down the bilingualism program, and became warmer and less provocative in
public appearances, when he was often accompanied by Margaret and baby Justin.
He also moved to the left to maintain the support of the NDP. Some had said
Trudeau was inflexible; his pragmatism was evident in the government’s creation
in 1973 of the Foreign Investment Review Agency, which the left had long
advocated. Similarly, the government responded to the energy crisis of 1973
with a highly interventionist policy that protected Canadians from world
prices. It annoyed Albertans, but there were increasingly few Liberal votes
there.
On 8 May
1974 Trudeau engineered the government’s defeat by producing a budget the
opposition could not support. He made no mistakes in this election. He
campaigned relentlessly, often in the presence of Margaret, who became a crowd
favourite. Le Devoir spoke admiringly of the new “Trudeau Express,” his
campaign by train through the Maritimes. The smashing victory of the Quebec
Liberals in the provincial election of October 1973 seemed to help the federal
Liberals. Moreover, Stanfield had made a fatal error by suggesting that
inflation should be halted by a wage and price freeze. Workers feared the wage
controls and the Liberals gained New Democratic votes when Trudeau ridiculed
Stanfield’s proposal with the phrase “Zap! You’re frozen.” On election day, 8
July, the Liberals won a solid majority with 141 seats compared to 95 for the
Conservatives and 16 for the NDP; the Social Credit had 11 and 1 independent
candidate was elected. The Globe and Mail (Toronto), which, like nearly all
Canadian newspapers, had supported the Conservatives, editorially declared the
win “a personal victory” for Trudeau, a tribute not to “Trudeaumania,... but
[to] the work, effort and energy that he put into his campaign.” Yet it
correctly warned that Trudeau faced problems of “grave dimensions,”
particularly “runaway inflation,” often referred to as stagflation, in which
high unemployment was combined with historically high rates of inflation. The
inflation was in part the product of the global energy crisis whose political
reflection in Canada was the absence of Liberal seats in Alberta.
Trudeau
privately shared these concerns and the victory’s glow soon dimmed, especially
at 24 Sussex Drive. “My rebellion,” Margaret Trudeau would write in 1979,
“started in 1974.” The day after the election in which she had campaigned so
well, “something” in her “broke”: “I felt I had been used,” she explained.
Despite her reluctance, Trudeau and his political advisers had thrust her to
the forefront of the campaign even though she was emotionally fragile after
childbirth. The next three years were excruciatingly difficult for Trudeau
personally as his marriage came undone in embarrassing bursts in the media. The
couple would separate on 27 May 1977, with Trudeau retaining custody of their
three sons. His aides quickly noted how his concentration had diminished and
how his usually assiduous work habits had altered under the strain. His attempt
to impose order once again on the chaos of a government’s daily life – steps
which included making his friend Pitfield clerk of the Privy Council – could
not cope with the rapid pace of change in the mid 1970s. A traditional
Keynesian, Trudeau struggled to make sense of stagflation. He tried to
establish a separate economic advisory group to counter the Department of
Finance, which he distrusted. In September 1975 John Turner resigned as finance
minister and an increasingly desperate Trudeau announced the creation of the
Anti-Inflation Board to establish wage and price controls. It was a deed he had
promised only a year before that he would never do.
Perhaps
because of his personal problems but more likely because he believed a
fundamental restructuring in the international order was near, Trudeau became
more philosophical and more insistent that his government look towards the
future. In a media interview of 28 Dec. 1975 he warned that the new controls
reflected the failure of the “free market system” to work. The Canadian
business press reacted in horror to these remarks and denounced his assessment.
Like Pitfield, Trudeau was intrigued with the projections of futurists such as
the members of the Club of Rome and the possibilities of systems analysis to
improve government decision making. In this spirit, he wrote to one of his
ministers, Alastair William Gillespie, in 1976 that “if we yield to the
temptation of concentrating on today, we will default [on] our major
responsibility to our children and to hundreds of millions elsewhere in the
world who look to Canada with trust and who hope that we will contribute to a
stable and just world order.... We can shape the changes that face us; we can
influence the future that awaits us.”
If the
economy was perplexing, Quebec was disappointing for Trudeau. After his overwhelming
victory in 1973, Bourassa had become more willing to respond to nationalist
demands that he enact language legislation. The following year the Official
Language Act, also known as Bill 22, retreated from bilingualism in Quebec. It
made French the official language of the province, the government, and its
services; expanded the use of French in the workplace; and restricted access to
English schools to those children who had a knowledge of the language. It
infuriated Trudeau. In a speech in March 1976 he lashed out at Bourassa; the
bill was “politically stupid,” the Quebec government’s approach to
constitutional revision obtuse, and earlier he had described Bourassa himself
as no more than an eater “of hot dogs.” Trudeau’s speech itself seemed politically
stupid when, on 15 November, the Parti Québécois under Lévesque trounced
Bourassa’s Liberals in the provincial general election. Although Bourassa had
called the election to obtain a mandate for constitutional negotiations,
Trudeau told Canadians that Quebec had not voted on the constitution but on
“economic and administrative issues.” It probably had, but the effect was to
create a constitutional crisis because Lévesque was committed to a referendum
on “sovereignty-association,” a concept which Trudeau and his colleagues
regarded as tantamount to separation but which Lévesque and his followers
argued was an economic and political association similar to the emerging
European Union that would develop over the following decades. Initially, the
Liberals soared in the public opinion polls across the country as the
constitution, which had been so important in bringing Trudeau forward, once
again became a major issue. In the first two months of 1977 Trudeau proposed
discussions that would lead to the repatriation of the constitution and
entrenchment of language rights, said he would resign if Quebec voted for
independence, and told the American Congress that only “a small minority of the
people of Quebec” supported separation. Simultaneously, Quebec politician
Camille Laurin,
once a friend of Trudeau, prepared the Charter of the French Language. Also
known as Bill 101, it went far beyond Bourassa’s legislation in requiring the
predominance of French in commerce, business, and communications and in
compelling the children of immigrants to Quebec to study in French. It was
passed by the province’s National Assembly on 26 Aug. 1977.
In 1978,
under their new leader, Charles Joseph (Joe) Clark, chosen in February 1976,
the Conservatives began to move up in the polls as public attention turned back
to the faltering Canadian economy. Union strife, low productivity increases,
and a weak American economy combined to cause a string of budgetary deficits
and a declining Canadian dollar. James Allan Coutts, Trudeau’s principal
secretary at the time, later remarked that the prime minister became
exceedingly flexible and showed himself willing to consider full-scale review
of the division of federal and provincial powers. On 5 July 1977 Trudeau
established a task force on Canadian unity under the joint chairmanship of
Pépin and former Ontario premier John Parmenter Robarts*. It held hearings across the nation
throughout 1978 and in January 1979 recommended decentralization and a special
status for Quebec. These were not solutions Trudeau wanted.
There would
be no further action because the government’s mandate ended in 1979. Trudeau
called an election for 22 May 1979 with the Conservatives, buoyed by the
results of recent by-elections, slightly ahead in the polls. However, Trudeau
was widely perceived to be a better leader. Coutts and Senator Keith Davey
therefore decided to capitalize on this perception of the prime minister,
making him the “gunslinger” – “standing alone, feet apart, thumbs hooked under
his belt, with no podium or speaker’s text, appearing to think on his feet and
ready to take on all comers.” The image was symbolic because so many of his
strong ministers, such as Turner and Donald Stovel Macdonald, had left; he now
was the only “wise man” in the cabinet, Pelletier having become a diplomat and
Marchand having gone to the Senate. Trudeau’s own performance on the hustings
and in the televised debate was excellent, but Clark had the advantage of novelty
and the peculiarities of the Canadian electoral system. Even though the
Liberals took just over 4 per cent more of the popular vote, the Conservatives
won a greater number of seats. The country was divided regionally. The
Liberals, who had done poorly in the west since the 1960s because of the
impression that the party’s leaders had concentrated on central Canadian
problems such as bilingualism, maintained support in Quebec and much of Ontario
but the results elsewhere were disappointing. Of the Liberals’ 114 seats, 67
came from Quebec and only 3 from the west, 2 of them in Manitoba; of the
Conservatives’ 136 seats, 57 came from the west and only 2 from Quebec.
In 1978
journalist George Radwanski had published a biography of Trudeau based upon
extensive interviews that suggested the prime minister had begun to consider
his own place in history. Although Trudeau was not yet a great leader, he
concluded, he had “governed intelligently in a difficult time.” He was “not a
failed prime minister but an unfulfilled one.” Trudeau probably agreed. He had
told the American ambassador, Thomas Ostrom Enders, in August 1976 that his
government had not been able to solve the constitutional problem or deal with
the “great wastefulness” of the 1970s. Worst of all, it had not vanquished
separatism. Enders, one of the finest American ambassadors, shrewdly noted that
Trudeau was “convinced of his vision but [was] trying to govern by fiat rather
than his very considerable skills as a practical politician.” It had not
worked. In early June 1979 Trudeau seemed at ease as he left 24 Sussex Drive in
his elegant albeit ancient Mercedes-Benz 300SL and prepared for a life as a
single father without the burdens of the prime minister’s office. On 21
November he announced his resignation as leader of the party, telling members
of the press that “I’m kind of sorry I won’t have you to kick around any more.”
They applauded.
Then, on 13
Dec. 1979, Clark refused to back down when told that the Liberals had the votes
in the house to defeat his government on an unpopular budget which had also
placed the Conservatives well behind in the polls. The Tory downfall was
brilliantly managed by Allan Joseph MacEachen, the leader of the Liberal
opposition, who immediately plotted with Coutts, Davey, and Lalonde to assure
Trudeau’s return. Trudeau hesitated briefly, but on 18 December he announced
that he would lead the Liberals into the election.
