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Pierre Trudeau

, Political Leader

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Born: 18 October 1919
Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Died: 28 September 2000 (Prostate cancer / Parkinson's disease)
Best Known As: Prime minister of Canada, 1968-84

Pierre Trudeau was prime minister of Canada for nearly 16 years beginning in 1968. A professor before jumping into politics with the Liberal party, Trudeau entered office with a brainy charisma and youthful energy which seemed to match the changing mood of the 1960s. (His popularity was dubbed "Trudeaumania" in an echo of "Beatlemania.") He remained prime minister until 1984, save for a 10-month period in 1979-80 when he was replaced by Progressive Conservative leader Joe Clark. Among his many initiatives as prime minister, Trudeau was particularly known for leading the fight against the separatist movement in Quebec. He also gained a reputation as an eligible bachelor, dating high-profile women including Barbra Streisand and Bianca Jagger. In 1971 he wed 22-year-old Margaret Sinclair, a famous marriage which led to an equally famous separation six years later; the couple were finally divorced in 1984. In 1999 journalists named Trudeau the top Canadian newsmaker of the 20th century. At Trudeau's 2000 funeral his son Justin gave a heartfelt eulogy which became famous throughout Canada.

Trudeau's son Michel was killed at age 23 in November 1998 in an avalanche in British Columbia... Trudeau is a distant relative of Garry Trudeau, creator of the comic strip Doonesbury; both were descendants of Etienne Trudeau, who emigrated from France to Canada in the 1600s.

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Political Biography: Pierre Trudeau

(b. Montreal, 18 Oct. 1919; d. 28 September 2000) Canadian; Prime Minister 1968 – 79, 1980 – 4 Educated at Jesuit schools, the universities of Montreal, Harvard, and Paris and the London School of Economics, Trudeau was called to the bar of Quebec in 1944. He joined the Privy Council Office in Ottawa as Economic and Policy Adviser 1949, and practised law, specializing in Labour Law and Civil Liberties cases in Quebec. He was appointed Associate Professor of Law, University of Montreal, and member of staff of Institut de Recherches en Droit.

Trudeau was elected as a Liberal MP for Mount Royal (Montreal) in the general election of 1965. He was Minister of Justice under Lester Pearson, whom he succeeded as Prime Minister in 1968. His flamboyant, high-profile style appealed to the electorate, especially young voters, and he won a substantial majority at elections held ten weeks after taking office. Much of his premiership was concerned with efforts to curb separatism in Quebec and to renew Canadian federalism, which he conceived of in terms of a compact of bilingualism and biculturalism. His policies embraced firm handling of terrorist kidnappings with the encouragement of civil equality between English- and French-speaking communities. Initially critical of some of the features of the much-esteemed foreign policy of his Liberal predecessor Lester Pearson and employing the idiom of national interest, he none the less soon became active externally as a Liberal internationalist bent on promoting détente with the Soviet Union and China, and utilizing the United Nations and the Commonwealth, to the relative neglect of party organization and management.

Trudeau promoted the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, a costly enterprise which lost him much support in the elections of May 1979, when he went into Opposition for nine months. His skill in deflecting separatist threats from Quebec enabled him to bounce back to victory in the general election of February 1980 and to be Prime Minister for another four-and-a-half years, during which time he "repatriated" and revised the Canadian constitution, formerly embodied in the British America Act of 1876 and its subsequent amendments. Trudeau's decision in 1977 to make Canada the first major country in the world to extend its jurisdiction over offshore fishing from 12 to 200 miles caused concern abroad and left problems — notably with Spain — which continued to reverberate long after his retirement from active politics in June 1984.

Biography: Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Pierre Elliott Trudeau (born 1919) was the leader of the Liberal Party and Canada's prime minister for about 15 years. He successfully defeated the separatist movement in Quebec and led Canada both to greater strength nationally and to more independence internationally.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born in Montreal, Quebec, on October 18, 1919. The son of a wealthy French-Canadian businessman, Charles Trudeau, and a mother of United Empire Loyalist background, Trudeau received his early education in French, attending the elite College Jean de Brébeuf for eight years. After obtaining his B.A. from Brébeuf in 1940, Trudeau studied law at the University of Montreal; political economy at Harvard; law, economics, and political science at Paris; and political economy at the London School of Economics (1947-1948). He completed his education with a year-long trip around the world on $800 in 1948-1949.

