Pierre Elliott Trudeau

B

Minister of Justice

In 1967, Trudeau became minister of justice, a critically important post at a time when the constitution was under attack by Québec nationalists. Early in 1968 he played the leading role in the federal-provincial constitutional conference, in which he defended a balanced federal system with strong but equal provinces and declared that the homeland of French Canadians was not Québec but all of Canada. He therefore advocated equal language rights, or bilingualism for French Canadians outside Québec.

As minister of justice, Trudeau introduced sweeping changes in the criminal code to liberalize the laws on abortion, homosexuality, and divorce, despite the conservative views of many Canadian clergy.

IV

Prime Minister

After the resignation of Lester Pearson as leader of the Liberal Party, Trudeau was chosen as his successor, and on April 20, 1968, he became prime minister. He called a general election and showed himself to be a brilliant campaigner, projecting an image of youthful charm and vitality. He argued for a united Canada with equal rights for French- and English-speaking citizens and opposed special status for any province. The voters gave him a substantial majority over Robert Stanfield's Conservative opposition. Entering office with great authority, he formed Canada's first majority government since Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's landslide victory a decade earlier.

Trudeau's administration officially recognized the People's Republic of China, established diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and reduced Canada's role in the military establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a regional defense alliance centered in Europe. His main concern, however, was to undercut the appeal of the Québec separatists. He therefore sponsored the Official Languages Act, guaranteeing bilingual federal facilities wherever at least 10 percent of the population spoke the minority language.

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The separatist issue reached a crisis in October 1970, when an extremist organization in Québec kidnapped a British diplomat and killed a Québec minister. Québec's premier requested intervention by the army and the declaration of a wartime emergency. Trudeau complied, and 465 people, much of Québec's French Canadian elite, were arrested. The terrorists were soon caught and tried, but the issue quickly changed from that of preventing terrorism to that of preserving democratic political processes. French Canadians continued to resent the humiliation of their elite by the federal government, and the separatist Parti Québécois gained steadily in strength, finally coming to power in Québec in 1976.

Nationally, meanwhile, Trudeau's government declined in popularity and lost its majority in the general election of 1972. Economic problems—inflation, unemployment, and the falling value of the Canadian dollar, along with ever-increasing U.S. influence in the Canadian economy—had undermined confidence in the Liberal administration. However, the persistent weakness of the Conservatives and the New Democrats, a democratic socialist coalition consisting mainly of the old Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), helped to keep the Trudeau government in power. Also, many Canadians saw the Liberals as the only party able to keep the country together after the separatist victory in Québec in 1976.

In the 1974 election Trudeau regained a majority, partly by opposing the Conservative policy of stopping inflation by means of wage and price controls. When, however, a year later, the victorious Liberals introduced wage and price controls, the government's credibility suffered. And when, after lifting the controls, inflation and unemployment returned, the Liberals faced an uphill battle just when a new general election was imminent.

During the 1979 campaign, Trudeau attempted to rally the nation once again around Canadian unity, but the economic issues were overriding. No party won a majority of seats in the election, but the Conservatives won the most seats, and in June their leader, Joe Clark, became prime minister. In December, however, Clark's budget that consisted mainly of a large increase in the gasoline tax was put to a vote of confidence, a vote in Parliament on whether or not the members support the prime minister on his policies. Clark lost the vote and resigned, and in elections in February 1980 Trudeau and the Liberals returned to office with a majority.

While promising to resign before the next election, Trudeau stayed on as prime minister for four more years, sustained by parliamentary majority. The hard times continued. Inflation and unemployment were even higher than in the United States, and the fortunes of the Canadian economy were closely tied to those of the U.S. economy. Unable to improve economic conditions, Trudeau turned to the constitution. He successfully led a “no” campaign in a referendum called by Québec on the “sovereignty-association” issue, which would have allowed Québec to enjoy the economic advantages of being part of Canada while technically being independent. He then proposed constitutional changes that would end the role of the British Parliament in amending the Canadian constitution, introduce equalization payments to the poorer provinces for the provision of public services, guarantee rights to native peoples, and provide a charter of rights and freedoms for all Canadians. Eight of the ten provinces rejected the proposals. But Trudeau mobilized public opinion by conceding extra rights to certain interest groups and finally won the assent of all the English-speaking provinces. Québec refused its assent.

The last major issue tackled by Trudeau was the energy question. In 1980 he announced a national energy program that would fix oil and gas prices, claim more oil and gas revenue for the federal government, and increase Canadian ownership of the oil and gas industries. The program led to conflict between the federal government and the western provincial governments, and this conflict had not been resolved when Trudeau retired in June 1984. He was succeeded as party leader and prime minister by John Turner.

V

Author

In addition to articles and essays, Trudeau is the author of several books. Deux Innocents en Chine Rouge (Two Innocents in Red China, 1961), which he wrote in collaboration with his publisher, Jacques Hébert, deals with their trip to China in 1960. Le Fédéralisme et la société canadienne-française (1967; Federalism and the French Canadians, 1968) is a collection of essays on federal and constitutional issues.