During the
campaign, Trudeau’s advisers kept him away from the press, which was generally
hostile, with the exception of the faithful Toronto Star. Yet the polls
remained strong. On 18 Feb. 1980 the Liberals won 147 seats to only 103 for the
Conservatives, a solid majority. The NDP had a record 32 seats. The Liberals
carried only two seats in the provinces west of the Ontario border, but in
Quebec they won an astonishing 74 of the 75 seats and over 68 per cent of the
vote there, the greatest win ever in Canadian political history. Towards the
end of the 1979 campaign, Trudeau had told a large Toronto rally that he would
bring the constitution home even if it meant going over the provincial leaders’
heads and seeking approval through a national referendum. The promise lingered.
The Conservatives had shifted to the right during their brief period in office
and Liberals recognized that their platform for 1980 should move to the left.
With a second energy crisis, created by a revolution in Iran in 1979, redistribution
meant taking account of the fiscal imbalances in confederation created by
soaring fuel prices.
“Well,
welcome to the 1980s!” Trudeau opened his victory address. He ended with
American poet Robert Frost’s “But I have promises to keep / And miles to go
before I sleep.” The major promise was to find a place for Quebec in Canada and
that task was imminent after Lévesque, in December 1979, had set out the
conditions for a Quebec referendum on sovereignty-association. The referendum,
with an ambiguous question, was scheduled for 20 May 1980. Trudeau’s old rival
Ryan, now the Quebec Liberal leader, took charge of the No side and Jean
Chrétien, minister of justice and attorney general, represented the federal
government in the campaign. The No side initially stumbled badly and Trudeau
finally entered the field in early May after polls showed the Yes side pulling
ahead. His presence quickly irritated Lévesque, who foolishly said on 8 May
that Trudeau had “decided to follow the Anglo-Saxon part of his heritage,” a
derogatory reference to the Elliott lineage. Trudeau responded brilliantly in a
speech on 14 May: “I was told that no more than two days ago Mr. Lévesque was
saying that part of my name was Elliott and, since Elliott was an English name,
it was perfectly understandable that I was for the NO side, because, really,
you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote YES.”
He added: “That, my dear friends, is what contempt is.” He also made a “most
solemn commitment” that if Quebec voted No he would “take action to renew the
constitution” after the referendum. With an 85.6 per cent turnout, 59.56 per
cent of Quebec’s voters rejected sovereignty-association. It was Trudeau’s
greatest victory, but not his last.
Lévesque
told voters the night of the referendum that there would be another, a comment
that infuriated Trudeau. The next day the prime minister announced to applause
from all sides of the House of Commons that he intended to move forward with
constitutional changes, among them patriation, an amending formula, and a
charter of rights and freedoms. He had a new and dynamic constitutional team,
including Pitfield, Lalonde, and Michael J. L. Kirby, which reflected his
impatience with the federal government’s conciliatory stance during the late
1970s. At the federal–provincial meeting which took place in September 1980,
the premiers were divided among themselves, with most insisting on greater
decentralization. Newfoundland premier Alfred Brian Peckford stated that he
preferred Lévesque’s vision of Canada to Trudeau’s, which apparently meant that
he favoured decentralization to the prime minister’s apparent centralization.
Trudeau had hoped for a better provincial response. Shortly after this
inconclusive encounter, he met his caucus and asked whether they would go with
“the full package” even if the provinces hesitated. They enthusiastically
agreed. On 2 October he told the country that because of the premiers’ lack of
agreement, he was forced to act unilaterally to patriate the constitution.
Canadians needed to assume “responsibility for the preservation of our
country.” The great debate that followed split parties: Clark’s Conservatives
vigorously fought the plan while Ontario Conservative premier William Grenville
Davis and New Brunswick Conservative premier Richard Bennett Hatfield
supported it. The federal NDP were not unanimous; four Saskatchewan mps sided
with the province’s NDP premier Allan Emrys Blakeney, who opposed it on the
traditional British conservative argument that parliament must be supreme in
the British system and not limited by the courts.
Provincial
governments opposing the plan went to the courts and to the British parliament
in London, where approval for patriation was required. In a still-controversial
decision rendered on 28 Sept. 1981 the Supreme Court of Canada held that
Trudeau’s method of proceeding was legal but unconventional. Both Trudeau and
his adversaries claimed victory; the court had forced a compromise. In the
meantime, the opposing premiers had formed a “gang of eight” in which Lévesque
played a prominent part. They had agreed in April to a plan that permitted
patriation and an amending formula involving compensation for provinces that
opted out of future amendments. Quebec, in these discussions, did not insist on
a veto, an instrument that had created many earlier constitutional quarrels.
The federal government rejected this provincial plan; it nevertheless remained
alive when the premiers and federal representatives met in November. Trudeau
obtained Lévesque’s consent to a national referendum on the constitution, which
split the Quebec premier from his allies. Then, in a fateful evening gathering,
nine premiers made a deal with Chrétien for patriation. Lévesque was not
present; the evening became known as the “night of the long knives,” when the
anglophone premiers had figuratively stabbed Lévesque in the back by reaching
an agreement without him. Lévesque, the other premiers complained, had broken
their alliance and had accepted too quickly Trudeau’s proposed referendum.
Bitterness would linger long, but patriation went forward. The Canada Act,
1982, passed by the British parliament, ended that body’s power to amend the
British North America Act. It included the Constitution Act, 1982, which
contained the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, recognition of the
rights of aboriginal peoples, respect for the multicultural heritage of Canadians,
a procedure for amending the constitution, and amendments to the BNA Act of
1867. At the insistence of Blakeney, a “notwithstanding” clause that allowed
the Canadian parliament or the provincial legislatures to override certain
sections of the charter was also incorporated. The clause irritated Trudeau,
but it was a small price to pay for the act that was proclaimed by Queen
Elizabeth II in Ottawa on 17 April 1982.
Authors
Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall refer to the constitution as Trudeau’s
“magnificent obsession.” It remains a remarkable achievement given the forces
against change. While none deny the significance of the Canada Act and the
charter, many critics in Quebec and elsewhere have claimed that Quebec was
“left out,” a criticism that Trudeau firmly rejected. The Quebec referendum and
Trudeau’s awareness that the election of 1980 had given him his last chance
broke down the high barriers history and personality had erected. The charter
would have far more impact on Canadian law and society than even Trudeau had
anticipated. To his critics who complained about the treatment of Quebec in the
constitutional discussions, he pointed out that Quebec mps had supported the
Constitution Act, 1982, and that in June 1982, 49 per cent of Quebecers considered
the legislation “a good thing.” His government’s other policies had not fared
so successfully, however. A bold attempt by finance minister MacEachen to
revise the Canadian taxation system in April 1980 had failed in the face of
unrelenting attacks by business and accounting interests. But the major target
of the business press and the Conservative opposition was the National Energy
Program, which was an ambitious attempt to respond to the rapid rise of energy
prices after 1979. It had proposed a “blended” price for oil that would be less
than the world price, major incentives for Canadian oil companies to engage in
exploration offshore and in the north, and greater state support for
Petro-Canada, the federally controlled company despised in Alberta. The
government’s ambition was to achieve 50 per cent Canadian ownership of the oil
industry by 1990. When introduced in the budget of 1980, the National Energy
Program was presented as a means of securing the supply of a scarce resource
that all expected would soar in price in succeeding years. In 1982, however,
the price of oil began to drop and the National Energy Program fell apart, but
not without leaving enduring memories of its confiscatory ways in Alberta and
in the Canadian business community.
Such concerns
were shared in Washington, where Ronald Wilson Reagan had become president in
January 1981. Presidents Gerald Rudolph Ford and James Earl (Jimmy) Carter had
worked well with Trudeau. Ford had been instrumental in having Canada join the
wealthy countries represented in the Group of Six. The American Republican and
the Canadian Liberal developed a fine personal relationship and would ski
together with their families during their retirement. Reagan, however,
represented a different strain of Republicanism and Trudeau found it difficult
to take him seriously, treating him like an amiable but dull student at their
meetings. American neo-Conservatives and their Canadian admirers could abide
neither Trudeau’s attitude towards Reagan nor his clear opposition to Reagan’s
confrontational policies against communism. Although Reagan was gracious,
British prime minister Margaret Hilda Thatcher was not: Reagan wrote in his
diary that “I thought at one point [she] was going to order Pierre to go stand
in a corner.” The tensions reached their height when Trudeau embarked on a
“peace initiative” in the fall of 1983. Although some of his colleagues,
including Sharp, his former minister of external affairs, thought the
initiative pretentious and politically self-serving, the journey through
foreign capitals in the fall and winter of 1983–84 reflected Trudeau’s deep
concern about nuclear weapons. He accomplished little but, perhaps, he soothed
his conscience.
Trudeau’s
time was coming to an end. In 1981–82 the Canadian economy had gone through its
worst recession since the depression of the 1930s and the slump had left deep
wounds. The collapse of the National Energy Program also hurt the government’s
reputation for good judgement. In June 1983 Martin Brian Mulroney, a 44-year-old,
fluently bilingual Montreal lawyer, replaced Clark as Conservative leader and
the Liberal caucus became nervous. Turner seemed an attractive alternative to
Trudeau in the view of many Liberals and media commentators. After the
constitutional battles, Trudeau’s agenda for the future appeared thin. The
growing scepticism about government intervention, which Reagan and Thatcher
represented, made major social innovations difficult. Trudeau’s peace
initiative had revealed more limits than opportunities in the international
field. He may also have considered that it was time to rest on the laurels he
had gathered. Besides the constitution, there were other positive achievements
to relish. The Parti Québécois was facing leadership problems and had temporarily
retreated in its demand for separation. In the federal public service
bilingualism was firmly enshrined. Above all, there were his three boys. On the
evening of 28 Feb. 1984 Trudeau took a walk in the snow outside his official
residence on Sussex Drive. The next day he announced he would resign.