He returned to Quebec in April 1949 and immediately became involved in a strike at Asbestos, where the labor movement in the province confronted a repressive and conservative government of Maurice Duplessis. Although Trudeau did work briefly as an economic adviser to the Privy Council Office in Ottawa in 1950-1951, his major concern in the 1950s was the reform of Quebec society and politics. Together with other Montreal intellectuals and journalists who had been roused to action by the events at Asbestos, Trudeau founded Cité Libre, an influential journal of opinion. He also acted as an unpaid legal consultant to Quebec unions, was a counsel in some civil liberty cases, wrote pungent political criticism, and continued to travel widely. He sought to organize the diverse groups opposing Duplessis into a coherent force for political action after 1956. Simultaneously, he flirted with socialist politics. In 1960, however, he supported the Quebec Liberals in the election which traditionally is identified as the beginning of the so-called "Quiet Revolution" in Quebec.

Disillusionment came quickly. In 1961 Trudeau was appointed associate professor of law at the University of Montreal. He continued to take an active part in the ever more lively debate about Quebec's future. While approving of most of the secularizing and modernizing approaches of the Lesage government, he strongly attacked its increasingly nationalist approach, declaring it stifling, irrational, and fundamentally elitist. When nationalism became separatism for many of the young and the intellectuals, Trudeau denounced the trend as reactionary. In the case of the intellectuals it was "treason, " a betrayal of the commitment to rationalism and open-mindedness which should mark an intellectual's approach to politics.

Quick Rise in Canadian Politics

Trudeau's anti-separatist position made him turn his attention toward federal politics. His name was mentioned as a possible Liberal candidate in the 1963 general election, but Liberal leader Lester Pearson's acceptance of nuclear weapons for the Canadian armed forces offended Trudeau, who angrily denounced Pearson. The Pearson minority government which came to power in 1963 did win Trudeau's approval for its determined effort to make the federal public service more bicultural and bilingual. Nevertheless, Trudeau thought Pearson was too conciliatory in dealing with the increasingly nationalist Quebec government. When Pearson, on the advice of the Quebec labor leader Jean Marchand, asked Trudeau to run as a Liberal candidate in the general election of 1965, Trudeau quickly agreed.

Pearson made Trudeau his parliamentary secretary in January 1966. His constitutional skills quickly impressed the prime minister and others, and in April 1967 he became minister of justice and attorney general for Canada. In this position he attracted much attention because of his articulate defense of the federal government's position in the debates with the provinces and because of his willingness to undertake reforms in such areas as divorce legislation, criminal law, and judicial appointments. His personal appearance and style, which contrasted sharply with that of other politicians, also focussed media attention upon him. Even though he had been a cabinet minister for only a year, Trudeau was elected Liberal leader and thus became prime minister in 1968.

In the election which followed, so-called "Trudeau-mania" swept the country as the media became fascinated with the quick mind, the athletic prowess, the romantic attachments, and the surprising indifference to traditional political concerns of Canada's new prime minister. In the campaign Trudeau promised a new deal for French Canadians in Canada, but no tolerance for separatism or extreme Quebec nationalism. He also indicated that Canada's foreign policy would be reassessed so that domestic interests would be given more weight. Canadians, Trudeau declared, should have the right to participate in making the governmental decisions which most affected their lives. The appeal fit the times.

Trudeau's government undertook a wide-ranging review of Canada's foreign policy. The military commitment to NATO was reduced, and Canadian foreign policy became less sympathetic to the international policies of the United States. Domestically, Trudeau sought constitutional reform without much success, but he did work more fruitfully to secure French Canadian rights within Canadian confederation. His economic policies were surprisingly conservative, although a significant reform in the taxation system did occur in 1971 and unemployment benefits became more generous and more widely available.

Trudeau's personal popularity reached its peak during the so-called October crisis of 1970. The kidnaping of James Cross, a British trade commissioner, and Pierre Laporte, Quebec's labor minister, by extreme separatists in Montreal prompted Trudeau to invoke the War Measures Act which suspended civil liberties so long as there was an "apprehended insurrection" in Montreal. The crisis ended, although Laporte was murdered, and most Canadians applauded Trudeau's forceful stand. Doubts arose later when civil libertarians and others began to question whether such a harsh response was in fact required.

Compromise and Continued Rule

By 1972 Trudeau's position had weakened, and he managed to cling to power after the general election in October only with the help of the socialist New Democratic Party. He quickly adapted his party to the situation and introduced popular, though expensive, legislation. He admitted that he had been too "rational" in his approach to politics, and sadly he concluded that politics was "ninetenths" emotion.

In the 1974 election Trudeau aggressively campaigned as a populist, effectively undercutting the Conservative arguments for wage and price controls. He regained his majority and began to plan for longer range changes in Canadian government. The first effect was a recognized bureaucracy, but various developments undermined his attempts to establish clear directions. In 1975 Trudeau, fearing rampant inflation, introduced the same type of wage and price controls he had denounced in 1974. In 1976 Quebec elected the separatist Parti Québéçois, which meant that long range planning gave way to what seemed a profound crisis in nationhood. Perhaps equally important was the breakdown of Trudeau's 1971 marriage to Margaret Sinclair, a separation which received international attention. In the late 1970s the Trudeau government scrambled to maintain its position, and it failed. The Conservatives defeated Trudeau's Liberals in the general election of May 1979.

