BOOK REVIEW COMPTE RENDU Reason over passion? Just watch Trudeau John English. : The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1968-2000. : Knopf , 2009.

Review by Susan Delacourt

n 1968, inspired by the air of pos- he early attempts to insert ration- Watch Me. The hard, rational Pierre sibility around new prime minis- T ality into the Canadian political Trudeau stands steely-eyed before the I ter , artist Joyce realm, at least as Trudeau and his tomato-hurling demonstrators at the Wieland expressed her appreciation advisers saw them back in their first St. Jean Baptiste parade in 1968, only with needle and thread. She produced years in power, seem almost endear- to be weeping by the telephone at the a multicoloured quilt, appliquéd with ingly naive, in light of today’s political news of ’s murder by Trudeau’s evocation to the nation: cynicism. FLQ terrorists in 1970. His 1981 patri- “Reason over passion.” English writes of the organization- ation of the Constitution over Almost a decade later, during a al strategy around 1972, for instance, ’s objections, using the particularly tempestuous time in the this way: “Trudeau’s key advisers were Supreme Court as his rational bolster, Trudeaus’ crumbling marriage, and deeply imbued with the belief that whipped up passions that put a fault with the Wieland piece close at hand, there could be a science of politics and line through the nation and his lega- ripped the letters off public administration.” They were cy. His declaration of the War the quilt and hurled them down the taken with systems and computers and Measures Act was passion met with stairs of 24 Sussex at her perplexed “cybernetics,” believing that the pub- passion — “Just watch me,” the title husband. lic mood and passions could be arith- of the book. That doesn’t sound like The gesture tells us much about the metically organized. the response of a leader trying to rea- stormy personal life of Canada’s 15th That kind of thinking led to the son through a crisis. prime minister, but it also reveals the huge growth in the Prime Minister’s fundamental tension in the 16-year Office and the attendant organization he economy, another ongoing political reign of Pierre Trudeau, so around Trudeau’s administration — a T theme in Trudeau’s rule, also chal- vividly and expertly told in the second structure that has only grown since then lenged his bid to value reason over volume of John English’s sweeping biog- to its current, almost paralytic state passion. He tried to enforce systems raphy — this one called Just Watch Me. under Prime Minister . analysis over the global disorder of the If the first volume was the back And if the Trudeau-era belief in , relying on the Club of Rome’s story, this is the main act. Here we learn systematized politics sounds quaint, projections about the dangers of of Trudeau’s life in elected politics, span- we might do well to remember that growth versus diminishing resources. ning the years 1968 to 1984 — from the ruling Conservative Party is awful- The public service organized itself hippies and flower children to constitu- ly fond of its own polling metrics and around the forecasts and discussion. tional dramas and economic crises. its voter database. Some things never But inflation skyrocketed; Canadians’ Through it all, we see a leader who change; they just get more entrenched. fortunes swooned. No amount of orga- pined for reason in public life, but who nizational response could meet the also actively or accidentally inflamed ver and over again in English’s passion of the rollickingly fickle global passions he couldn’t always contain. O book, we get the story of people market of the 1970s. No dry arguments This is the theme that runs through hurling the reason-over-passion princi- about made-in-Canada pricing could English’s book, and it is not just a his- ple in Trudeau’s face. And it wasn’t just cap the gusher of western antagonism torical curiosity — it may well still be about the mechanics of government. over his . instructive for the politics of today. Trudeau’s relationship with his “Trudeau’s education was Does passion always trump reason in home province of Quebec is a signifi- Keynesian, his economic instincts Canadian politics? cant part of the narrative in Just were eclectic, his politics were egalitar-