In one last
brilliant appearance at the Liberal convention in June, Trudeau roused the
crowd to cheers and then left most in tears as he said farewell. Then he became
silent. He joined a Montreal law firm, moved into an art deco home that he had
bought during his first retirement in 1979, and travelled often. Though he took
much pleasure in his participation in an international group of former
government leaders, he played no role in the Liberal quarrels that followed
Turner’s defeat by Mulroney in the general election of 1984. But in 1987
Mulroney and the premiers agreed to the Meech Lake Accord, which Bourassa, who
had returned as Quebec premier, claimed would bring his province into the
constitutional framework from which it had been excluded in 1982. Trudeau, who
spoke out during a Senate hearing, was furious, partly because of Bourassa’s
interpretation of the events of 1982 but mostly because the accord created the
potential special status for Quebec that he had so long rejected. Suddenly, the
opposition to the accord, which all provinces had to approve by June 1990,
gained support from two new Liberal premiers, Frank Joseph McKenna of New
Brunswick and Clyde Kirby Wells of Newfoundland. The die was cast for its death
in June 1990 when Wells adjourned the House of Assembly of Newfoundland and
Labrador without a vote.
Trudeau
retreated once more only to reappear when the Mulroney government and most
premiers, reeling from the collapse of the Meech agreement and the rise of
separatist sentiment in Quebec, brought forward the Charlottetown Accord in
1992. The accord had the support of the three federal parties as well as that
of the provincial premiers, but this time there would be a nationwide
referendum on 26 Oct. 1992 to approve the proposals. Once more, Trudeau emerged
to offer criticism. He objected to collective rights and the hierarchy of those
rights that gave francophone Quebecers special status. In a memorable evening
at La Maison Egg Roll in the Saint-Henri district of Montreal, Trudeau
explained to supporters of Cité Libre why he believed that Mulroney and
the premiers had created “a mess that deserves a big NO.” Immediately after his
intervention, backing for the accord dropped significantly in English Canada.
When the referendum was held, the accord was defeated in Quebec and failed to
obtain the necessary level of support in English Canada. Was Trudeau’s
intervention decisive among anglophones? Certainly some who advocated the
accord believe it was, although others suggest that Trudeau merely turned
people’s attention to its flaws.
Even though
he fretted about the federal government’s strategy, Trudeau took no part in the
Quebec referendum campaign of 1995. He spoke out in 1996 in favour of the
approach adopted by the minister of intergovernmental affairs, Stéphane Dion,
which was to confront the Quebec government directly to achieve “clarity” when
it spoke of sovereignty-association and separation. But his health was
deteriorating rapidly. The death of his son Michel in an avalanche in British
Columbia on 13 Nov. 1998 shattered him and his weakness became visible to all
as an ashen-faced old man left the funeral in tears. For a while, he questioned
his Catholic faith. He refused treatment for prostate cancer and his memory
began to fade. Before he died in Montreal on 28 Sept. 2000, he had made his
peace with his family and his God. His body lay in state in Ottawa and then
travelled by train along the Ottawa River as thousands came to the tracks to
pay their last respects. His state funeral at the Notre-Dame Basilica in
Montreal was memorable for the eloquent eulogy in English by Justin Trudeau,
who ended it simply with, “Je t’aime, papa.”
Most of his
obituaries in 2000 were generous in their praise, but Trudeau may be the
Canadian prime minister who divides us most. Certainly he divided those
journalists and academics who, when polled in 2003 on the post-war prime
ministers by the journal Policy Options (Montreal), disagreed most
strongly on his achievements and failures. Elsewhere historian Michael Bliss
has ranked him very highly as an inspiring leader who saved Canada while
political scientists Ken McRoberts and Guy Laforest have argued that his dream
has died and that his attempts to realize it cost Canada and Quebec greatly.
Yet even those who doubt his accomplishments agree that his presence in
Canadian public life was remarkable. As the memoirs of his colleagues and
contemporaries are published, Trudeau’s personality and approach have become
better known. His cabinet colleagues have remarked on his fairness and the
respect he demonstrated for them in cabinet meetings. Yet he avoided close
personal contact even with devoted ministers such as Marc Lalonde. Moreover,
many problems he encountered might have been avoided had he been more open to
criticism and less abrasive in personal relations. Although many ministers were
fond of him, more shared the opinion of Jean Chrétien, who respected Trudeau
but loved Pearson. His other successors as Liberal leader, John Turner and Paul
Martin, in many ways framed their political approach in opposition to that of
Trudeau. Still, Trudeau remains the Liberal leader and even the prime minister
against whom his successors are measured.
Like John
Fitzgerald Kennedy in the United States, Trudeau became the identifier for
young people of his time. In the classic formulation of French academician
Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, echoed by historian Ramsay Cook, the style was
the man himself. That style was a model for “Trudeau’s children,” those
anglophone youths of the 1970s who took French immersion courses, travelled the
globe with backpacks, and gained a self-confidence about themselves that
expressed itself in Canadian songs and symbols. Trudeau’s impact on 20th-century
Canada is certain; Canada’s fate in the new century will decide its meaning.
Library and
Arch. Canada (LAC) (Ottawa) is changing its system of numbering manuscript
collections. For example, what used to be MG 26, O (Pierre Elliott Trudeau
fonds) is now R11629-0-8. Collections described in this bibliography are cited
under the new numbers; they can still be accessed under the old numbers.
The Trudeau
fonds, a vast collection, is the product of numerous accessions, the most
significant being the private papers that were transferred to LAC after his
death. These documents include his extensive private correspondence, drafts of
articles and letters, and an abundance of personal material. Also at LAC are
some records from his period as justice minister, held in the Dept. of Justice
fonds (R188-0-3). The Privy Council Office fonds (R165-0-5) are especially
important for Trudeau’s tenure as prime minister. Cabinet conclusions are
available online subject to access legislation.
There are
important Trudeau records in the United States. Gerald Rudolph Ford’s papers,
held at the Gerald R. Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Mich., contain some
fascinating material, as do those papers of Ronald Wilson Reagan (Reagan,
Ronald W.: Files, 1981–89) that are open to researchers at the Ronald Reagan
Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (Access restrictions cover most of Reagan’s
papers and those of James (Jimmy) Earl Carter at the Jimmy Carter Library in
Atlanta, Ga.) The Watergate tapes in Richard Milhous Nixon’s papers (Nixon
Presidential Materials) at the National Arch. and Records Administration
(College Park, Md) are available online, and they vividly reveal this American
leader’s disdain for Trudeau.
The papers
of many of Trudeau’s colleagues are disorganized, closed, or unavailable. LAC
holds fonds that are exceptions: the detailed, well-organized collection of
Alastair William Gillespie (R1526-0-6), and those of Arthur Laing (R11858-0-3),
Otto Emil Lang (R10981-0-6), and Paul Joseph James Martin (R9118-0-6), all of
which have important documents. The papers of John Napier Turner and Allan
Joseph MacEachen, which are not yet open, have material of interest. The papers
of Lester Bowles Pearson (R7581-0-9) contain useful pre-1968 information as well
as his often angry reactions to Trudeau’s policies after 1968. The collections
of Gérard Pelletier (R11939-0-3) and Jean Marchand (R6119-0-3) are
disappointing, particularly for the years before Trudeau became politically
active. At the Bibliothèque et Arch. Nationales du Québec, Centre d’arch. de
Québec, the fonds for Claude Ryan (P558), François Hertel (MSS385), and René
Lévesque (P18) contain important Trudeau material. The Thomas Worrall Kent
fonds at Queen’s Univ. Arch. (Kingston, Ont.) also have interesting documents
dealing with Trudeau’s years as prime minister.
Although his
Memoirs (Toronto, 1993) are disappointing, Trudeau was probably the most
prolific of prime ministerial authors. In the 1950s and early 1960s he wrote
many articles for the intellectual review Cité Libre (Montréal), which
he co-founded and co-edited. During the same period his travel writings,
political polemics, and analytical essays appeared in newspapers, notably Le
Devoir (Montréal) and La Presse (Montréal). A full list of these
publications is not yet compiled, but copies of drafts for nearly all can be
found in Trudeau’s papers at LAC. His most important book from the 1950s is the
compilation of essays, The asbestos strike, trans. James Boake (Toronto,
1974) for which he wrote the first chapter and conclusion. Some of the major
articles he wrote prior to 1965 were collected in Federalism and the French
Canadians, intro. J. T. Saywell (Toronto, 1968). Two innocents in Red
China, co-authored with his close friend Jacques Hébert, trans. I. M. Owen
(Toronto, 1968) describes their trip to the China of Mao Zedong. His only other
book was written with Ivan Head: The Canadian way: shaping Canada’s foreign
policy 1968–1984 (Toronto, 1995). Evidence suggests that Head is the
primary author. In 1990 Trudeau and Thomas Sidney Axworthy edited an important
collection, Towards a just society: the Trudeau years (Toronto, 1990).
After
Trudeau became prime minister, some of his associates gathered his writings and
speeches. The most important of these compilations is Against the current:
selected writings 1939–1996, ed. Gérard Pelletier, trans. George Tombs
(Toronto, 1996). Others include Approaches to politics, intro. Ramsay
Cook, trans. I. M. Owen (Toronto, 1970), and Conversations with Canadians,
foreword I. L. Head (Toronto, 1972). Foreign-policy speeches and related
documents are found in Pierre Elliott Trudeau: lifting the shadow of war,
ed. C. D. Crenna (Toronto, 1987), while constitutional matters are the focus of
With a bang, not a whimper: Pierre Trudeau speaks out, ed. Donald
Johnston (Toronto, 1988). Trudeau’s arguments against the Charlottetown Accord
are presented in Trudeau: “A mess that deserves a big NO!”: Pierre Elliott
Trudeau’s historic speech at the eleventh “Cité Libre” dinner, trans.
George Tombs (Toronto, 1992).