In November 1979 Trudeau announced that he would step aside for a new leader, but before a new leader could be chosen, the minority Conservative government fell, and a general election was called for February 18, 1980. After some deft manipulation of the party by his friends, Trudeau agreed to remain as leader. He won another majority.

Between 1980 and February 1984, when he announced his resignation, Trudeau provided decisive but controversial leadership. The compromises and hesitations of the 1970s disappeared. The first task was to win the Quebec referendum on separatism. He campaigned vigorously, and the "no" side triumphed decisively. He then moved to "keep the promise" made during the referendum debate to give a new constitution to Quebec and Canada which would include a Charter of Rights. Against the strong opposition of Western Canada, Quebec, and most of the Atlantic provinces, the opposition parties, and leading newspapers, Trudeau pushed ahead his scheme for a new constitution which would be the last act of the United Kingdom Parliament to affect Canada. At the final moment, the provinces, excepting Quebec, agreed to a compromise, and Trudeau's cherished Charter of Rights became part of a fundamentally Canadian constitution.

Trudeau's government also took radical action to deal with the energy crisis of the early 1980s. The National Energy Program was highly nationalistic in aim and tone. Through incentives and taxation benefits it encouraged the growth of Canadian ownership in the energy field. It also set a price for Canadian oil below that on the world market. American investors were infuriated; so were the major producing provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan. The business community was strongly opposed to what it perceived as an attempt by government to grab most of the oil windfall for itself. Western Canada's bitterness towards Trudeau, which had long persisted, even aroused talk of Western separatism.

The Trudeau Legacy

By 1983 Trudeau's government had become very unpopular. The Conservatives chose a new leader, Brian Mulroney, and moved well ahead of the Liberals in the polls. The constitution was in place, the National Energy Program was collapsing as oil prices fell, and the threat of Quebec separatism had receded. Dissenters in his party began to suggest openly that Trudeau should resign. A "peace initiative" which he began in November 1983 had by the beginning of 1984 accomplished all that could be hoped in the face of the indifference of the superpowers to Trudeau's pleas for cooperation. In February 1984 he announced his intention to resign, and in late June he left the office of the prime minister, giving way to John Turner, who, it seemed clear, was not his choice as successor. In the general election of September 1984 the Liberal Party collapsed, winning only 40 seats compared to 211 seats for the Conservatives.

In his final speech to the Liberal Party in June 1984 Trudeau told his listeners that when Parliament, the bureaucracy, or the media failed to do what was necessary, he had gone directly to the people. With some Canadians Trudeau did fashion a remarkable bond. In others he aroused remarkable antagonism. He dominated his party, his cabinet, and Parliament so long as he was prime minister. When he left, the party fell apart. He had groomed no successor and appeared to care little about what happened after his departure. The party was in a decrepit condition; the nation was weary of the confrontation over energy, the constitution, and foreign policy which it had endured so long. The economy had faltered badly since the early 1970s, and basic restructuring had been postponed too long. Because his personality so fascinated Canadians, Trudeau bore much of the criticism for these apparent failings of the nation. Back in the private sector, in 1985, he became a senior consultant with Heenan, Blaikie. In 1993, he published his Memoirs, followed by The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada's Foreign Policy 1968-1984 (1995), co-authored by Ivan Head. In 1997, Trudeau, along with Jacques Hebert, published Two Innocents in Red China, which sparked mixed review.

Only one Canadian prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, served longer than Trudeau. Among post-war democratic leaders, only three were in office for as long. If his faults seemed so clear to his contemporaries, his accomplishments, especially in making Canada a nation that more fully accepts its bicultural nature, will probably mean more to posterity. In a country with so many doubts, the memory of one who had so few will likely grow.

The Right Honourable Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, PC, CC, CH, QC, MA, LLD, FRSC

15th Prime Minister of Canada
In office April 20, 1968 – June 4, 1979 March 3, 1980 – June 30, 1984
Preceded by	Lester B. Pearson Joe Clark
Succeeded by	Joe Clark John Turner

Born	October 18 1919(1919--) Montreal, Quebec
Died	September 28 2000 (aged 80) Montreal, Quebec
Political party	Liberal
Spouse	Margaret Trudeau (divorced)
Religion	Roman Catholic

