{"id":2309,"date":"2016-01-16T02:51:55","date_gmt":"2016-01-16T02:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation\/?post_type=chapter&p=2309"},"modified":"2019-07-15T17:07:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T17:07:04","slug":"9-8-the-first-trudeau-era","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/postconfederation\/chapter\/9-8-the-first-trudeau-era\/","title":{"raw":"9.8 Trudeau I","rendered":"9.8 Trudeau I"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_2325\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"318\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.35 Pierre Trudeau at the 1968 Liberal Leadership convention.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe election in 2015 of a government led by Justin Trudeau (b. 1971) has sharpened the public\u2019s memory of his father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau (1919-2000). Raised in a well-to-do household in Outremont, Quebec, Pierre Trudeau\u2019s roots in Canada wind back to the 1650s on one side, with Scottish-French ancestors on the other. Biographers have observed this apparent bridging of the two solitudes but everything else about Pierre Trudeau\u2019s early life suggests a strong and very conventional allegiance to things Canadien. He was educated at an elite Jesuit school and was imbued with a strong sense of French-Canadian nationalism. As a young man, he was old enough to serve in the Second World War but, like most of his generation in Quebec, he opposed conscription. He completed a law degree at the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al, then studied at Harvard University and the London School of Economics. Although he failed to complete his doctorate, he was regarded in Montreal as an intellectual. Before he was 30 years old, he had established a reputation as a dissident writer and journalist with a strong pro-labour orientation. Personal wealth and extensive connections allowed him opportunities in Ottawa (where he worked as an economic policy advisor to St. Laurent) and the wherewithal to establish Cit\u00e9<\/i> <\/i>Libre<\/i>, a publication that regularly critiqued the Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis and gave voice to the early stages of the [pb_glossary id=\"7955\"]Quiet Revolution[\/pb_glossary]. Duplessis, it is alleged, responded by ensuring that Trudeau could not find work in Quebec universities. Certainly it was not until after Duplessis\u2019 death that Trudeau was taken on by the Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al as a law professor. It was there that Lester Pearson approached him about a career in politics.\r\n

The\u00a0Three Wise Men<\/h1>\r\nIn his mid-40s, Trudeau still had close ties with labour organizations and was favourably disposed toward social democrats within and without the CCF\/NDP. But he regarded their ability to achieve change as very limited and was persuaded to join the Liberal Party in 1965 as part of a trio of Quebec recruits known as the [pb_glossary id=\"7956\"]Three Wise Men[\/pb_glossary] (or\u00a0les <\/i>trois<\/i> <\/i>colombes<\/i>): Trudeau, G\u00e9rard Pelletier (1919-1997), who was another founder\/writer for Cit\u00e9<\/i> <\/i>Libre<\/i>, and Jean Marchand (1918-1988), who was a trade union organizer and activist. Marchand was, in many respects, the high-profile member of the three, and he was quickly given a prominent role in the Pearson government. Trudeau was made Parliamentary Secretary to Pearson, a kind of personal advisor, and he quickly acquired an understanding of the [pb_glossary id=\"7846\"]Prime Minister\u2019s Office (PMO)[\/pb_glossary]. Soon thereafter he was made Minister of Justice, despite having only just joined the Liberal Party and having never before held elected office.\r\n\r\nIn 1967, the Liberal Party began the process of finding a successor to\u00a0Pearson through a leadership convention. Marchand was favoured to run as the French-Canadian candidate but he declined, claiming (correctly) that his English was insufficient.[footnote]To be fair, this sort of concern did not impact English-Canadian leaders the same way until the late 20th century. \u201cDiefenbaker-French\u201d was a term widely used to describe a garbled version that was incomprehensible to Francophones but strangely recognizable to Anglophones.[\/footnote] Trudeau was persuaded to run but his candidacy was divisive. As Justice Minister he had made divorce easier to obtain, he had permissive attitudes toward abortion, and was regarded by many in the Party as radical on other social issues. It took four ballots for Trudeau to narrowly win with only 51% of the vote.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2326\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"640\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 9.36 It is difficult to imagine Pearson or Diefenbaker meeting and being photographed with rockstars. John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Pierre Trudeau in 1969.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe Leadership Convention received unprecedented media attention and served as a launchpad for the federal election the same year. Echoing the appeal of \u201cBritish Invasion\u201d bands of the decade, public fascination with Trudeau was promoted as [pb_glossary id=\"7958\"]Trudeaumania[\/pb_glossary]. Although he was nearly 50 years old, Trudeau was seen as youthful and virile --\u00a0the personification of a generation\u2019s desire to shake up establishment values. He arrived on the political scene at roughly the same time\u00a0that the Baby Boomers born in 1945-47\u00a0became voters and, raised on a cultural diet of television news and the sexual revolution, they regarded Trudeau as one of their own. The contrast with his two opponents --\u00a0Conservative Party leader Robert Stanfield (1914-2003), heir to a textile manufacturing fortune, a Red Tory, and a former Nova Scotian Premier, and Tommy Douglas, leader of the New Democratic Party, a former Premier of Saskatchewan, and the author of the nation\u2019s first healthcare legislation --\u00a0was sharp. Stanfield and Douglas (both thoughtful and arguably no less intellectually gifted than Trudeau) had age and experience on their side, but they also had age and experience working against them. Trudeau --\u00a0still something of a novice in politics --\u00a0was suavely articulate in both languages, spoke out against radical nationalists in Quebec, and brought little baggage with him.\u00a0The results were a convincing majority for the Trudeau administration in 1968.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2310\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1084\"]\"Map<\/a> Figure 9.37 Even at the high point of Trudeaumania, the popularity of the Liberal Party was far from universal. [Long Description]<\/a>[\/caption]In later years, Trudeau would be regarded as nationally divisive. If we look at the 1968 results, it is clear that some of the fracture lines were already present. Although the Liberals did well in central Canada and British Columbia, Manitoba was a wash, Stanfield\u2019s Conservatives were runaway winners in Alberta and Atlantic Canada, and the NDP came out on top (narrowly) in Douglas\u2019\u00a0 home province. The precariousness of Trudeaumania would become clear only four years later.\r\n\r\nTrudeau\u2019s first years in office were marked by controversial\u00a0policies and events. The 1968 election took place against a backdrop of increasingly violent separatist protest in Quebec. Indeed, Trudeau\u2019s unwillingness to leave a viewing platform at the pre-election Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade, despite being heckled and bombarded with bottles and stones, was seen by many as a demonstration of the toughness needed to stand up against separatism. It is even regarded by some historians as a turning point in the election campaign. But it presaged the principal difficulty he would face over the next 15 years: the challenge of Quebec\u2019s historic dissatisfaction with Confederation.\r\n
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Key Points<\/h2>\r\n