Several of
Trudeau’s friends and opponents have written memoirs that focus on their work
with Trudeau or on Trudeau himself. Among the more significant are André
Burelle, Pierre Elliott Trudeau: l’intellectuel et le politique
([Montréal], 2005); Jean Chrétien, Straight from the heart (rev. and
updated ed., Toronto, 1994); Ramsay Cook, The teeth of time: remembering
Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Montreal and Kingston, 2006); Keith Davey, The
rainmaker: a passion for politics (Toronto, 1986); Patrick Gossage, Close
to the charisma: my years between the press and Pierre Elliott Trudeau
(Toronto, 1986); Donald Johnston, Up the hill (Montreal, 1986); Gérard
Pelletier, Years of impatience, 1950–1960, trans. Alan Brown (Toronto,
1984) and Years of choice, 1960–1968, trans. Alan Brown (Toronto, 1987);
[R.] G. Robertson, Memoirs of a very civil servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre
Trudeau (Toronto, 2000); J. L. Roux, Nous sommes tous des acteurs
(1v. to date, Montréal, 1997– ); and M. W. Sharp, Which reminds me …: a
memoir (Toronto, 1994). Cook is very insightful, Pelletier highly
perceptive, and Robertson sharply critical. Two other memoirs that were
consulted are André Laurendeau, The diary of André Laurendeau: written
during the Royal commission on bilingualism and biculturalism, 1964–1967,
trans. Patricia Smart and Dorothy Howard (Toronto, 1991) and Margaret Trudeau, Beyond
reason (New York, 1979).
Among the
academic studies, especially valuable is J. L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell,
Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian foreign policy (Toronto, 1990).
Important essays are in Trudeau’s shadow: the life and legacy of Pierre
Elliott Trudeau, ed. Andrew Cohen and J. L. Granatstein (Toronto, 1998). A
critical assessment of Trudeau’s influence on Canadian politics is found in Guy
Laforest, Trudeau and the end of a Canadian dream, trans. P. L. Browne
and Michelle Weinroth (Montreal and Kingston, 1995). His effect on the Canadian
imagination is presented in B. W. Powe, The solitary outlaw: Trudeau, Lewis,
Gould, Canetti, McLuhan (rev. and updated ed., Toronto, 1996), a
fascinating work. Trudeau’s religious outlook is examined in The hidden
Pierre Elliott Trudeau: the faith behind the politics, ed. John English et
al. (Ottawa, 2004).
Trudeau’s
career has attracted the attention of numerous writers. The major complete
political biography is Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and
our times (2v., Toronto, 1990–94). This award-winning study was based upon
extensive interviews of friends, enemies, and colleagues. Early noteworthy
biographies include Jean Pellerin, Le phénomène Trudeau ([Paris, 1972]);
Walter Stewart, Shrug: Trudeau in power (Toronto, 1971); and Anthony
Westell, Paradox: Trudeau as prime minister (Scarborough, Ont., [1972]).
George Radwanski’s Trudeau (Toronto, 1978) is important because of the
long interviews Trudeau granted to Radwanski. Richard Gwyn, The northern
magus: Pierre Trudeau and Canadians, ed. Sandra Gwyn (Toronto, 1980) is an
intelligent journalist’s consideration of the record before Trudeau’s final
term in office. Michel Vastel was the first to closely examine Trudeau’s early
writings in The outsider: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, trans.
Hubert Bauch (Toronto, 1990). An unusual and valuable book is Pierre:
colleagues and friends talk about the Trudeau they knew, ed. Nancy Southam
(Toronto, 2005). Other notable publications are Esther Delisle, Essais sur
l’imprégnation fasciste au Québec (Montréal, 2002) and Myths, memory
& lies: Quebec’s intelligentsia and the fascist temptation, 1939–1960,
trans. Madeleine Hébert (Westmount, Que., 1998), both of which contain material
on Trudeau’s early life. A work that concentrates on Trudeau’s flirtation with
fascism and separatism is Max and Monique Nemni, Young Trudeau, 1919–1944:
son of Quebec, father of Canada, trans. William Johnson (Toronto, 2006).
The second volume by the Nemnis is Trudeau transformed: the shaping of a
statesman, 1944–1965, trans. George Tombs (Toronto, 2011). A two-volume
biography based upon access to Trudeau’s private papers is John English,
Citizen of the world: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, volume one: 1919–1968
and Just watch me: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968–2000 (Toronto,
2006–9).
------------------
God bless our troops and yours....
Remembering Pierre LaPorte 1970 and MOVIE THIS WEEK- CANADA'S HYENA ROAD
AFGHANISTAN- God bless our beloved Canada and your nations and our Canada loved
Afghan people and Afghanistan.... ?#?1BRising? One Billion Rising- Afghan women
are screaming where are the women of this world.... don't 4get us.... and the
horrific numbers of women and children being tortured and butchered by monsters
who wipe their arses with the Geneva Convention which UN PLAYBOYS... DEMAND OUR
NATIONS TROOPS B SACRIFICED DAY IN AND DAY OUT.... we need new rules and better
politicalization and commercialization that centers on humanity..... and
forceful elimination of the monsters.. CANADA TODAY'S HISTORY- PIERRE ELLIOT
TRUDEAU'S FAMOUS- JUST WATCH ME- AND BELOVED RENE LEVESQUE AGREED.... In 1970 ,
what became known as the October Crisis began when FLQ terrorists kidnapped
British Trade Commissioner James Cross from his Montreal home. The kidnappers
demanded $500,000 and the release of 23 FLQ members being held for terrorist
activities. (Cross was released unhurt on Dec. 3, 1970.) On Oct. 10, the FLQ
kidnapped Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte, which prompted Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau to impose the War Measures Act on Oct. 16 to battle the terrorists.
Laporte's body was found on Oct. 18 in the trunk of a car in Montreal.
AFGHANISTAN WAR BROKE OUR HEARTS WHEN WE FOUND OUT RED CROSS AND DOCTORS
WITHOUT BORDERS WERE TREATING THE MONSTERS AS EQUAL AS THEIR VICTIMS....
HORRIFIC TORTURE OF CHILDREN AND WOMEN AFGHANISTAN 2003 and 2004- we believed
the UN had used integrity and all peoples followed the honour codes of humanity
and life matters. Movie Hyena Road -Canada truth story about all the games
played and our troops caught in all these games just trying to bring freedom
and human dignity and peace ...
----------
Manifesto of the FLQ (1970)
The Front de liberation
du Québec is not a messiah, nor a modern-day Robin Hood. It is a group of Québec
workers who have decided to use every means to make sure that the people of
Québec take control of their destiny.
The Front de
liberation du Québec wants the total independence of all Québécois, united in a
free society, purged forever of the clique of voracious sharks, the patronizing
"big bosses" and their henchmen who have made Québec their hunting
preserve for "cheap labour" and unscrupulous exploitation.
The Front de
liberation du Québec is not a movement of aggression, but is a response to the
aggression organized by high finance and the puppet governments in Ottawa and
Québec (the Brinks "show," Bill 63, the electoral map, the so-called
social progress tax, Power Corporation, "Doctors' insurance," the
Lapalme guys ...)
The Front de
liberation du Québec finances itself by "voluntary taxes" taken from
the same enterprises that exploit the workers (banks, finance companies, etc.
...)
"The money power
of the status quo, the majority of the traditional teachers of our people, have
obtained the reaction they hoped for; a backward step rather than the change
for which we have worked as never before, for which we will continue to
work" ( René Lévesque, April 29, 1970) .
We believed once that
perhaps it would be worth it to channel our energy and our impatience, as René
Lévesque said so well, into the Parti Québecois, but the Liberal victory
clearly demonstrated that that which we call democracy in Québec is nothing but
the democracy of the rich. The Liberal party's victory was nothing but the
victory of the election riggers, Simard-Cotroni. As a result, the British
parliamentary system is finished and the Front de liberation du Québec will
never allow itself to be fooled by the pseudo-elections that the Anglo-Saxon
capitalists toss to the people of Québec every four years. A number of
Québecois have understood and will act. In the coming year Bourassa will have
to face reality; 100,000 revolutionary workers, armed and organized.
Yes, there are
reasons for the Liberal victory. Yes, there are reasons for poverty,
unemployment, slums, and for the fact that you, Mr Bergeron of Visitation
Street and you, Mr Legendre of Laval who earn $ 10,000 a year, will not feel
free in our country of Québec.
Yes, there are
reasons, and the guys at Lord know them, the fishermen of the Gaspé, the
workers of the North Shore, the miners for the Iron Ore Company, Québec Cartier
Mining, and Noranda, also know these reasons. And the brave workers of Cabano
that you tried to screw again know lots of reasons.
Yes, there are
reasons why you, Mr Tremblay of Panet Street and you Mr Cloutier, who work in
construction in St Jerôme, cannot pay for "Vaisseaux d'or" with all
the jazz and oom-pa-pa like Drapeau the aristocrat, who is so concerned with
slums that he puts coloured billboards in front of them to hide our misery from
the tourists.
Yes, there are
reasons why you, Mrs Lemay of St Hyacinthe, can't pay for little trips to
Florida like our dirty judges and parliamentary members do with our money.
The brave workers for
Vickers and Davie Ship, who were thrown out and not given a reason, know these
reasons. And the Murdochville men, who were attacked for the simple and sole
reason that they wanted to organize a union and who were forced to pay $2
million by the dirty judges simply because they tried to exercise this basic
right - they know justice and they know the reasons.
Yes, there are
reasons why you, Mr Lachance of St Marguerite Street, must go and drown your
sorrows in a bottle of that dog's beer, Molson. And you, Lachance's son, with
your marijuana cigarettes ...
Yes, there are
reasons why you, the welfare recipients, are kept from generation to generation
on social welfare. Yes, there are all sorts of reasons, and the Domtar workers
in East Angus and Windsor know them well. And the workers at Squibb and Ayers,
and the men at the Liquor Board and those at Seven-Up and Victoria Precision,
and the blue collar workers in Laval and Montreal and the Lapalme boys know
those reasons well.