Early life and career

Born in Montreal to Charles-Émile Trudeau, a wealthy French Canadian businessman and lawyer, and Grace Elliott, who was of French and Scottish descent.^[1] Trudeau attended the prestigious Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf (a private French Roman Catholic school) where he was affiliated with the ideas of clerical fascism and Quebec nationalism. According to long-time friend and colleague Marc Lalonde the contemporary clerically influenced dictatorships of António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal and Francisco Franco in Spain along with that of Marshal Pétain in Vichy France were seen as models to many young intellectuals educated at elite Jesuit schools in Quebec. Lalonde asserts that Trudeau's later intellectual development as an "intellectual rebel, anti-establishment fighter on behalf of unions and promoter of religious freedom" was a product of his experiences once he left Quebec to study in the United States, France and England and travel the world, an experience which allowed him to break from Jesuit influence and study French philosophers such as Jacques Maritain and Emmanuel Mounier as well as John Locke and David Hume.^[2]

Trudeau earned a law degree at the Université de Montréal in 1943, followed by a master's in political economy at Harvard. During his attendance at the Université de Montréal, Trudeau was conscripted into the Army, like thousands of other Canadian men, as part of the National Resources Mobilization Act. He joined the Canadian Officers Training Corps and served with other conscripts in Canada. Conscripted soldiers were not liable for overseas military service until after the crisis of late 1944. He said he was willing to become involved in the war, but he believed that to do so would be to turn his back on a Quebec population he considered to have been betrayed by the King government. Trudeau reflected on his opposition to conscription and his doubts about the war in his 1993 Memoirs: "So there was a war? Tough. ... if you were a French Canadian in Montreal in the early 1940s, you did not automatically believe that this was a just war ... we tended to think of this war as a settling of scores among the superpowers."^[3]

In a 1942 Outremont by-election, he campaigned for the Quebec anti-conscription candidate Jean Drapeau, and was eventually expelled from the Officers' Training Corps for lack of discipline. The National Archives of Canada, in its biographical sketches of Canadian prime ministers, records how on one occasion during the war Trudeau and his friends drove their motorcycles wearing Prussian military uniforms, complete with pointed steel helmets.^[4] After the war, he attended Harvard, the Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 1946-47, and spent the following year at the London School of Economics.

From the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, Trudeau was primarily based in Montreal and was seen by many as an intellectual. In 1949, he was an active supporter of workers in the Asbestos Strike. In 1956, he edited an important book on the subject, La grève de l'amiante, which argued that the strike was a seminal event in Quebec's history, marking the beginning of resistance to the conservative, francophone clerical establishment and anglophone business class that had long ruled the province. Throughout the 1950s, Trudeau was a leading figure in the opposition to the repressive rule of Premier of Quebec Maurice Duplessis as the founder and editor of Cité Libre, a dissident journal that helped provide the intellectual basis for the Quiet Revolution. Trudeau was interested in Marxist ideas in the late 1940s. Although he self-identified as a socialist, he never fully endorsed the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party — which became the New Democratic Party - remaining skeptical of their ideas about Quebec. From 1949 to 1951 Trudeau worked briefly in the Privy Council Office of the Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent as an economic policy advisor. During the 1950s, he was blacklisted by the United States and prevented from entering that country because of a visit to a conference in Moscow (where he was arrested for throwing a snowball at a statue of Stalin) and because he subscribed to a number of leftist publications. Trudeau later appealed the ban and it was rescinded.

An associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal from 1961 to 1965, Trudeau's views evolved towards a liberal position in favour of individual rights counter to the state and made him an opponent of Québec nationalism. In economic theory he was influenced by professors Joseph Schumpeter and John Kenneth Galbraith while he was at Harvard. Trudeau criticized the Liberal Party of Lester Pearson when it supported arming Bomarc missiles in Canada with nuclear warheads. Nevertheless, he was persuaded to join the party in 1965, together with his friends Gérard Pelletier and Jean Marchand. These "three wise men" ran successfully for the Liberals in the 1965 election. Trudeau himself was elected in the safe Liberal riding of Mount Royal, in western Montreal, succeeding House Speaker Alan Macnaughton. He would hold this seat for almost 20 years. In 1967, he was appointed to Pearson's cabinet as Minister of Justice.

Justice minister and leadership candidate

Trudeau at the 1968 Liberal convention

As justice minister, Pierre Trudeau was responsible for removing laws against homosexuality from the Criminal Code of Canada, famously remarking: "The view we take here is that there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." Trudeau also liberalized divorce laws, and clashed with Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson, Sr., during constitutional negotiations.

At the end of Canada's centennial year in 1967, Prime Minister Pearson announced his intention to step down. Trudeau was persuaded to run for the Liberal leadership. His energetic campaign attracted the attention of the news media and mobilized and inspired many youths, who saw Trudeau as a symbol of generational change. Going into the leadership convention, Trudeau was the front-runner, and was clearly the favourite candidate with the Canadian public. Many within the Liberal Party still had deep doubts about him, though. Having joined the party only in 1965, he was still considered an outsider. Many saw him as too radical and outspoken a figure. Some of his views, particularly those on divorce, abortion, and homosexuality, were opposed by the substantial conservative wing of the party. Nevertheless, at the April 1968 Liberal leadership convention, Trudeau was elected leader of the party on the fourth ballot, with the support of 51% of the delegates, defeating some prominent, long-serving Liberals including Paul Martin Sr., Robert Winters and Paul Hellyer. Trudeau was sworn in as Liberal leader and Prime Minister two weeks later on 20 April.

