Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau PC, CC, CH, QC, MA, LLD, FRSC (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was the fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984. Trudeau was a charismatic figure who, from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions. "He haunts us still," biographers Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson wrote. Admirers praise the force of Trudeau's intellect. They salute his political acumen in preserving national unity and bringing into force the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Detractors fault Trudeau for poor administrative practices, arrogance, lack of understanding of Canada outside Quebec (and arguably the far North), deplore his economic policies that increased the national debt, and criticize him for increasing a sense of political alienation in western provinces. Nevertheless, few would dispute the assertion that Trudeau was a towering figure who helped redefine Canada.
Trudeau led Canada through some of its most tumultuous times and was often the centre of controversy. Known for his flamboyance, he sometimes wore sandals or a buckskin jacket in the House of Commons; dated celebrities; occasionally used obscenities to insult his opponents, and on May 7, 1977, did a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elizabeth II.
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. 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. After the war, he attended the Harvard, Institut d'études politiques de Paris in 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. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he was a supporter of the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party — which became the New Democratic Party. 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 briefly 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 nuclear missiles in Canada with nuclear warheads. Nevertheless, he was persuaded to join the party in 1965 with his friends Gérard Pelletier and Jean Marchand. The "three wise men" ran for the Liberals and were elected in the 1965 election. Trudeau himself was elected in the safe Liberal riding of Mount Royal in western Montreal, succeeding House Speaker Allan Macnaughton. Trudeau would hold this seat for almost 20 years. In 1967, he was appointed to Pearson's cabinet as Minister of Justice.
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, and ran an energetic campaign that mobilized and inspired many youths who had been influenced by the 1960s counterculture, and who saw Trudeau as a symbol of generational change.
At the April 1968 Liberal leadership convention, Trudeau was elected leader of the party on the fourth ballot, defeating several prominent, long-serving Liberals including Paul Martin Sr., Robert Winters and Paul Hellyer. Some wondered if he was too left wing for the nation's top job, and his views led to some initial alienation from the party's conservative wing. However, he benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania" which saw Trudeau mobbed by throngs of youths.
A significant moment in the 1968 federal election occurred during the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade when rioting Québec separatists threw rocks and bottles at the grandstand where Trudeau was seated. Defying his aides' pleas to take cover, Trudeau stayed in his seat facing the rioters, without a change in expression or a sign of fear. The image of the young politician showing such courage impressed the Canadian populace, and he handily won the election the next day.
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 October 17th). 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.
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".
On March 4, 1971, the prime minister married Margaret Sinclair, a woman who, at 22, was less than half Trudeau's age. They had three children and were the subject of enormous press coverage before their well-publicized legal separation in 1977. Their divorce was finalized in 1984.
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. 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 of 1974, the House of Commons passed a motion of no confidence in Trudeau's government. The election of 1974 saw Trudeau and the Liberals re-elected with a majority government with 141 of the 264 seats. Trudeau later instituted Wage and Price Controls, something which he had mocked Robert Stanfield for proposing during the election campaign. This led to the resignation of his Finance Minister, John Turner. 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.
Two very significant events for Canada occurred during 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. 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.
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 February 29, after a "long walk in the snow", Trudeau decided to step down, ending his 15-year tenure as Prime Minister. He formally retired on June 30.
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.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau died on September 28, 2000, and is buried in the Trudeau family crypt, St-Remi-de-Napierville Cemetery, Saint-Remi, Québec. He lay in state in the Hall of Honour of Canada's Parliament Building to allow Canadians to pay their last respects. The response by Canadians was unprecedented in its size and public outpouring of emotion. He was 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 of Pierre Trudeau, Justin delivered an emotional yet articulate eulogy * that led to wide-spread speculation in the media that a career in politics was in his future.
Though his religious views seemed to have influenced his politics only insofar as they affected his zeal and work ethic, since he championed causes that were strongly opposed by his church, such as the abolition of sodomy laws and the easing of divorce procedures, his political philosophy was deeply affected by personalism and the thought of Emmanuel Mounier.
On 10 Jun 2006, the government of British Columbia named a mountain in the Cariboo Mountains, Mount Pierre Elliott Trudeau [http://www.cbc.ca/bc/story/bc_trudeau20060413.html. The peak is located in the Premier Range, which has many peaks named for British Columbian Premiers and Canadian Prime Ministers.
The Canadian news agency Canadian Press named Trudeau "Newsmaker of the Year" a record 10 times, including every year from 1968 to 1975. (The other two times were in 1978 and 2000.) In 1999, CP also named Trudeau "Newsmaker of the 20th Century." Trudeau declined to give CP an interview on that occasion, but said in a letter that he was "surprised and pleased." In many informal polls conducted by Canadian internet sites, users also widely agreed with the "Newsmaker of the 20th Century" honour.
In 1983-84, he was awarded the Albert Einstein Peace Prize, for negotiating the reduction of nuclear weapons and Cold War tension in several countries.
In 2004, viewers of the CBC series The Greatest Canadian voted Trudeau the third greatest Canadian.
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 people consider Trudeau's economic policies to have been a weak point. Inflation and unemployment marred much of his term. When Trudeau took office in 1968 Canada had a debt of $18 billion, when he left office in 1984, that debt stood at $200 billion - an increase of 1100%. The debt overhang in particular is one that Canada is still dealing with, as interest payments eat up a substantial chunk of annual federal spending. However, these trends were present in most western countries at the time, including the United States. It is also noteworthy that during this period Canada vaulted to the top of the world in terms of UN indices measuring Human Development and Quality of Life.
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.
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 his government's media subsidies to that end.
While Pierre Trudeau had no viable political opposition in Quebec at the federal level in his time (for instance, his Liberal party captured 74 out of 75 Quebec seats in the 1980 federal election), Québécois hedged their bets by twice electing the pro-sovereignty Parti Québécois provincially. (At the time, there was no pro-sovereignty federal party like today's Bloc Québécois). He is seen by many Québécois, particularly in the media, academic and political establishments as a vendu (sellout). While his reputation has grown in English Canada since his retirement in 1984, it has not improved in Quebec.
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.
The value of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms continues to be debated in some quarters: Canadians are still subject to double jeopardy (Although the Trudeau government limited this power through Parliament), and there is as much controversy when the courts interpret Charter rights broadly as there is when the courts restrict or qualify them.
Trudeau appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of Canada:
Pierre Trudeau | Prime Ministers of Canada | Leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada | Members of the 20th Ministry in Canada | Members of the 22nd Ministry in Canada | Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Quebec | Companions of the Order of Canada | Members of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada | Canadian lawyers | Canadian legal academics | Companions of Honour | Deaths by prostate cancer | Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada | French Quebecers | Harvard University alumni | Pro-choice politicians | Roman Catholic politicians | Parkinson's disease sufferers | Canadian historical figures | Alumni of the London School of Economics | Alumni of Sciences Po | 1919 births | 2000 deaths
Pierre Trudeau | Pierre Trudeau | Pierre Elliott Trudeau | Pierre Trudeau | פייר אליוט טרודו | Pierre Trudeau | ピエール・トルドー | Pierre Trudeau | Pierre Elliott Trudeau | Pierre Trudeau | Pierre Trudeau | 皮埃尔·特鲁多
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