The Dupont of Canada
workers know them as well, even if soon they will only be able to express them
in English (thus assimilated they will enlarge the number of immigrants and New
Quebeckers, the darlings of Bill 63 ) .
And the Montreal
policemen, those strongarms of the system, should understand these reasons -
they should have been able to see we live in a terrorized society because,
without their force, without their violence, nothing could work on October 7.
We have had our fill
of Canadian federalism which penalizes the Québec milk producers to satisfy the
needs of the Anglo-Saxons of the Commonwealth; the system which keeps the
gallant Montreal taxi drivers in a state of semi-slavery to shamefully protect
the exclusive monopoly of the nauseating Murray Hill and its proprietor - the
murderer Charles Hershorn and his son Paul, who, on the night of October 7,
repeatedly grabbed the twelve-gauge shot gun from his employees hands to fire
upon the taxi drivers and thereby mortally wound corporal Dumas, killed while
demonstrating.
We have had our fill
of a federal system which exercises a policy of heavy importation while turning
out into the street the low wage-earners in the textile and shoe manufacturing
trades, who are the most ill-treated in Québec, for the benefit of a clutch of
damned money-makers in their Cadillacs who rate the Québec nation on the same
level as other ethnic minorities in Canada.
We have had our fill,
as have more and more Québecois, of a government
which performs
a-thousand-and-one acrobatics to charm American millionaires into investing in
Québec, La Belle Province, where thousands and thousands of square miles of
forests, full of game and well-stocked lakes, are the exclusive preserve of the
almighty twentieth century lords.
We have had our fill
of a hypocrite like Bourassa who relies on Brinks armoured trucks, the living
symbol of the foreign occupation of Québec, to keep the poor natives of Québec
in the fear of misery and unemployment in which they are accustomed to living.
We have had our fill
of taxes which the Ottawa representative to Québec wants to give to the
Anglophone bosses to encourage them to speak French, old boy, to negotiate in
French: Repeat after me: "Cheap labour means manpower in a healthy market."
We have had our fill
of promises of jobs and prosperity while we always remain the cowering servants
and boot-lickers of the big shots who live in Westmount, Town of Mount Royal,
Hampstead, and Outremont; all the fortresses of high finance on St James and
Wall streets, while we, the Québecois, have not used all our means, including
arms and dynamite, to rid ourselves of these economic and political bosses who
are prepared to use every sort of sordid tactic to better screw us.
We live in a society
of terrorized slaves, terrorized by the big bosses like Steinberg, Clark,
Bronfman, Smith, Neaple, Timmins, Geoffrion, J. L. Levesque, Hershorn,
Thompson, Nesbitt, Desmarais, Kierans. Compared to them Remi Popol the lousy
no-good, Drapeau the Dog, Bourassa the lackey of the Simards, and Trudeau the
fairy are peanuts.
We are terrorized by
the capitalist Roman church, even though this seems less and less obvious (who
owns the property on which the stock exchange stands?) ; by the payments to pay
back Household Finance; by the publicity of the overlords of retail trade like
Eaton, Simpson, Morgan, Steinberg, and General Motors; we are terrorized by the
closed circles of science and culture which are the universities and by their
bosses like Gaudry and Dorais and by the underling Robert Shaw.
The number of those
who realize the oppression of this terrorist society are growing and the day
will come when all the Westmounts of Québec will disappear from the map.
Production workers,
miners, foresters, teachers, students, and unemployed workers, take what belong
to you, your jobs, your right to decide, and your liberty. And you, workers of
General Electric, it's you who makes your factories run, only you are capable
of production; without you General Electric is nothing!
Workers of Québec,
start today to take back what is yours; take for yourselves what belongs to
you. Only you know your factories, your machines, your hotels, your
universities, your unions. Don't wait for an organizational miracle.
Make your own
revolution in your areas, in your places of work. And if you don't do it
yourselves, other usurpers, technocrats and so on will replace the handful of
cigar smokers we now know, and everything will be the same again. Only you are
able to build a free society.
We must fight, not
singly, but together. We must fight until victory is ours with all the means at
our disposal as did the patriots of 1837-38 (those whom our sacred Mother
church excommunicated to sell out to the British interests) .
In the four corners of
Québec, may those who have been contemptuously called lousy French and
alcoholics start fighting their best against the enemies of liberty and justice
and prevent all the professional swindlers and robbers, the bankers, the
businessmen, the judges, and the sold-out politicators from causing harm.
We are the workers of
Québec and we will continue to the bitter end. We want to replace the slave
society with a free society, functioning by itself and for itself; a society
open to the world.
Our struggle can only
lead to victory. You cannot hold an awakening people in misery and contempt
indefinitely. Long live Free Québec!
Long live
our imprisoned political comrades. Long live the Québec revolution!
Long live
the Front de liberation du Québec.
------------
BLOGGED:
CANADA MILITARY NEWS: Oct 20- ISIS is just rich spoiled privileged monsters killing their mothers and fathers- like bin laden/ MUSLIM WOMEN KICKING UR SAD ARSES- Kurkish women will destroy u and ur families- revenge is sweet 2 women- ONE BILLION RISING/ Canada remember 1970- Trudeau -Just Watch Me and 88% of Canada stomped up 4 him-FLQ/Red Brigade throwing babies in street-Remember this sheeet- well world - let's clean f**king house- all ages- this is NOT a Muslim war- this is a total Woman's War against spoilt monsters - this isn't religious- this is just killing massacre 4 fun- git r done
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CANADA- The
October Crisis
During the
1960s, a national liberation movement sprang up in Quebec, calling for an
independent province. One of its means of action was terrorism. In October
1970, a Quebec minister and a British diplomat were abducted.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The 1960s was a decade of profound change, both internationally and in Quebec. While Quebec was evolving due to The Quiet Revolution, many countries were achieving independence thanks to the trend towards de-colonization. Socialist groups, which had been popping up around the world for some time, started appearing in Quebec. During the 1960s, Quebec also witnessed the birth of groups that strove to achieve independence for the province without advocating terrorism or socialism. The most meaningful symbol of this movement was the creation of the Parti québécois.
SUMMARY
Le Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) is a national liberation movement that was founded in 1963. Its goal was to achieve Quebec independence by resorting to terrorism, if necessary. After several bombing attempts, particularly in 1968 and 1969, the FLQ orchestrated the abduction of British diplomat, James Richard Cross, on October 5, 1970, and of provincial minister, Pierre Laporte, later on October 10. Meanwhile, negotiations were being held with Robert Bourassa's Quebec government, and the FLQ's manifesto was broadcast on CBC radio on October 8. Faced with an impasse in the negotiations, the Quebec government demanded the help of the army on October 15 to assist the Montreal police in their efforts. The following day, the federal government, led by Pierre-Éliott Trudeau, proclaimed the War Measures Act. As a result, civil rights were curtailed and Canadian Armed Forces occupied several Quebec cities. Pierre Laporte was assassinated the next day, on October 17. Between 450 and 500 people were subsequently arrested, without warrant. The majority of the people were artists, unionists, intellectuals and individuals who supported Quebec nationalism. The crisis finally came to an end in December. James Richard Cross was released on December 3 in exchange for a safe-conduct to Cuba for Marc Carbonneau and the other abductors. On December 28, Paul Rose and his accomplices were arrested for the murder of Pierre Laporte.
Concepts
Quiet revolution
Period between 1960 and 1966 marked by reforms that modernized the Quebec State and society.
Socialism
Social doctrine that puts collective interests ahead of individual interests thanks to a form of State planning that ensures the development of a society.
Parti québécois
Political party founded in 1968 that promotes Quebec independence paired with an economic union with the rest of Canada.
Nationalism
Political movement that strives to acquire the necessary tools for a people (laws, organizations, etc.) so that they can control their own social, economical and political future.
Terrorism
Climate of fear that a political group attempts to instill in a society in order to create insecurity among the general population. These groups systematically use violence. The FLQ is a terrorist group.
Front de libération du Québec (FLQ)
Revolutionary movement that strives for an independent and socialist Quebec. This movement used propaganda and violence to promote its message. The FLQ is a national liberation movement that uses terrorism.
War measures act
Adopted in 1914, the War Measures Act assigns emergency powers to the federal government when it perceives a real or suspected threat of "war, invasion or insurrection. This act limits citizens' civil rights.
Civil rights
These rights include, among other things, the right to be protected against unwarranted or arbitrary arrests, detentions, searches and seizures, and the right to an attorney.
National liberation movement
Movement that seeks to achieve the liberation of an occupied country or a subjugated people. The means used to achieve this goal can range from negotiation to the use of violence.
Pierre Laporte
Politician born in 1921. A journalist and parliamentary correspondent for "Le Devoir" from 1945 to 1961, before being elected as a member of the National Assembly for the Quebec Liberal Party in 1961. He served as Minister of Municipal Affairs (1962-1966) and Minister of Cultural Affairs (1964-1966). He was one of the fiercest opponents of Maurice Duplessis and the Union nationale party. In 1970, he ran for leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, but was defeated by Robert Bourassa, who later named him Minister of Immigration and Minister of Labour. He was abducted by the FLQ and assassinated the day after the War Measures Act was proclaimed. This event helped intensify the October crisis.
Pierre-Éliott Trudeau
Politician born in 1919 to a Quebec father and a mother of Scottish ancestry. In 1940, he entered the Université de Montréal to study law. This was during the World War II and as a student, Trudeau was obligated to join the Canadian Officers' Training Corps, even though he was opposed to conscription. After receiving his diploma in 1943, he pursued his studies in the United States, France and Great Britain. Upon his return to Canada in 1949, he supported unions and founded, with the help of other intellectuals, the magazine Cité libre to defend his ideas. In 1965, he was elected member of the Liberal Party of Canada, and named Minister of Justice two years later. He took over the leadership of his party in 1968, and won the federal election thanks to "Trudeaumania." Following the abduction of British diplomat James Richard Cross, he proclaimed the War Measures Act. Trudeau stood for a united Canada and a strong federal government.