Prime Minister

Trudeau being interviewed during the October Crisis.^[5]

Trudeau soon called an election, for 25 June (see Canadian federal election, 1968). His election campaign benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania" (a term coined by journalist Lubor J. Zink^[6]), which saw Trudeau mobbed by throngs of youths. An iconic moment that influenced the election occurred on its eve, during the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, when rioting Québec separatists threw rocks and bottles at the grandstand where Trudeau was seated. Rejecting the pleas of his aides that he take cover, Trudeau stayed in his seat, facing the rioters, without any sign of fear. The image of the young politician showing such courage impressed the Canadian people, and he handily won the election the next day.

As Prime Minister, Trudeau espoused participatory democracy as a means of making Canada a "Just Society." He defended vigorously the newly implemented universal health care and regional development programs as means of making society more just.

During the October Crisis of 1970, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) kidnapped British Trade Consul James Cross at his residence on the fifth of October. Five days later, Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte was also kidnapped (and was later murdered, on 17 October). Trudeau responded by invoking the War Measures Act, which gave the government sweeping powers of arrest and detention without trial. Although this response is still controversial and was opposed as excessive by figures like Tommy Douglas, it was met with only limited objections from the public. Trudeau presented a determined public stance during the crisis, answering the question of how far he would go to stop the terrorists with "Just watch me." Five of the FLQ terrorists were flown to Cuba in 1970 as part of a deal in exchange for James Cross' life, but all members were eventually arrested. The five flown to Cuba were jailed after they returned to Canada years later.

Trudeau's first years would be most remembered for the passage of his implementation of official bilingualism. Long a goal of Trudeau, this legislation requires all Federal services to be offered in French and English. The measures were very controversial at the time in English Canada, but would be successfully passed and implemented.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Prime Minister P.E. Trudeau.

Pierre Trudeau speaks with Queen Elizabeth II.

Trudeau was the first world leader to agree to meet John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono on their 'tour for world peace'. Lennon said, after talking with Trudeau for 50 minutes, that Trudeau was "a beautiful person" and that "if all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau, there would be world peace."

On 4 March, 1971, the Prime Minister married Margaret Sinclair, a woman who, at 22, was 30 years his junior. They later divorced.

In foreign affairs, Trudeau kept Canada firmly in the NATO Alliance, but often pursued an independent path in international relations. He made Canada the first western power to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (to Richard Nixon's fury), and went on a state visit to Beijing. He was known to be a friend of Fidel Castro and Cuba.

Trudeau and Cuban President Fidel Castro.

In the election of 1972, Trudeau's Liberal Party won with a minority government, with the New Democratic Party holding the balance of power. This government would move to the left, including the creation of Petro-Canada.

In May 1974, the House of Commons passed a motion of no confidence in the Trudeau government. The election of 1974 saw Trudeau and the Liberals re-elected with a majority government with 141 of the 264 seats. In September 1975, Finance Minister, John Turner resigned. Trudeau later (in October 1975) instituted Wage and Price Controls, something which he had mocked Robert Stanfield for proposing during the election campaign a year earlier.

Trudeau's outward actions during his premiership led many to believe he harboured republican notions; it was even rumoured by Paul Martin, Sr., that the Queen was worried the Crown "had little meaning for him." This may have had to do with the erasure of royal symbols, his documented antics around the Monarch, such as his sliding down Buckingham Palace banisters, and his famous pirouette behind the Queen, captured on film in 1977. He also glaringly breached protocol in 1978 when he was vacationing in Morocco, instead of in Canada to attend the Queen's arrival and departure. However, he was accused of instant monarchism, as well as opportunism during a period of personal unpopularity in the 1970s, when he invited Elizabeth II to attend the first Commonwealth Conference held on Canadian soil. The invitation, and acceptance of it, started the tradition of Elizabeth attending Commonwealth conferences, no matter the location. Also, in 1976, after Robert Bourassa, then Premier of Quebec, begged Trudeau to invite the Queen to the Olympics in Montreal, Trudeau, after obliging him, became annoyed when Bourassa later became unsettled about how unpopular the move might be. He commented directly on the Monarchy in 1967, when he, by then a Cabinet minister, stated "I wouldn't lift a finger to get rid of the monarchy... I think the monarchy, by and large, has done more good than harm to Canada." Ultimately, he experimented with the Crown more than any previous politician, and then entrenched the role of the Crown in Canada when he orchestrated the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982 (see below).^[7]

A worsening economy, burgeoning national debt, and growing public antipathy towards Trudeau's perceived arrogance caused his poll numbers to fall rapidly. Trudeau delayed the election as long as he could, but was forced to call one in 1979.

