Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau PC CC CH QC FRSC (/ˈtruːdoʊ, truːˈdoʊ/ TROO-doh, troo-DOH, French: [pjɛʁ tʁydo]; October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Between his non-consecutive terms as prime minister, he served as the leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1980.
"Pierre Elliott Trudeau" redirects here. For other uses, see Pierre Elliott Trudeau (disambiguation).
Pierre Trudeau
Allan MacEachen (1977–1979)
Joe Clark
Joe Clark
September 28, 2000 (aged 80)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Saint-Rémi Cemetery, Saint-Rémi, Quebec
Liberal (from 1965)
- New Democratic (1961–1965)
- Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (until 1961)
- Charles-Émile Trudeau (father)
- Grace Elliott (mother)
Canada
1943–1945
Trudeau was born and raised in Outremont, Quebec, a Montreal suburb, and studied politics and law. In the 1950s, he rose to prominence as a labour activist in Quebec politics by opposing the conservative Union Nationale government. Trudeau was then an associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal. He was originally part of the social democratic New Democratic Party, though felt they could not achieve power, and instead joined the Liberal Party in 1965. That year, he was elected to the House of Commons, quickly being appointed as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's parliamentary secretary. In 1967, he was appointed as minister of justice and attorney general. As minister, Trudeau created more flexible divorce laws, decriminalized homosexuality, and legalized abortion. Trudeau's outgoing personality and charismatic nature caused a media sensation, inspiring "Trudeaumania", and helped him to win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968, when he succeeded Pearson and became prime minister of Canada.
From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, Trudeau's personality dominated the political scene to an extent never before seen in Canadian political life. After his appointment as prime minister, he won the 1968, 1972, and 1974 elections, before narrowly losing in 1979. He won a fourth election victory shortly afterwards, in 1980, and eventually retired from politics shortly before the 1984 election. Trudeau is the most recent prime minister to win four elections (having won three majority governments and one minority government) and to serve two non-consecutive terms. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third-longest-serving prime minister, behind John A. Macdonald and William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Despite his personal motto, "Reason before passion",[1] Trudeau's personality and policy decisions aroused polarizing reactions throughout Canada during his time in office. While critics accused him of arrogance, of economic mismanagement, and of unduly centralizing Canadian decision-making to the detriment of the culture of Quebec and the economy of the Prairies,[2] admirers praised what they considered to be the force of his intellect[3] and his political acumen that maintained national unity over the Quebec sovereignty movement. Trudeau suppressed the 1970 Quebec terrorist crisis by controversially invoking the War Measures Act, the third and last time in Canadian history that the act was brought into force. In addition, Quebec's proposal to negotiate a sovereignty-association agreement with the federal government was overwhelmingly rejected in the 1980 Quebec referendum. In a bid to move the Liberal Party towards economic nationalism, Trudeau's government oversaw the creation of Petro-Canada and launched the National Energy Program; the latter generated uproar in oil-rich Western Canada, leading to what many coined "Western alienation". In other domestic policy, Trudeau pioneered official bilingualism and multiculturalism, fostering a pan-Canadian identity. Trudeau's foreign policy included making Canada more independent; he patriated the Constitution and established the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, actions that achieved full Canadian sovereignty. He formed close ties with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, putting him at odds with other capitalist Western nations.
In his retirement, Trudeau practised law at the Montreal law firm of Heenan Blaikie. He also successfully campaigned against the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords (which proposed recognizing Quebec as a "distinct society"), arguing they would strengthen Quebec nationalism. Trudeau died in 2000. He is ranked highly among scholars in rankings of Canadian prime ministers, though some of his policies have been the subject of long-lasting debate. His eldest son, Justin Trudeau, became the 23rd and current prime minister, following the 2015 Canadian federal election; Justin Trudeau is the first prime minister of Canada to be a descendant of a former prime minister.
