Canada

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The Trudeau Years

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a Québec law professor and longtime opponent of special status for Québec, entered federal politics in 1965 to promote French power in Ottawa. He argued that a bilingual, bicultural Canada could provide full scope for the aspirations of French Canadians without the need of new provincial powers. Trudeau succeeded Lester Pearson as leader of the Liberals in 1968 and led his party to electoral triumph soon after; he held the prime minister’s post almost continuously from 1968 to 1984 and received massive support from Québec voters even when they elected nationalists to govern the province.

Trudeau promoted French Canadians within the federal civil service and increased the spending of federal money in Québec. In 1969 his government passed the Official Languages Act, which made Canada officially bilingual. The act required federal agencies to offer bilingual services coast to coast. Some English-speaking Canadians resented this assertion of French culture as much as they did Québec’s political demands for greater provincial power. See also Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.

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Economic Problems

Trudeau came to power intending to modernize government and reform the constitution, but he soon found his agenda hijacked by economic troubles. Both inflation and unemployment rose, and expensive social and economic programs had led to large and continuing budget deficits despite high taxes. Canada’s economic problems were compounded when the price of oil increased dramatically during the oil crisis of 1973. The crisis was provoked when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which included many of the major oil-producing nations of the world, cut back on production. In an effort to shield Canadians from high oil prices, Ottawa tried to control sales of oil. The province of Alberta, a large oil producer, resented these efforts. Westerners also resented federal investment in depressed regions, particularly Atlantic Canada and Québec.

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Québec Referendum

In 1976 Québec elected René Lévesque’s PQ as its provincial government. During the campaign, the PQ had pledged to consult the province in a referendum before implementing its policy of sovereignty-association. The PQ government introduced both social programs and nationalist measures. Rejecting bilingualism, the PQ legislated French as Québec’s sole official language. French quickly challenged English as the language of commerce. The shift was particularly dramatic in Montréal, which had long been dominated by its English-speaking minority. In 1980 the promised referendum took place. Québec voters were asked to decide whether the province should negotiate with Ottawa toward achieving sovereignty-association. However, the vote was 60 percent against and 40 percent in favor. See also French Canadian Nationalism.

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A New Constitution

Trudeau, who had promised a new constitutional deal during the referendum, moved in with his own constitutional agenda: “patriating” the British North America Act (BNA Act) passed by the British Parliament in 1867. Patriation would make the BNA Act a Canadian constitution that could be amended by Canadians. Trudeau also promised to add a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the constitution. Trudeau’s constitutional package offered none of the additional powers the provinces had been seeking, but both patriation and the charter were popular. Trudeau achieved both in 1982 despite the opposition of the government of Québec. For Québec sovereigntists, the patriation of the constitution against Québec’s will and without meeting its demands for greater powers became an added grievance. See also Constitution of Canada.

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Contemporary Indigenous Relations

One new element in the Constitution Act of 1982 (as the patriated BNA Act was renamed) stated that “existing aboriginal and treaty rights are recognized and affirmed.” This acknowledgment of aboriginal rights showed the gains that had been made by indigenous Canadians in the 1960s and 1970s. However, these existing rights were neither listed nor defined; the extent of indigenous rights largely remained to be negotiated.

In the 1960s the federal government had favored abolition of the Indian Act and rejection of most indigenous claims upon Canada. In 1973, however, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling (known as the Calder case) suggested that courts would recognize the existence of aboriginal land titles. Canada thereupon declared its readiness to negotiate agreements that would recognize indigenous land titles and rights of self-government. In 1975 the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement, which permitted massive hydroelectric development by the government of Québec, granted substantial powers of self-government to the Cree of the James Bay region in exchange for a massive surrender of land. See also James Bay Project.

Further support for indigenous rights to self-government came in 1977 with a report by Judge Tom Berger on pipeline construction in the Mackenzie River valley. Berger advised against any such development until indigenous claims had been settled. His advice was widely influential.

In recent decades the fundamental aims of indigenous organizations have been to resist assimilation into Canadian society and to defend the autonomy and cultural integrity of indigenous groups. They seek public sympathy by publicizing the poverty, injustice, and marginalization suffered by most indigenous Canadians, frequently appealing to international tribunals and world opinion. In the 1990s this strategy was successful in deterring the government of Québec from proceeding with James Bay II, a second stage of hydroelectric development in the north.

Failures to respond to indigenous grievances also resulted in several episodes of armed indigenous resistance to Canadian authority. In 1990 Mohawks resisted the development of land they claimed as indigenous property near Oka, Québec. Heavily armed Mohawks confronted police and troops for months before surrendering.

Indigenous bands and federations (notably the Assembly of First Nations, founded in 1982) have pursued legal actions and government-to-government negotiations seeking recognition of self-government and settlement of land claims. These negotiations have been most successful in the Northwest Territories. Large land settlements were made with the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta in 1984 and Inuit of the eastern Arctic in 1992.

In the 1980s the Canadian government pledged to transform the Northwest Territories into new regions: One to be called Nunavut, with the Inuit majority, and the other probably Denendeh, with a Dene majority. In each, the indigenous residents would have broad powers of self-government. Nunavut achieved separate territorial status on April 1, 1999, but plans for Denendeh have moved more slowly.

In 1996 the federal government received the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the result of a five-year study of indigenous life. Its 400 recommendations covered almost every aspect of indigenous life, calling for new federal departments, an independent tribunal for land claims, and an indigenous parliament to be called the House of First Peoples. The C$30 billion price of the reforms, to be spread over 15 years, received a cool reception from the cost-cutting Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. In 1997, however, the government offered an apology and compensation for abuses suffered by generations of indigenous children in publicly funded residential schools. See also Indian Treaties in Canada.