Marc Carbonneau
Member of the FLQ and one of the key players in the abduction of British diplomat James Richard Cross. A Montreal taxi driver, Carbonneau participated in a Taxi Liberation Movement demonstration in 1969. Following the abduction of Cross, his name appeared on a list of the 13 most wanted people in Canada. He managed to arrange a safe-haven for himself to Cuba through the Quebec government in exchange for the release of James Richard Cross. His exile in Cuba lasted from 1970 to 1973, followed by an exile in France from 1973 to 1981. He then returned to Canada where he was charged with abduction and forcible confinement. In March 1982, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison and 150 hours of community work.
Paul Rose
FLQ cell leader, born in Montreal in 1943. He participated in his first strike at the age of 12 while working as a strawberry picker. In 1966, he worked as a French and math professor, then as a special education teacher for maladjusted children. He later became a member of the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN) and participated in numerous demonstrations, in addition to becoming involved in several causes. During the October Crisis, he was named Chénier cell leader, and was responsible for Pierre Laporte's abduction, which landed him on the list of Canada's 13 most wanted people. He was arrested on December 28 and incarcerated for two and a half months in a small cell in Montreal at the Quebec provincial police headquarters. On March 13, 1971, Paul Rose was sentenced to life in prison.
James Richard Cross
British diplomat born in Ireland in 1921. He held a diploma in economics and political sciences and was a lieutenant in Britain's Royal Engineers Corps from 1944 to 1947. He later served as deputy secretary and assistant secretary of the Board of Trade until 1953. He then held several commercial attaché positions around the globe. In 1967, he was sent to Montreal. During the October Crisis, he was abducted by Marc Carbonneau, a member of the FLQ.
Robert Bourassa
Politician born in Montreal in 1933, and who studied law. He was elected member of the National Assembly for the Liberal Party in 1966, and was later elected party leader in 1970. After negotiations failed with the FLQ for the release of James Richard Cross, he called in the Canadian army. 24 hours later, Trudeau proclaimed the War Measures Act. Despite the crisis, he was re-elected in 1973.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The 1960s was a decade of profound change, both internationally and in Quebec. While Quebec was evolving due to The Quiet Revolution, many countries were achieving independence thanks to the trend towards de-colonization. Socialist groups, which had been popping up around the world for some time, started appearing in Quebec. During the 1960s, Quebec also witnessed the birth of groups that strove to achieve independence for the province without advocating terrorism or socialism. The most meaningful symbol of this movement was the creation of the Parti québécois.
SUMMARY
Le Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) is a national liberation movement that was founded in 1963. Its goal was to achieve Quebec independence by resorting to terrorism, if necessary. After several bombing attempts, particularly in 1968 and 1969, the FLQ orchestrated the abduction of British diplomat, James Richard Cross, on October 5, 1970, and of provincial minister, Pierre Laporte, later on October 10. Meanwhile, negotiations were being held with Robert Bourassa's Quebec government, and the FLQ's manifesto was broadcast on CBC radio on October 8. Faced with an impasse in the negotiations, the Quebec government demanded the help of the army on October 15 to assist the Montreal police in their efforts. The following day, the federal government, led by Pierre-Éliott Trudeau, proclaimed the War Measures Act. As a result, civil rights were curtailed and Canadian Armed Forces occupied several Quebec cities. Pierre Laporte was assassinated the next day, on October 17. Between 450 and 500 people were subsequently arrested, without warrant. The majority of the people were artists, unionists, intellectuals and individuals who supported Quebec nationalism. The crisis finally came to an end in December. James Richard Cross was released on December 3 in exchange for a safe-conduct to Cuba for Marc Carbonneau and the other abductors. On December 28, Paul Rose and his accomplices were arrested for the murder of Pierre Laporte.
Concepts
Quiet revolution
Period between 1960 and 1966 marked by reforms that modernized the Quebec State and society.
Socialism
Social doctrine that puts collective interests ahead of individual interests thanks to a form of State planning that ensures the development of a society.
Parti québécois
Political party founded in 1968 that promotes Quebec independence paired with an economic union with the rest of Canada.
Nationalism
Political movement that strives to acquire the necessary tools for a people (laws, organizations, etc.) so that they can control their own social, economical and political future.
Terrorism
Climate of fear that a political group attempts to instill in a society in order to create insecurity among the general population. These groups systematically use violence. The FLQ is a terrorist group.
Front de libération du Québec (FLQ)
Revolutionary movement that strives for an independent and socialist Quebec. This movement used propaganda and violence to promote its message. The FLQ is a national liberation movement that uses terrorism.
War measures act
Adopted in 1914, the War Measures Act assigns emergency powers to the federal government when it perceives a real or suspected threat of "war, invasion or insurrection. This act limits citizens' civil rights.
Civil rights
These rights include, among other things, the right to be protected against unwarranted or arbitrary arrests, detentions, searches and seizures, and the right to an attorney.
National liberation movement
Movement that seeks to achieve the liberation of an occupied country or a subjugated people. The means used to achieve this goal can range from negotiation to the use of violence.
Pierre Laporte
Politician born in 1921. A journalist and parliamentary correspondent for "Le Devoir" from 1945 to 1961, before being elected as a member of the National Assembly for the Quebec Liberal Party in 1961. He served as Minister of Municipal Affairs (1962-1966) and Minister of Cultural Affairs (1964-1966). He was one of the fiercest opponents of Maurice Duplessis and the Union nationale party. In 1970, he ran for leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, but was defeated by Robert Bourassa, who later named him Minister of Immigration and Minister of Labour. He was abducted by the FLQ and assassinated the day after the War Measures Act was proclaimed. This event helped intensify the October crisis.
Pierre-Éliott Trudeau
Politician born in 1919 to a Quebec father and a mother of Scottish ancestry. In 1940, he entered the Université de Montréal to study law. This was during the World War II and as a student, Trudeau was obligated to join the Canadian Officers' Training Corps, even though he was opposed to conscription. After receiving his diploma in 1943, he pursued his studies in the United States, France and Great Britain. Upon his return to Canada in 1949, he supported unions and founded, with the help of other intellectuals, the magazine Cité libre to defend his ideas. In 1965, he was elected member of the Liberal Party of Canada, and named Minister of Justice two years later. He took over the leadership of his party in 1968, and won the federal election thanks to "Trudeaumania." Following the abduction of British diplomat James Richard Cross, he proclaimed the War Measures Act. Trudeau stood for a united Canada and a strong federal government.
Marc Carbonneau
Member of the FLQ and one of the key players in the abduction of British diplomat James Richard Cross. A Montreal taxi driver, Carbonneau participated in a Taxi Liberation Movement demonstration in 1969. Following the abduction of Cross, his name appeared on a list of the 13 most wanted people in Canada. He managed to arrange a safe-haven for himself to Cuba through the Quebec government in exchange for the release of James Richard Cross. His exile in Cuba lasted from 1970 to 1973, followed by an exile in France from 1973 to 1981. He then returned to Canada where he was charged with abduction and forcible confinement. In March 1982, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison and 150 hours of community work.
Paul Rose
FLQ cell leader, born in Montreal in 1943. He participated in his first strike at the age of 12 while working as a strawberry picker. In 1966, he worked as a French and math professor, then as a special education teacher for maladjusted children. He later became a member of the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale (RIN) and participated in numerous demonstrations, in addition to becoming involved in several causes. During the October Crisis, he was named Chénier cell leader, and was responsible for Pierre Laporte's abduction, which landed him on the list of Canada's 13 most wanted people. He was arrested on December 28 and incarcerated for two and a half months in a small cell in Montreal at the Quebec provincial police headquarters. On March 13, 1971, Paul Rose was sentenced to life in prison.
James Richard Cross
British diplomat born in Ireland in 1921. He held a diploma in economics and political sciences and was a lieutenant in Britain's Royal Engineers Corps from 1944 to 1947. He later served as deputy secretary and assistant secretary of the Board of Trade until 1953. He then held several commercial attaché positions around the globe. In 1967, he was sent to Montreal. During the October Crisis, he was abducted by Marc Carbonneau, a member of the FLQ.
Robert Bourassa
Politician born in Montreal in 1933, and who studied law. He was elected member of the National Assembly for the Liberal Party in 1966, and was later elected party leader in 1970. After negotiations failed with the FLQ for the release of James Richard Cross, he called in the Canadian army. 24 hours later, Trudeau proclaimed the War Measures Act. Despite the crisis, he was re-elected in 1973.
----------
Front de libération du Québec
Front de libération du Québec
The FLQ is
best known for the 1970 October Crisis. The Crisis was the first occasion in
the history of Canada that its citizens were deprived of their rights and
freedoms during peace time.
Popular
Support
The FLQ is
best known for the 1970 October Crisis. The Crisis was the first occasion
in the history of Canada that its citizens were deprived of their rights and
freedoms during peace time. Yet several researchers, including Frédéric Goily
and Donald Ipperciel, have highlighted the ultimate failure of the group,
despite the attention that it received: apart from some radicals inspired by
the example of former colonies that liberated themselves through armed
struggle, the FLQ never succeeded in taking hold within the union movement or
gained the popular support they had anticipated. Over the years, the
organization recruited at most a hundred or so agitators.
Precursors
of the FLQ
Several
revolutionary independence movements preceded the formation of the FLQ. Of
these, the Réseau de résistance (RR) advocated vandalism as a means of protest.
Another group, the Comité de libération nationale, created in 1962, preached
violence as a way to achieve political ends. This group started to form cells
within the Rassemblement pour l’Indépendance Nationale (RIN), a precursor of
the Parti Québécois, and within the Action socialiste pour l’indépendance du
Québec (ASIQ), a sovereignty movement founded in 1960 by a Communist Party
militant. The FLQ was formed by the more radical elements of the Comité de
libération nationale and the RR.
