The father of the current Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was among Canada's most famous Prime Ministers. When he was born in 1919, World War I was over. However, the returned soldiers expressed their dissatisfaction with conditions in the social unrest that culminated in the Winnipeg General Strike.
Native Montrealer Trudeau fully embodied the bilingual and bicultural nation he was born into. With a French Canadian father and a Scottish-French mother, he grew up in Outremont, speaking both official languages as a native. Educated in a Jesuit preparatory school, he completed his law degree at Universite de Montreal and began to work for the Privy Council. He specialized in labour law and took an interest in civil liberty cases.
In 1961, as the modernizing decade later called the Quiet Revolution began in Quebec, he became a professor of constitutional law at his alma mater. In 1964 he was recruited to run for the Liberal Party. As Pearson's Minister of Justice, he liberalized the laws concerning divorce, abortion and homosexuality, famously saying "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."
When Pearson retired, Trudeau easily won Liberal leadership. Sweeping to victory on a wave of "Trudeaumania," he took the helm in 1968. His charm, wit and intelligence made Trudeau more than a match for the press and his fellow parliamentarians. His playful side was also much appreciated, as when he pierouetted behind the queen. An eligible bachelor in his forties, he married a woman many years younger, had three sons and became even more popular.
In 1970, Trudeau faced the October Crisis. FLQ terrorists who had already set off bombs in Montreal suddenly upped the stakes. In a violent bid for Quebec independence, they kidnapped a British diplomat and a Quebec Minister and publicly threatened to kill both men if their demands were not met.
After being swooned over by women and given babies to kiss during the election campaign, the new Prime Minister now faced a serious political challenge. His response was serious and decisive; deeming the FLQ threat an attempt at insurrection against the democratically elected government, he invoked the War Measures Act. For the duration of the state emergency, the police, assisted by the army, were allowed to detain suspects without charge in order to question them.
This show of strength was controversial. However, negotiations also took place with the terrorists and the life of diplomat James Cross was saved. The kidnappers were apprehended, but only after Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Minister of Labour, was found dead in the trunk of a car. The Quiet Revolution was over; it had culminated in a show of violence that shocked the nation.
In the coming years, the wave of separatist sentiment in Quebec would find expression through peaceful political activity. Led by Rene Levesque, the Parti Quebecois demanded a referendum to determine whether Quebec would separate. The proposed "sovereignty association" was defeated 60% to 40% by voters in 1980 However, the separatism issue hadn't gone away and this later became known as the First Referendum.
Many would agree that Trudeau's most dramatic accomplishment was to patriate the Constitution; however, his strong federalist stance did not cut much ice in his home province. After a great deal of wrangling about Quebec's special status, separatist Premier Rene Levesque refused to sign on behalf of his province. To this day, Quebec is not a signatory to the Canadian Constitution.
And in spite of the Trudeau ideal of the Just Society, aboriginal Canadians continued to endure troubled times. Eventually, though, the Berger Commission's lengthy consultations with the people on the land caused the government to decide against allowing an oil pipeline to be built through their territory. And before a large Hydro Quebec project was implemented in Quebec, the James Bay Cree and the Inuit of the region were consulted. In the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, money and rights were given in exchange for the ceded territory.
Trudeau made other changes that deeply affected the nation. It was during his term that Canada became officially bilingual. For the first time, French speakers enjoyed equal access to federal government services through the right to access them in their native tongue.
Multiculturalism was also a Trudeau policy. With an internationalist perspective, he liberalized immigration policy, created more foreign embassies, and opened diplomatic relations with Communist China at a time when the US was unwilling to doing so. He also visited Cuba, another nation on the American banned list, and became a personal friend of Fidel Castro.
On the world stage, Trudeau ensured that Canada carried out its own independent foreign policy. He made sure Canada went its own way, though he told the President that Canada's position beside the US was "like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast...one is affected by every twitch and grunt."
Trudeau resigned from politics in 1984, but he continued to write and speak in support of federalism. On the occasion of his funeral in 2000, thousands of Canadians wore roses in their lapels in his memory, paid their respects as his body lay in state in Ottawa, and lined the railway tracks in silence to see the train that carried his remains to their last resting place in Montreal.
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