Defeat and opposition

In the election of 1979, Trudeau's government was defeated by the Progressive Conservatives, led by Joe Clark, who formed a minority government. Trudeau announced his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader; however, before a leadership convention could be held, Clark's government was defeated in the Canadian House of Commons by a Motion of Non-Confidence. The Liberal Party persuaded Trudeau to stay on as leader and fight the election. Trudeau defeated Clark in the February 1980 election, and won a majority government.

Return to power

Signing of the Constitution Act by Queen Elizabeth II, in 1982

The Liberal victory in 1980 highlighted a sharp geographical divide in the country: the party had won no seats west of Manitoba. Trudeau had to resort to having Senators appointed to Cabinet to ensure representation from all regions. The introduction of the National Energy Program (NEP) created a firestorm of protest in the Western provinces and increased what many termed "Western alienation." A series of difficult budgets by long-time loyalist Allan MacEachen in the early 1980s did not improve Trudeau's economic reputation.

Two very significant events for Canada occurred during Pierre Trudeau's final term in office. The first was the defeat of the referendum on Québec sovereignty, called by the Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque. In the debates between Trudeau and Levesque, Canadians were treated to a contest between two highly intelligent, articulate and bilingual politicians who, despite being bitterly opposed, were each committed to the democratic process.^[8] Trudeau promised a new constitutional agreement with Québec should it decide to stay in Canada, and the "No" side (that is, No to sovereignty) ended up receiving around 60% of the vote.

Trudeau had attempted patriation of the Constitution earlier in his career, but always ran into a combined force of provincial Premiers on the issue of an amending formula. After he threatened to go to London alone, a Supreme Court decision led Trudeau to meet with the Premiers one more time. Trudeau reached an agreement with nine of the Premiers, with the notable exception of Lévesque. Quebec's refusal to agree to the new constitution became a source of continued acrimony between the federal and Quebec governments. Even so, the patriation was achieved; the Constitution Act, 1982 was proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth on 17 April, 1982. Following this, Trudeau commented in his memoirs "I always said it was thanks to three women that we were eventually able to reform our Constitution. The Queen, who was favourable, Margaret Thatcher, who undertook to do everything that our Parliament asked of her, and Jean Wadds, who represented the interests of Canada so well in London... The Queen favoured my attempt to reform the Constitution. I was always impressed not only by the grace she displayed in public at all times, but by the wisdom she showed in private conversation."^[7]

Trudeau's approval ratings slipped after the bounce from the 1982 patriation, and by the beginning of 1984, opinion polls showed the Liberals were headed for certain defeat if Trudeau remained in office. On 29 February, after a "long walk in the snow", Trudeau decided to step down, ending his 15-year tenure as Prime Minister. He formally retired on 30 June.

Final years

Trudeau in 1994.

Shortly after his retirement from politics, Trudeau joined the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie as counsel. Though he rarely gave speeches or spoke to the press, his interventions into public debate had a significant impact when they occurred. Trudeau wrote and spoke out against both the Meech Lake Accord and Charlottetown Accord proposals to amend the Canadian constitution, arguing that they would weaken federalism and the Charter of Rights if implemented. His opposition was a critical factor leading to the defeat of the two proposals.

He also spoke out against Jacques Parizeau and the Parti Québécois with less effect. In his final years, Trudeau commanded broad respect in Canada, but was regarded with suspicion in Québec due to his role in the 1982 constitutional deal which was seen as having excluded that province, while dislike for him remained commonplace in western Canada. Trudeau also remained active in international affairs, visiting foreign leaders and participating in international associations such as the Club of Rome.

In the last years of his life, Trudeau was afflicted with Parkinson's disease and prostate cancer, and became less active, although he continued to work at his law office until a few months before his death at the age of 80. He was devastated by the death of his youngest son, Michel Trudeau, who was killed in an avalanche in November 1998.

Death

Trudeau's hearse leaving Parliament Hill.

Main article: Death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau

Pierre Elliott Trudeau died on 28 September, 2000, and was buried in the Trudeau family crypt, St-Remi-de-Napierville Cemetery, Saint-Remi, Québec.^[9] He lay in state to allow Canadians to pay their last respects. The response by Canadians was unprecedented in its size and public outpouring of emotion. He is survived by his ex-wife Margaret, his sons Justin Trudeau and Alexandre "Sacha" Trudeau, and his daughter, Sarah, whom he fathered with Deborah Coyne. During the state funeral, Justin delivered an emotional yet articulate eulogy^[10] that led to wide-spread speculation in the media that a career in politics was in his future.