Early life[edit]
The Trudeau family can be traced to Marcillac-Lanville in France in the 16th century and to a Robert Truteau (1544–1589).[4][5] In 1659, the first Trudeau to arrive in Canada was Étienne Trudeau or Truteau (1641–1712), a carpenter and home builder from La Rochelle.[6]
Pierre Trudeau was born at home in Outremont, Montreal, Quebec, on October 18, 1919,[7] to Charles-Émile "Charley" Trudeau (1887–1935), a French-Canadian businessman and lawyer, and Grace Elliott, who was of mixed Scottish and French-Canadian descent. He had an older sister named Suzette and a younger brother named Charles Jr.[8] Trudeau remained close to both siblings for his entire life. Trudeau attended the prestigious Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf (a private French Jesuit school), where he supported Quebec nationalism. Trudeau's paternal grandparents were French-speaking Quebec farmers.[1] His father had acquired the B&A gas station chain (now defunct), some "profitable mines, the Belmont amusement park in Montreal and the Montreal Royals, the city's minor-league baseball team", by the time Trudeau was fifteen.[1] When his father died in Orlando, Florida, on April 10, 1935, Trudeau and each of his siblings inherited $5,000, a considerable sum at that time, which meant that he was financially secure and independent.[9] His mother, Grace, "doted on Pierre"[10] and he remained close to her throughout her long life.[11] After her husband died, she left the management of her inheritance to others and spent a lot of her time working for the Roman Catholic Church and various charities, travelling frequently to New York, Florida, Europe, and Maine, sometimes with her children.[10] Already in his late teens, Trudeau was "directly involved in managing a large inheritance."[10]
Early education[edit]
From the age of six until twelve, Trudeau attended the primary school, Académie Querbes, in Outremont, where he became immersed in the Catholic religion. The school, which was for both English and French Catholics, was an exclusive school with very small classes and he excelled in mathematics and religion.[12] From his earliest years, Trudeau was fluently bilingual, which would later prove to be a "big asset for a politician in bilingual Canada."[13] As a teenager, he attended the Jesuit French-language Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, a prestigious secondary school known for educating elite francophone families in Quebec.[14][15]
In his seventh and final academic year, 1939–1940, Trudeau focused on winning a Rhodes Scholarship. In his application he wrote that he had prepared for public office by studying public speaking and publishing many articles in Brébeuf. His letters of recommendations praised him highly. Father Boulin, who was the head of the college, said that during Trudeau's seven years at the college (1933–1940), he had won a "hundred prizes and honourable mentions" and "performed with distinction in all fields".[16] Trudeau graduated from Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in 1940 at the age of twenty-one.[17]
Trudeau did not win the Rhodes Scholarship. He consulted several people on his options, including Henri Bourassa, the economist Edmond Montpetit, and Father Robert Bernier, a Franco-Manitoban. Following their advice, he chose a career in politics and a degree in law at the Université de Montréal.[18]
The Second World War[edit]
In his obituary, The Economist described Trudeau as "parochial as a young man", who "dismissed the second world war as a squabble between the big powers, although he later regretted 'missing one of the major events of the century'."[13] In his 1993 Memoir, Trudeau wrote that the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 and his father's death were the two "great bombshells" that marked his teenage years.[19] In his first year at university, the prime topics of conversation were the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, and the London blitz.[20] He wrote that in the early 1940s, when he was in his early twenties, he thought, "So there was a war? Tough. It wouldn't stop me from concentrating on my studies so long as that was possible...[I]f you were a French Canadian in Montreal [at that time], you did not automatically believe that this was a just war. In Montreal in the early 1940s, we still knew nothing about the Holocaust and we tended to think of this war as a settling of scores among the superpowers."[20]