A
Belgian working for Québec independence
The
movement was founded in March 1963 by two Québécois, Raymond Villeneuve and
Gabriel Hudon, and a Belgian, Georges Schoeters, who was an admirer of the
Algerian revolutionaries and of Che Guevara in Cuba. Québec was undergoing a
period of profound change (industrial expansion, modernization of the state) at
the time, but the creation of the FLQ was also stimulated by international
factors such as the decolonization of Algeria, and the organization forged
links with other groups around the world. Two members travelled to the north of
Jordan to train alongside Palestinian guerrillas. Pierre Vallières, the author of the book Nègres blancs d'Amérique, joined the FLQ in 1965
and is generally considered the "philosopher" behind the
organization. The symbols that the group adopted demonstrated its members’
belief that they were the heirs of the Patriotes, the country’s first francophone
rebels: a green, white and red flag with the figure of a habitant armed
for the revolution.
The
Beginnings of Violence
In 1963,
underground FLQ activists (some of whom were arrested) placed bombs in
mailboxes in three federal armories and in Westmount, a wealthy upper-middle-class
anglophone area of Montréal. Their objective was the complete destruction of
the influence and symbols of English colonialism. Sergeant-Major Walter Leja,
of the Canadian Armed Forces, was seriously injured when he tried to neutralize
one of the bombs.
Within the
FLQ, two wings emerged to supply the group with weapons and money. Gabriel
Hudon’s younger brother, Robert, established the Armée de libération du Québec
(ALQ) and François Schirm, a Hungarian and former member of the French
ForeignLegion, founded the Armée révolutionnaire du Québec (ARQ).
In 1964,
Schirm and four other members of the ARQ stole approximately $50,000 in cash
and military equipment and committed an armed robbery at International
Firearms. During the robbery, a member of the ARQ killed the company
vice-president and another employee was killed by the police, who mistook him
for one of the thieves. The five ARQ members were arrested and convicted.
Schirm and Edmond Guénette, the shooter, received the death penalty; two were
sentenced to life imprisonment, and the other ARQ member was sentenced to 20
years in prison. These sentences provoked outrage within the FLQ.
Political
Attacks Intensify
From 1965
to 1967, the FLQ associated itself with the activities of striking workers,
without, however, succeeding in infiltrating the unions. It was involved in
over 200 bombings between 1963 and 1970, and in 1968 it began using larger and
more powerful bombs, setting them off at a federal government bookstore, at
McGill University, at the residence of Jean Drapeau and the provincial Department of
Labour, and, in February 1969, at the Montreal Stock Exchange, where 27 people
were injured. In the fall of 1969, the movement split into two distinct cells:
the South Shore gang, which became the Chenier cell, led by Paul Rose, and the
Liberation cell, under Jacques Lanctôt. Montréal-based, both cells boasted
about 12 members. As of 1970, more than 20 FLQ members were in prison.
The
October Crisis
In the
fall of 1970 (see October Crisis), the FLQ took British trade
commissioner James Cross hostage. The FLQ demanded the release of 23 prisoners
whom it called “political prisoners” as well as the publication of their
manifesto, a plane to take them to Cuba or Algeria, and half a million dollars.
They gave the government 24 hours to comply with their demands. The government
rejected the ultimatum but indicated that it was ready to negotiate.
Five days
after the first hostage-taking, the Chenier cell kidnapped Pierre Laporte, the Minister of Immigration,
Manpower and Labour. Under the War Measures Act, more than 450 people were
arrested, including 150 “suspected” FLQ members.
The
following day, and one week after Pierre Laporte was taken hostage, his body
was found in the trunk of a car. Paul Rose and Francis Simard were eventually
sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Laporte. Bernard Lortie was
convicted of kidnapping Laporte, and Jacques Rose was convicted as an
accessory.
Of the
Cross kidnappers, five fled to Cuba and then to France, and they eventually
returned to Canada. One remained in Montréal but was arrested in 1980 and
sentenced in 1981. Cut off from the political, military and popular support
that had enabled it to survive, the movement ceased activities in 1971.
Paul Rose
was paroled in 1982. He died on 14 March 2013 at 69 years of age, after working
as a journalist and trade unionist.
---------
One of Our Best and Brightest
Martin O'Malley
CBC NEWS ONLINE
In December 1999, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was named top Canadian newsmaker of the 20th century. He finished ahead of prime ministers Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, Wilfrid Laurier and Brian Mulroney, all of whom made the top ten. Think what you will of the century-ending poll, but no one will ever will remember the man as Pierre Who.
At the turn of the century, he had been out of office 15 years. He had recently lost his son, Michel, who was killed in November 1998 at the age of 23 when an avalanche carried him into a glacial lake in British Columbia. At the memorial service weeks later, Trudeau looked gaunt, almost skeletal, in his grief. The following year, on October 18, Pierre Elliott Trudeau turned 80.
In his prime, Trudeau was exciting, charismatic, sexy. He drove sports cars, wore capes, ascots and floppy hats, and always the signature red rose in his lapel. He slid down bannisters, canoed in white-water rapids, did pirouettes behind the Queen's back at Buckingham Palace. He made politics fashionable for the upbeat Sixties generation that emerged from the sleepy 1950s. He dated some of the most interesting women in the world — singer Barbra Streisand, movie star Margot Kidder, classical guitarist Liona Boyd. At the age of 52, he married Margaret Sinclair, the beautiful 22-year-old he had met while vacationing in Tahiti.
He seemed to come from out of nowhere in the 1960s, saying things like, "The state has no business in the nation's bedrooms." He borrowed the phrase from a Globe and Mail editorial in December 1967 when he was Minister of Justice explaining legislation he had introduced in the House of Commons that would reform divorce laws and liberalize laws on abortion and homosexuality.
The Three Wise Men from Quebec
It might have appeared he came out of nowhere, but in Quebec, where he was born on October 18, 1919, Trudeau had been a formidable presence.
His father was a wealthy Quebecois, his mother was of Scottish descent. Trudeau's given names thus captured the bilingual, bicultural personality of Canada, the federalism the man dedicated his political life to preserving and enhancing. The Trudeau family often went on extensive European tours, allowing young Pierre to develop what would become an unquenchable taste for faraway places and adventure.
He studied at Jean de Brebeuf College, a Jesuit institution where doubtless he acquired his lifelong belief in reason (as in "reason over passion," which became his motto). He earned a law degree at the University of Montreal, a master's degree in political economy at Harvard University, then studied at Ecole des sciences politiques in Paris in 1946-47, followed by an academic year at the London School of Economics in 1947-48.
After a year backpacking throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Far East, Trudeau returned to Canada where he worked in Ottawa as an advisor to the Privy Council. Soon he returned to Montreal where he worked with labour unions, championing the rights of workers during the violent Asbestos Strike in Quebec and attacking the repressive regime of the Union Nationale under Premier Maurice Duplessis. What he is best remembered for from this period is his work with Cite Libre, a journal of ideas he founded with other Quebec intellectuals when he taught law at the University of Montreal.
In 1965, the federal Liberal party was looking for candidates from Quebec. Trudeau and two friends, Jean Marchand and Gerard Pelletier, were invited to run in the federal election that year. Trudeau was the least known of the group that quickly became known as "the three wise men."
This soon would change.
Trudeaumania sweeps Canada
Marchand, Pelletier and Trudeau all won their seats in the 1965 federal election. Trudeau, as Justice Minister, worked closely with Prime Minister Lester Pearson, who appeared to take a fatherly interest in the bright young man from Quebec.
When Pearson resigned as prime minister in 1968, Trudeau signed on as a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal party. At the beginning of the leadership contest, he was no shoo-in, but his personality and style suited the times that were a-changin' and by the spring of 1968 a wave of "Trudeaumania" swept Canada and Trudeau became a star. He hit all the demographic buttons — old and young, male and female, French and English, East and West. In their book Mondo Canuck, authors Geoff Pevere and Greig Dymond describe Trudeau as "the greatest pop star this country has ever produced."
Soon after winning the leadership of the Liberal Party in April 1968, Trudeau called an election, and trounced the opposition.
It is no coincidence that Trudeau and media guru Marshall McLuhan became cohorts in the 1960s and maintained a creative relationship throughout the 1970s. Trudeau could have been the model for what McLuhan meant when he coined the phrase "the medium is the message." It wasn't what the man said, but how he said it — style over substance. That creased, angular, Gallic face worked marvelously on television, providing traction for the camera. Until the 1960s — John F. Kennedy first demonstrated it with his win over an earnest but sweaty Richard Nixon — politics was perceived as exclusionary, or as McLuhan might have said, "hot." Trudeau instantly made dull Canadian politics accessible and exciting. Trudeau was "cool."
But it was not that he lacked substance, far from it. During his 16 years as prime minister he championed seminal changes in the Canadian political landscape, among them:
He didn't do things on the cheap. Over 16 years with Trudeau as prime minister, Canada's national debt skyrocketed by 1,200 per cent, from $17 billion to more than $200 billion.
Alone in his Montreal mansion
The Trudeaumania of the 1960s turned to Trudeauphobia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, mainly among members of the news media, with whom Trudeau never was totally comfortable, and often did not respect. Once in a clumsy scrum he took a swing at a reporter who had been jostled into him. Another time, when journalist Peter Desbarats sat down to interview him for Global Television, Desbarats cautiously raised the matter of a reconciliation between Trudeau and Margaret. Infuriated, Trudeau shot back at Desbarats, who was also experiencing marital difficulties, and asked about his chances of a reconciliation.