Marriage and Children

On 4 March 1971, the Prime Minister married Margaret Sinclair, a woman who, at 22, was 30 years his junior. The couple had three children: Justin (b. December 25, 1971), Alexandre (Sacha) (b. December 25, 1973), and Michel (October 2, 1975 - November 13, 1998). They were the subject of enormous press coverage before their well-publicised legal separation in 1977. Their divorce was finalised in 1984. In 1991, Trudeau became a father again, with Deborah Coyne. This was his first and only daughter, named Sarah. Trudeau did not marry Coyne.

Spirituality

Trudeau was a Roman Catholic, and attended church throughout his life. While mostly private about his beliefs, he made it clear that he was a believer, stating, in an interview with the United Church Observer in 1971: “I believe in life after death, I believe in God and I’m a Christian.” Trudeau maintained, however, that he preferred to impose constraints on himself rather than have them imposed from the outside. In this sense, he believed he was more like a Protestant than a Catholic of the era in which he was schooled.^[11]

Michael W. Higgins, former President of St. Jerome's University, has researched Trudeau’s spirituality and finds that it incorporated elements of three Catholic traditions. The first of these was the Jesuits who provided his education up to the college level. Trudeau frequently displayed the logic and love of argument consistent with that tradition. A second great spiritual influence in Trudeau’s life was Dominican. According to Michel Gourges, Rector of the Collége Dominicain philosophie et théologie, Trudeau “considered himself a lay Dominican.” He studied philosophy under Dominican Father Louis-Marie Regis and remained close to him throughout his life, regarding Regis as “spiritual director and friend.” Another skein in Trudeau’s spirituality was a contemplative aspect acquired from his association with the Benedictine tradition. According to Higgins, Trudeau was convinced of the centrality of meditation in a life fully-lived. He took retreats at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Quebec and regularly attended Hours and the Eucharist at Montreal’s Benedictine community.^[12]

Although never publicly theological in the way of Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, nor evangelical, in the way of Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush, Trudeau’s spirituality, according to Higgins, "suffused, anchored, and directed his inner life. In no small part, it defined him.”^[12]

Legacy

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's official portrait by Myfanwy Pavelic.

Trudeau's most enduring legacy may lie in his contribution to Canadian nationalism, and of pride in Canada in and for itself rather than as a derivative of the British Commonwealth. His role in this effort, and his related battles with Quebec on behalf of Canadian unity, cemented his political position when in office despite the controversies he faced — and remain the most remembered aspect of his tenure afterward.

Some consider Trudeau's economic policies to have been a weak point. Inflation and unemployment marred much of his prime ministership. When Trudeau took office in 1968 Canada had a debt of $18 billion (24% of GDP) which was largely left over from World War II^{[citation needed]}; when he left office in 1984, that debt stood at $200 billion (46% of GDP), an increase of 83% in real terms.^[13] However, these trends were present in most western countries at the time, including the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Though his popularity had fallen in English Canada at the time of his retirement in 1984, public opinion later became more sympathetic to him, particularly in comparison to his successor, Brian Mulroney.

Constitutional legacy

See also: Constitution Act, 1982

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, signed by Prime Minister Trudeau in 1981.

One of Trudeau's most enduring legacies is the 1982 patriation of the Canadian constitution, including a domestic amending formula and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is seen as advancing civil rights and liberties and, notwithstanding clause aside, has become a cornerstone of Canadian values for most Canadians. It also represented the final step in Trudeau's liberal vision of a fully independent and nationalist Canada based on fundamental human rights and the protection of individual freedoms as well as those of linguistic and cultural minorities. Court challenges based on the Charter of Rights have been used to advance the cause of women's equality, establish French school boards in provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, and to mandate the adoption of gay marriage all across Canada. Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 has clarified issues of aboriginal and equality rights, including establishing the previously denied aboriginal rights of Métis. Section 15, dealing with Equality Rights, has been used to remedy societal discrimination against minority groups. The coupling of the direct and indirect influences of the Charter has meant that it has grown to influence every aspect of Canadian life, and the override (notwithstanding clause) of the Charter has been infrequently used.

The Constitution has been criticised by the Canadian conservatives for its lack of a system of checks and balances at a time when the courts have been gaining power at the expense of representative government. They claim that it has resulted in too much judicial activism on the part of the courts in Canada. It is also heavily criticised by Quebec Nationalists, who resent that the Constitution was never ratified by any Quebec Government, and does not recognise a constitutional veto for the province of Quebec.