Young Trudeau opposed conscription for overseas service,[20] and in 1942 he campaigned for the anti-conscription candidate Jean Drapeau (later the mayor of Montreal) in Outremont.[21] Trudeau described a speech he heard in Montreal by Ernest Lapointe,[22] minister of justice and Prime Minister William Mackenzie King's Quebec lieutenant. Lapointe had been a Liberal MP during the 1917 Conscription Crisis, in which the Canadian government had deployed up to 1,200 soldiers to suppress the Quebec City anti-conscription Easter Riots in March and April 1918. In a final and bloody conflict, armed rioters fired on the troops, and the soldiers returned fire. At least five men were killed by gunfire and there were over 150 casualties and $300,000 in damage.[23]: 504 [24]: 60 In 1939, it was Lapointe who helped draft the Liberals' policy against conscription for service overseas. Lapointe was aware that a new conscription crisis would destroy national unity that Mackenzie King had been trying to build since the end of World War I.[25] Trudeau believed Lapointe had lied and broken his promise. His criticisms of King's wartime policies, such as "suspension of habeas corpus", the "farce of bilingualism and French-Canadian advancement in the army," and the "forced 'voluntary' enrolment", was scathing.[26]
As a university student Trudeau joined the Canadian Officers' Training Corps (COTC), which trained at the local armoury in Montreal during the school term and undertook further training at Camp Farnham each summer.[21] Although the National Resources Mobilization Act, enacted in 1940, originally provided that conscripts could not be required to serve outside of Canada,[27] in 1942 Parliament amended the act and removed that restriction.[28] The Conscription Crisis of 1944 arose in response to the invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
Education[edit]
Trudeau continued his full-time studies in law at the Université de Montréal while in the COTC from 1940 until his graduation in 1943.
Following his graduation, Trudeau articled for a year and, in the fall of 1944, began his master's in political economy at Harvard University's Graduate School of Public Administration (now the John F. Kennedy School of Government). In his Memoir, he admitted that it was at Harvard's "super-informed environment", that he realized the "historic importance" of the war and that he had "missed one of the major events of the century in which [he] was living.[19] Harvard had become a major intellectual centre, as fascism in Europe led to the great intellectual migration to the United States.[29]
Trudeau's Harvard dissertation was on the topic of communism and Christianity.[30] At Harvard, an American and predominantly Protestant university, Trudeau who was French Catholic and was for the first time living outside the province of Quebec, felt like an outsider. [31] As his sense of isolation deepened,[32] in 1947, he decided to continue his work on his Harvard dissertation in Paris, France.[33] He studied at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). The Harvard dissertation remained unfinished when Trudeau briefly entered a doctoral program to study under the socialist economist Harold Laski at the London School of Economics (LSE).[34] This cemented Trudeau's belief that Keynesian economics and social sciences were essential to the creation of the "good life" in a democratic society.[35] Over a five-week period he attended many lectures and became a follower of personalism after being influenced most notably by Emmanuel Mounier.[36] He also was influenced by Nikolai Berdyaev, particularly his book Slavery and Freedom.[37] Max and Monique Nemni argue that Berdyaev's book influenced Trudeau's rejection of nationalism and separatism.[37]
In the summer of 1948, Trudeau embarked on world travels to find a sense of purpose.[38] At the age of twenty-eight, he travelled to Poland where he visited Auschwitz, then Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the Middle East, including Turkey, Jordan and southern Iraq.[39] Although he was wealthy, Trudeau travelled with a back pack in "self-imposed hardship".[13] He used his British passport instead of his Canadian passport in his travels through Pakistan, India, China, and Japan, often wearing local clothing to blend in.[40] According to The Economist, when Trudeau returned to Canada in 1949 after an absence of five years, his mind was "seemingly broadened" from his studying at Harvard, the Institut d'Études Politiques, and the LSE and his travels. He was "appalled at the narrow nationalism in his native French-speaking Quebec, and the authoritarianism of the province's government".[13]
Career[edit]
Because of his labour union activities in Asbestos, Trudeau was blacklisted by Premier Duplessis and was unable to teach law at the Université de Montréal.[13] He surprised his closest friends in Quebec when he became a civil servant in Ottawa in 1949. Until 1951 he worked in the Privy Council Office of the Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent as an economic policy advisor. He wrote in his memoirs that he found this period very useful later on, when he entered politics, and that senior civil servant Norman Robertson tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to stay on.
