Pierre Elliott Trudeau

I

Introduction

Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1919-2000), 15th prime minister of Canada (1968-1979, 1980-1984). Trudeau became prime minister on April 20, 1968, succeeding Lester B. Pearson, who had resigned as leader of the Liberal Party and as prime minister earlier that month. Soon after taking office, Trudeau called a general election and won a majority in Parliament.

Trudeau initially attracted wide praise for his outspoken manner and his youthful lifestyle. Among some segments of the population his popularity was so strong that it came to be known as “Trudeaumania.” Until his marriage in 1971 to Margaret Sinclair, the daughter of a prominent Vancouver Liberal, his social life also drew much public attention. He and his wife had three sons; they separated in 1977 and were divorced in 1984.

Politically, Trudeau was a federalist, asserting the authority of the federal government over the provincial governments and defending the unity of Canada against regional interests. He also sought to prevent the cultural and economic domination of Canada by the United States, though without taking steps that would antagonize the U.S. government.

In time Trudeau's early popularity waned, and in the election of 1972 the Liberals narrowly lost their parliamentary majority. Trudeau remained prime minister in a minority government. He was criticized for many of his policies, especially his promotion of bilingualism and his war of wages and price controls to fight inflation; however he again won a large majority in the election of 1974. In 1979 his government was defeated, largely as a result of economic problems, and Trudeau resigned. He was called back to head his party when the Conservative government fell in 1980. Trudeau won the next election and remained prime minister until he retired in 1984.

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II

Early Life

Trudeau was born Joseph Philippe Pierre Ives Elliott Trudeau in Montréal, Québec, in 1919. He was the youngest of the three children of Charles-Emile Trudeau, a lawyer and businessman. Trudeau grew up in a bilingual household. After his primary schooling, he entered the Jesuit classical school, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, where he was a top student. He received his bachelor's degree in 1938 and went on to the Université de Montréal, where he studied law; he became a lawyer in 1943. He did postgraduate work in political science, law, and economics at Harvard, the London School of Economics, and the University of Paris.

III

Early Political Career

During the 1950s Trudeau practiced law in Québec, where he was active in labor and civil liberties cases. From 1949 to 1951 he served as an economic and legal adviser to the Privy Council, or secretariat to the national cabinet.

Trudeau developed a political philosophy centered on the need for individual liberty and social justice. It led him to support a strike of asbestos miners; he addressed large groups of miners, participated in their demonstrations, and acted as legal adviser to the unions. He was editor of a detailed study of the strike, La Grève de l’amiante (“The Asbestos Strike,” 1956). Trudeau was also involved in several other important strikes in the 1950s, advising, making speeches, or writing articles on behalf of the strikers. At the same time he became increasingly opposed to the authoritarian policies of Québec's premier, Maurice Duplessis.

Trudeau was a founder of the review Cité Libre (“Free City”), which was established in 1950 and became the leading publication attacking Duplessis and his party, the Union Nationale. Trudeau was also a leader in the formation of the Rassemblement, a group devoted to fighting Duplessis by arousing public opinion against him. It provided much of the intellectual basis for the revived Québec Liberal Party, which defeated the Union Nationale in 1960.

Cité Libre emphasized concern for the individual and held that economic opportunities should be equal for all, so that each person could develop freely. It defended freedom of thought, speech, and religion, and advocated nonsectarian schools. It opposed nationalism as being divisive, and it argued that the nation-state was outdated because modern conditions required international organization.

According to Trudeau, aspirations to make Québec a separate nation were wrong and the province should instead seek its fulfillment within the Canadian federal system. The ideal state for Cité Libre was democratic, socialist, federal, and pacifist.

A

Trudeau and the Liberals

Trudeau remained outside the Liberal Party through the early 1960s, even though he was closer in views to that party than to any of the other Canadian parties. He had supported the Québec Liberals against the Union Nationale, but when the administration of Québec premier Jean Lesage espoused a policy of French Canadian nationalism, Trudeau withdrew his support.

Trudeau also opposed the national Liberal Party of Prime Minister Lester Pearson because he opposed Pearson's acceptance of U.S. nuclear weapons for Canada. Also, Trudeau thought the national Liberal Party lacked commitment to the maintenance of federalism in Canada. He felt the Pearson administration had given too much independence to the provinces, thereby upsetting the balance of the constitution.

In 1965, however, Trudeau and two associates—Jean Marchand, a labor leader, and Gérard Pelletier, a journalist—decided that they could be more effective in bringing about change if they worked within the governing Liberal Party. They entered the party at a time when the Liberals lacked strong French-Canadian leaders at the federal level. Marchand became the Québec lieutenant of Prime Minister Pearson and a member of the cabinet. Trudeau became Parliamentary secretary to the prime minister.

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