Bilingualism

See also: Bilingualism in Canada

Bilingualism is one of Trudeau's most lasting accomplishments, having been fully integrated into the Federal government's services, documents, and broadcasting (not, however, in provincial governments, except for Ontario and New Brunswick). While official bilingualism has settled some of the grievances Francophones had towards the federal government, many Francophones had hoped that Canadians would be able to function in the official language of their choice no matter where in the country they were.

However, Trudeau's ambitions in this arena have been overstated: Trudeau once said that he regretted the use of the term "bilingualism", because it appeared to demand that all Canadians speak two languages. In fact, Trudeau's vision was to see Canada as a bilingual confederation in which all cultures would have a place. In this way, his conception broadened beyond simply the relationship of Quebec to Canada.

Cultural legacy

Few outside the museum community recall the tremendous efforts Trudeau made, in the last years of his tenure, to see to it that the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Civilization finally had proper homes in the National capital. The Trudeau government also implemented programs which mandated Canadian content in film, and broadcasting, and gave substantial subsidies to develop the Canadian media and cultural industries. Though the policies remain controversial, Canadian media industries have become stronger since Trudeau's arrival.

On the other side of the ledger, Trudeau was criticized as denigrating or even erasing large segments of Canada's historic culture to fit his programs, and using the government's media subsidies to that end.

Legacy with respect to the west

In the provinces west of Ontario the memory of Trudeau is notably less favourable than it is in the rest of English-speaking Canada. He is often regarded as the father of "Western alienation." The reasons for this are various. Some of them are ideological. Many Canadians disapproved of official bilingualism and many other of Trudeau's policies, which they saw as moving the country away from its historic traditions and attachments, and markedly toward the political left. Such feelings were perhaps strongest in the West. Other reasons for western alienation are more plainly regional in nature. To many westerners, Trudeau's policies seemed to favour other parts of the country, especially Ontario and Quebec, at their expense. Outstanding among such policies was the National Energy Program, which was seen as unfairly depriving western provinces of the full economic benefit from their oil and gas resources, in order to pay for nation-wide social programs, and make regional transfer payments to poorer parts of the country. Sentiments of this kind were especially strong in oil-rich Alberta.

More particularly, two incidents involving Trudeau are remembered having fostering Western alienation, and as emblematic of it. During a visit to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on 17 July, 1969, Trudeau met with a group of protesting farmers, angry that the federal government was not doing more to market their wheat, to one of whom he responded, "Why should I sell your wheat? It's your wheat." Years later, on a train trip through Salmon Arm, British Columbia, he "gave the finger" to a group of protesters, through the carriage window. Generally forgotten is that Trudeau's question in Saskatoon was rhetorical and followed by long explanation that, in epitome, said that the governments' role was only to help farmers to sell their own wheat, and told of some of the difficulties involved in doing so on the international market; likewise, that the protesters in Salmon Arm were shouting blatantly anti-French and anti-Quebec slogans. In his book Paradox: Trudeau as Prime Minister, Anthony Westell covers this incident, giving a good sense of what was actually said, rather than the excerpt that made the headlines.

Legacy with respect to Quebec

Trudeau's legacy in Quebec is mixed. Many credit his actions during the October Crisis as crucial in terminating the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) as a force in Quebec, and ensuring that the campaign for Quebec separatism took a democratic and peaceful route. However, his imposition of the War Measures Act — which received majority support at the time — is remembered by some in Quebec and elsewhere as an attack on democracy. Trudeau is also credited by many for the defeat of the 1980 Quebec referendum.

At the federal level, Trudeau faced almost no strong political opposition in Quebec during his time as Prime Minister. For instance, his Liberal party captured 74 out of 75 Quebec seats in the 1980 federal election). Provincially, though, Québécois elected twice the pro-sovereignty Parti Québécois. Moreover, there were not, then, any pro-sovereignty federal parties such as the Bloc Québécois. Since the signing of the Constitutional Act of Canada in 1982, the Liberal Party of Canada has never succeeded in winning a majority of seats in Quebec. Trudeau is disliked by many Québécois, particularly in the news media, the academic and political establishments.^[14] While his reputation has grown in English Canada since his retirement in 1984, it has not improved in Quebec.

Overview

Trudeau remains well-regarded by many Canadians.^[15] However, the passage of time has only slightly softened the strong antipathy he inspired among his opponents.^[16]^[17] Trudeau's charisma and confidence as Prime Minister, and his championing of the Canadian identity are often cited as reasons for his popularity. His strong personality, contempt for his opponents and distaste for compromise on many issues have made him, as historian Michael Bliss puts it, "one of the most admired and most disliked of all Canadian prime ministers."^[18] Trudeau's electoral successes were matched in the 20th century only by those of Mackenzie King. In all, Trudeau is undoubtedly one of the most dominant and transformative figures in Canadian political history.^[19]^[20]

Supreme Court appointments

Trudeau chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General:

Bora Laskin (March 19, 1970 –