His progressive values and his close ties with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) intellectuals (including F. R. Scott, Eugene Forsey, Michael Kelway Oliver and Charles Taylor) led to his support of and membership in that federal democratic socialist party throughout the 1950s.[44]
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. He admired the labour unions, which were tied to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), and tried to infuse his Liberal party with some of their reformist zeal. By the late 1950s Trudeau began to reject social democratic and labour parties, arguing that they should put their narrow goals aside and join forces with Liberals to fight for democracy first.[45] In economic theory he was influenced by professors Joseph Schumpeter and John Kenneth Galbraith while he was at Harvard. In 1963, Trudeau criticized the Liberal Party of Lester Pearson when it supported arming Bomarc missiles in Canada with nuclear warheads.[46]
Trudeau was offered a position at Queen's University teaching political science by James Corry, who later became principal of Queen's, but turned it down because he preferred to teach in Quebec.[47]
Opposition (1979–1980)[edit]
Trudeau soon announced his intention to resign as Liberal Party leader and favoured Donald Macdonald to be his successor.[165]
However, before a leadership convention could be held, with Trudeau's blessing and Allan MacEachen's manoeuvring in the house, the Liberals supported an NDP subamendment to Clark's budget stating that the House had no confidence in the budget. In Canada, as in most other countries with a Westminster system, budget votes are indirectly considered to be votes of confidence in the government, and their failure automatically brings down the government. Liberal and NDP votes and Social Credit abstentions led to the subamendment passing 139–133, thereby toppling Clark's government and triggering a new election for a House less than a year old. The Liberal caucus, along with friends and advisers, persuaded Trudeau to stay on as leader and fight the election, with Trudeau's main impetus being the upcoming referendum on Quebec sovereignty.[166]
Trudeau and the Liberals engaged in a new strategy for the February 1980 election: facetiously called the "low bridge", it involved dramatically underplaying Trudeau's role and avoiding media appearances, to the point of refusing a televised debate. On election day Ontario returned to the Liberal fold, and Trudeau and the Liberals defeated Clark and won a majority government.[167]
After politics (1984–2000)[edit]
Trudeau joined the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie as counsel and settled in the historic Maison Cormier in Montreal following his retirement from politics.[188] 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. The Meech Lake Accord granted Quebec the constitutional right to be a "distinct society" within Canada, which theoretically could have been the basis of a wide-ranging devolution of power to Quebec. The Quebec government potentially could have been allowed to pass any law short of secession to protect Quebec's constitutional right to be a "distinct society". Trudeau claimed in his speeches that giving Quebec the constitutional status of a "distinct society" would lead to the Quebec government deporting members of Quebec's English-speaking minority.[189] His opposition to both accords was considered one of the major factors leading to the defeat of the two proposals.
He also continued to speak against the Parti Québécois and the sovereignty movement with less effect.
Trudeau also remained active in international affairs, visiting foreign leaders and participating in international associations such as the Club of Rome. He met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and other leaders in 1985; shortly afterwards Gorbachev met President Ronald Reagan to discuss easing world tensions.
He published his memoirs in 1993.[190] The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies in several editions, and became one of the most successful Canadian books ever published.
In his old age, he was afflicted with Parkinson's disease and prostate cancer, and became less active, although he continued to work at his law practice 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 on November 13, 1998.