Though his personal motto was "reason over passion," he suffered as much or more as any man in politics. There was the humiliation of Margaret running off to the bright lights with the Rolling Stones, the very public break-up, then, as he approached 80, he suffered two grievous blows. The first was the death of his lifelong friend Gerard Pelletier, which caused Trudeau to say of the loss: "A part of my soul has left me." A year later, in November 1998, his youngest son Michel died when an avalanche swept him to a frigid lake in British Columbia.
The loss of Michel drew Trudeau closer to his two other sons, Justin and Alexandre. Justin, a philosophy graduate, was teaching English literature in Vancouver. Alexandre (known as "Sacha") travelled the world making television documentaries. Trudeau also has a daughter, Sarah, whom he fathered with Deboroah Coyne, a constitutional law expert. At the end, Trudeau worked for a Montreal law firm and lived alone in his Montreal mansion.
When he turned 80 on October 18, 1999, he was still cool. The Toronto Star noted in an editorial:
"…for those of us who were there when Pierre
Trudeau was prime minister it was the magic of the man that is etched and cherished in the mind's eye. We embraced his diamond-sharp intellect, his irreverence, and the style of his leadership and life.
|
---------------
------------
Why aren't more disabled
people becoming politicians?
Richard Moss Political
editor, North East & Cumbria
· 15 February 2013
David Blunkett reached the
top of politics but not many disabled people have followed
Although one in six people
have a disability, only a handful of our MPs are disabled people.
And it seems despite the
success of the likes of Jack Ashley and David Blunkett, the political
representation of disabled people hasn't really improved substantially in
recent years.
Perhaps it's asking too much
to expect one in six MPs to have some form of disability, but surely it would
be better if the commons chamber looked a bit more like the society it governs?
Disabled people might also
wonder whether the policies that affect them might be drawn a little
differently if they had more of a say.
The experience of one
disabled councillor in York might not encourage others to enter politics
though.
Lynn Jeffries has been a
well-known campaigner on disability issues for more than 20 years.
In fact she was so
well-known that in 2010, Labour approached her to join the party and stand for
the council.
After some hesitation, she
decided that she might be able to achieve even more inside the political
machine.
There was quite a lot of
being patronised, and a lot of believing that disabled people are people you do
things forCouncillor Lynn Jeffries, Disabled York councillor
Two years on, although she
remains a councillor, she has resigned from the Labour group after finding it
hard to get her voice heard.
She said: "There was
quite a lot of being patronised, and a lot of believing that disabled people
are people you do things for.
"That's such a shame
because what councils miss is that experience of being a disabled person.
"It's so valuable to
them in terms of policy-making as disabled people bring solutions to their own
difficulties.
"Not to get that and
not to engage with disabled people is quite a loss really."
Party system
At the time of her
resignation York's Labour group leader accused Ms Jeffries of walking out after
failing to win the arguments within the group.
But the campaigner felt the
party whip prevented her speaking when she disagreed with policies that
affected disabled people.
And other campaigners also
fear they would get lost in the party system.
Steve Wilkinson is
well-known in Newcastle and beyond for his campaigning zeal on disability
access. He's clashed with councils over the years about their lack of action.
And the wheelchair user has
been asked whether he would be interested in entering politics. But he says
that's not for him.
He said: "I think with
the first past the post system you really have to be either Conservative,
Labour, Liberal Democrat or perhaps UKIP.
Disabled people have
protested about the impact of politicians' decisions but few enter parliament
"You could stand as an
independent, but the chances are you wouldn't get elected, so I don't think I'd
be able to champion the causes of the people I'd want to represent."
Of course there are also
other barriers as well. Not all of our council offices and ministries have
great disabled access, and extra support might be needed.
But there is some help at
hand with those issues.
Last year the government
began offering grants to disabled people with aspirations to enter politics.
The Access to Elected Office
for Disabled People fund has £2.6m available.
Individuals can apply for up
to £20,000 to help them stand for office.
The government says it's
about levelling the playing field rather than giving disabled people an unfair
advantage.
For example, the money could
be used to support the extra transport costs of someone with mobility problems
or provide sign language interpreters for deaf people.
Disabled Prime Minister?
And some people do think
there are grounds for optimism.
I do think over the years
things will change and we will get more disabled people in politicsAlison
Blackburn, Chair, Newcastle Disability Forum
Newcastle Disability Forum's
chair Alison Blackburn believes we could even have a disabled prime minister in
the future.
She said: "Anything in
politics is gruelling and the person has got to be supported with certain areas
of their disability and in their home life.
"But I do think over
the years things will change and we will get more disabled people in
politics."
But so far interest in that
government access fund has been limited.
By February 2013, just
£33,970 has been awarded to six applicants, with six more applications being
considered.
If that sluggish pace
continues only a fraction of the fund will be spent by the time it's due to end
in summer 2014.
Some then believe further
change is needed. The campaign group Disability Politics UK wants the law
changed to allow MPs to job share.
It believes that would allow
more disabled people to enter parliament.
Labour MP John McDonnell has
presented a private members bill to make it possible, but without government
support it is unlikely to succeed.
But perhaps our political
parties also need to look at their own attitudes.
Lynn Jeffries certainly
believes the existing political elite needs to change its attitude to remove
psychological as well as physical barriers.
She said: "Lots of the
barriers start because councillors don't engage properly with disabled people.
"To be honest, unless
that changes I do not think we will get disabled people wanting to be
councillors."
---Us youngbloods were so thrilled.... those were the daze......... Janis, Jimi and The Allman Brothers Band..... Waylon... Kris and Rita.... John Denver... all good.
John
Lennon after meeting Prime Minister Trudeau
-------------------------
A committed Christian, a convinced Catholic’
The Hidden Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Faith Behind the Politics
John English, Richard Gwyn and Whitney Lackenbauer, eds.
Novalis
Pierre Elliott Trudeau, one of Canada's most controversial and celebrated Prime Ministers, was known for everything from his formidable intelligence to his sex appeal, yet one of the most profound influences on his life — his Roman Catholic education, faith and spirituality — remained a near secret until the time of the tragic death of his son Michel in a skiing accident and his own death.
This intensely personal side of his life was the subject of a unique three-day conference in May 2003 hosted by St. Jerome's University, University of Waterloo. This book presents a slightly edited version of the presentations and discussions during the conference.
Former Prime Minister John Turner told the conference luncheon, "Pierre was a committed Christian, a convinced Catholic, although he did not wear it on his sleeve. He had an ecumenical view of the Christian faith, fully supported Christian unity, and was multicultural in his view of the country. He felt that politics had to reach out to the wider good, the common good."
Professor John English, the official biographer, notes that although Trudeau rarely spoke about his faith, and was often critical of the church hierarchy, "his Catholicism was the prism through which he looked at the world." And, according to St. Jerome's President Michael Higgins, Trudeau's faith was a "complex thing formed by the Jesuits (a strong sense of discipline), the Dominicans (an intellectual approach combined with action) and the Benedictines (contemplation), as well as by a Catholic philosophical perspective known as personalism, that emphasized the individual's personal responsibility to take action to improve the world."
The Globe and Mail's Michael Valpy said "the things about Pierre Trudeau that touched Canadians most deeply were things bound to his spirituality – his affinity with Nature, for example, and the ideas he took from Christian personalism…the dignity of the individual, the will to human solidarity. These matters of Mr. Trudeau's soul bound him to what we know are Canadians' deep mythological attachments to the beauty of their land, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, collective equity, fairness, justice. Canadians always knew that Mr. Trudeau had more on his mind than political unity. Now they know what, and where it came from."
The conference also explored the co-existence of religion and politics in Canada. The organizers noted that "religion has always played a vital part in Canadian life, and there has been no shortage of MP's who came to the House of Commons straight from the pulpit. Yet Canadians, and especially the media, have shied away from openly mixing religion and politics."
Long-time Trudeau Liberal colleague and confidante Allan MacEachen suggests that "precisely because religion matters so much in Canada, potentially dividing English and French, we had to privatize faith in order to survive as a nation. Nobody was more aware of this than Trudeau." Author Stephen Clarkson sees Trudeau as perhaps our most multiculturally sensitive prime minister: "He saw Canada as a society in which no group could be allowed to impose their beliefs on others. In this, he believed that Canada could serve as model for the world."
The Hidden Pierre Trudeau enables the reader to see the future prime minister in his native, provincial, French Catholic setting. With the '60s came dramatic change. In Quebec, the Quiet Revolution replaced the priest-ridden past with a vibrant, modern, notably secular society. In Ottawa, the newly self-confident Canadian state, celebrating its 100th year of Confederation, quickly found a place for the dynamic, stylish intellectual from Montreal. An observant Catholic, Trudeau moved with the times and respected the general will of the governed.
As executive director of the Manitoba Centennial of 1970 I encountered Trudeau and then again as an MP sitting across the floor of the House of Commons from 1979 through 1984. I was aware that he attended mass regularly. He did not, however, express a false dualism. There was seamlessness about him. His behaviour did not change – irritating as that could often be. For example, he was not prepared to write laws that excluded people I could identify with. Allan MacEachen, reflected on the years he had spent with Trudeau in the Liberal party, in the Caucus, in Cabinet, in Parliament: "In all of our time together, and in all of the complex and tense decisions we shared, I never recall him mentioning his Christian faith. It never occurred to me, however, that the perspective and judgment he brought to bear was not influenced by his faith".
I was pleased to participate in the conference and to chair the Panel, Faith And Public Life: Personal Experiences. For Presbyterians wrestling with faith and action, and seeking to understand present-day Canada, here is a book – a conference report – worth reading.
http://presbyterianrecord.ca/2005/06/01/a-committed-christian-a-convinced-catholic/
------------
OCTOBER 7, 2015
Rick Hillier says ISIS leadership must be 'decapitated' to deal with refugee crisis
Retired general suggests Canada's Forces should play a bigger role in fight against ISIS
CBC News Posted: Oct 06, 2015 5:01 PM CT
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/rick-hillier-says-isis-leadership-must-be-decapitated-to-deal-with-refugee-crisis-1.3259557
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