90 OPTIONS POLITIQUES DÉCEMBRE 2009-JANVIER 2010 Reason over passion? Just watch Trudeau BOOK REVIEW ian, and for all his intelligence, his political fray over bilingualism. “If from policy to politics to passion, and vision in this new dawn was often they want blood and guts, I’ll give he always had a bracing grip on the blurred,” English writes, summarily, them blood and guts.” difference between them all. Only about the ineffective response to the He could smack Canadians in the someone steeped in the abstract and economic travails of that era. gut for issues significant and trivial. the reality of politics could have writ- So it was with foreign affairs. The When Trudeau wanted a pool ten Trudeau’s biography properly, rational Pierre Trudeau withheld his installed at 24 Sussex, for instance, his where others have fallen short. By sympathies for Biafra and its starving aides cast about to find a reason for others, I mean Trudeau himself, people, even as Canadian children the expensive installation, even trying whose Memoirs (1993) was a huge dis- were told at every dinnertime to eat to solicit doctors’ recommendations. appointment. Just Watch Me, in con- We see a leader who pined for reason in public life, but who trast, is a sweeping, fair- also actively or accidentally inflamed passions he couldn’t minded, detailed and always contain. This is the theme that runs through English’s disciplined account of Trudeau and his times. It book, and it is not just a historical curiosity — it may well still stands with Trudeau and be instructive for the politics of today. Does passion always His Times, the two-volume trump reason in Canadian politics? work by Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson, as a up and remember those less fortunate It didn’t work. That pool stood as an defining work about the man — with in that beleaguered breakaway entitlement in that era and beyond. English’s version supplemented with African nation. , in press reports, still exclusive access to Trudeau’s papers. feels compelled to apologize for her utting reason over passion, family’s enjoyment of the Trudeau o what was Trudeau’s legacy — P Trudeau could not endorse a state pool, telling journalists, in aw-shucks S passion or reason? Passion, not seeking independence while he was fashion, that it’s a lucky step up from reason, fuelled “,” fighting his own war with Quebec the outdoor camping and swimming which got him elected in the heady secessionists. Yet the images of starv- of her more modest back- 1960s. Passion, not reason, impelled ing children incited far more passion ground. thousands of Canadians to mark his than Trudeau’s reason could rebut. His English, an historian and aca- death in 2000 with long lineups to indifference to Africa is provocatively demic, who served one term as a view his coffin at Parliament Hill and probed in English’s biography, espe- member of Parliament for the to throw roses in the fountain at the cially as it contrasts with the genuine attachment to “Trudeau’s education was Keynesian, his economic instincts that region’s problems by were eclectic, his politics were egalitarian, and for all his Trudeau’s successors, Brian intelligence, his vision in this new dawn was often blurred,” Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. English writes, summarily, about the ineffective response to Similarly, Trudeau the economic travails of that era. wanted Canada to be a voice of dry neutrality in the Cold Waterloo, Ontario, riding from 1993 Eternal Flame. The first flurry of news War, ignoring the huge cultural effect to 1997, has obviously had his own reports on English’s book focused on of the United States on the political, immersion course in the lessons of Trudeau’s many passionate relation- passionate feelings of Canadians, who passion trumping reason. Politics ships with women, and their influ- were being bombarded daily by the attracts so many decent, scholarly ence on his governance. All that isn’t American consumerist revolution. people such as English, who arrive in an accident — for all Trudeau’s English offers example after exam- Ottawa to find that policy debates avowed preference for reason, he ple of passion prevailing over reason in always take a back seat to high emo- actively cultivated much of the pas- Trudeau’s rule. As early as 1973, the tion. Like English, they often leave, sion, good and bad, that he provoked. man himself confessed that rationality choosing a more sane way to make a And that, not just the man, didn’t always work. Losing his temper living. And yet the two can coexist. “haunts us still,” in the memorable in the Commons, lashing out at This reviewer — full disclosure — phrase of McCall and Clarkson. As English-Canadian “bigots” in an out- spent many evenings in English’s recently as November this year, burst he later rued, Trudeau reflected company while he was an MP; the columnist John Ivison on reason alone as inadequate for the conversation veered back and forth was lavishing praise on Stephen Harper

POLICY OPTIONS 91 DECEMBER 2009-JANUARY 2010 Susan Delacourt COMPTE RENDU

Montreal Gazette archives Pierre Trudeau in full oratorical flight at the Université de Montréal in 1977, the year after the election of the Parti Québécois. He advo- cated reason over passion, but the unity file was the one issue that never failed to stir the passions of his heart.

for understanding that feelings are writes. Judging him in retrospect, the wisdom within English’s book — a more important than logic in federal artist found him too cold and too lesson that applies not just to the politics. “Conservatives understand rational to handle the passions he Trudeau era, but in the politics of that an approach based on logic and inspired. But English’s chronicle of today as well. policy is doomed — they know voters Trudeau’s time in power gives us a make their decisions based on feelings, complex insight into the daily strug- Susan Delacourt, a senior writer for the such as whether the party cares about gle of reason versus passion. It’s not a in Ottawa, is the author of them and their values,” Ivison writes. black-and-white, either-or proposi- Juggernaut: Paul Martin’s Campaign Joyce Wieland later regretted her tion, and politics needs a healthy for Chrétien’s Crown, published in quilted tribute to Trudeau, English dose of both. This is the overarching 2003.

92 OPTIONS POLITIQUES DÉCEMBRE 2009-JANVIER 2010