Personal life[edit]
Religious beliefs[edit]
Trudeau was a Roman Catholic and attended Mass 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.[194]
Michael W. Higgins, a former president of Catholic St. Thomas University, 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 Gourgues, professor at Dominican University College, Trudeau "considered himself a lay Dominican". He studied philosophy under Dominican Father Louis-Marie Régis and remained close to him throughout his life, regarding Régis 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. Trudeau meditated regularly after being initiated into Transcendental Meditation by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.[195] He took retreats at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Quebec and regularly attended Hours and the Eucharist at Montreal's Benedictine community.[196]
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 Michael W. Higgins, "suffused, anchored, and directed his inner life. In no small part, it defined him."[196]
Marriage and children[edit]
Described as a "swinging young bachelor" when he became prime minister, in 1968,[197] Trudeau was reportedly dating Hollywood star Barbra Streisand in 1969[198] and 1970.[199][200] While a serious romantic relationship, there was no express marriage proposal, contrary to one contemporary published report.[201]
On March 4, 1971, while prime minister, Trudeau quietly married 22-year-old Margaret Sinclair, who was 29 years younger, at St. Stephen's Roman Catholic parish church in North Vancouver.[202]
Belying his publicized social exploits, and nicknames like "Swinging Pierre"[203] and "Trendy Trudeau";[204] he was an intense intellectual with robust work habits and little time for family or fun. As a result, Margaret felt trapped and bored in the marriage, feelings that were exacerbated by her bipolar depression, with which she was later diagnosed.[205]
The couple had three sons: the first two, 23rd and current Prime Minister Justin (born 1971), and Alexandre (born 1973), were both born on Christmas Day two years apart. Their third son, Michel (1975–1998), died in an avalanche while skiing in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. Trudeau and Margaret separated in 1977, and were divorced in 1984.[206][207] He was involved with guitarist Liona Boyd for eight years during this time. [208]
When his divorce was finalized in 1984, Trudeau became the first Canadian prime minister to become a single parent as the result of divorce. In 1984, Trudeau was romantically involved with Margot Kidder (a Canadian actress famous for her role as Lois Lane in Superman: The Movie and its sequels) in the last months of his prime-ministership[209] and after leaving office.[210]
In 1991, Trudeau became a father again, with Deborah Margaret Ryland Coyne, to his only daughter, Sarah.[211] Coyne later stood for the 2013 Liberal Party of Canada leadership election and came fifth[212] in a poll won by Justin.
Trudeau began practising judo sometime in the mid-1950s when he was in his mid-thirties, and by the end of the decade, he was ranked ikkyū (brown belt). Later, when he travelled to Japan as prime minister, he was promoted to shodan (first-degree black belt) by the Kodokan, and then promoted to nidan (second-degree black belt) by Masao Takahashi in Ottawa before leaving office. Trudeau began the night of his famous "walk in the snow" before announcing his retirement in 1984 by going to judo with his sons.[213]
In popular culture[edit]
Trudeau is a 2002 television miniseries which aired on CBC Television. It was written by Wayne Grigsby, directed by Jerry Ciccoritti and features Colm Feore in the title role.[233]
A prequel, Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, was released in 2005. The four-hour CBC production examines Trudeau's early life. Stéphane Demers performs in the role.[234]
Trudeau chose the following jurists to be appointed as justices of the Supreme Court of Canada by the Governor General:
In film[edit]
Through hours of archival footage and interviews with Trudeau himself, the 1990 documentary Memoirs details the story of a man who used intelligence and charisma to bring together a country that was very nearly torn apart.[265]
Trudeau's life was also depicted in two CBC Television mini-series. The first, Trudeau (2002, with Colm Feore in the title role), depicts his years as prime minister. Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making (2005, with Stéphane Demers as the young Pierre, and Tobie Pelletier as Trudeau in later years) portrays his earlier life.
The 1999 feature-length documentary by the National Film Board (NFB) entitled Just Watch Me: Trudeau and the '70s Generation explores the impact of Trudeau's vision of Canadian bilingualism through interviews with eight Canadians on how Trudeau's concept of nationalism and bilingualism affected them personally in the 1970s.[266]
In the documentary mini-series The Champions directed by Donald Brittain, Trudeau was the co-subject along with René Lévesque.
In 2001, the CBC produced a full-length documentary entitled Reflections.[170]
