A CANADIAN POLITICAL THINKER: PIERRE ELLIOT TRUDEAU
AN ANALYSIS OF HIS PUBLISHED WRITINGS 1950-1966
by
GEORGE LESLIE HAYNAL B.A., Loyola College, 1967
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS
in the Department
of
Political Science
We accept this thesis as conforming to the
required standard
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
-July, 1970 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study.
I further agree tha permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission.
Geotg^ L. Haynal
Department of PnHtir.nl Sr.i e.nr.&
The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada
Date l/ sPrt.PmhPr h 1Q70 ABSTKACT
Pierre Elliott Trudeau was an active participant in the decade of social reform and political awakening that preceded the Quiet Revolu• tion in Quebec, and continued to act as a non-partisan social and polit• ical critic until his entry into the federal liberal party in 1966.
He based his contribution as pamphleteer for various movements of reform on certain basic philosophical principles. These principles can be described as a belief in the absolute value of humanity, the ef• ficacy of reason in human action, and the necessity of moral participation by the individual in the determination of all phases of his existence.
Though these principles are not systematically presented, they are dis- cernable and their understanding is essential as a first step in any appreciation of Trudeau. TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I INTRODUCTION l
a) The Subject of the Study 1
b) Purpose of the Essay 3
c) Organization 4
d) Bibliography 7
e) Biography 8
II MAN, SOCIETY, THE STATE 17
a) Introduction 17
b) Man • 18
c) Society and The State 30
d) The State's Duties 34
III DEMOCRACY 43
IV FEDERALISM 52
V NATIONALISM : 58
VI QUEBEC 68
VII CANADA 79
- VIII CONCLUSION 96
BIBLIOGRAPHY HI CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION a) The Subject of the Study
It is by now almost a gratuitous observation that Trudeau is an
Actonian. He is, it is true, but in much the same way that Harold Laski,
Jacques Maritain and a host of lesser political thinkers today are Acton- ians. If we restrict ourselves purely to the negative face of Trudeau's politics we could say that, yes, he is a disciple of the nineteenth cen• tury liberal school, yes, he fervently mistrusts political power. But
if we turn the literature to its more positive side, we can instantly be• come convinced that, far from it, Trudeau feels the need for a positive
state, or if we read some of his earlier less known pieces it would be
very easy to mistake his writings for good French translations of Harold
Laski's earnest pluralism. If the reader was more classically oriented,
Platonist and Aristotelian ideas on the Polity, on the role of political
responsibility, and on the nature of society would leap at him from
Trudeau's pages. Though some have claimed to see Karl Marx re-incarnated in the
polished prose of Pierre Trudeau, the similarity strikes only those (un•
fortunately many) who are completely ignorant of what both men said, or
worse, those who have some little and second-hand information on Marxism,
not Marx.''' We can "accuse" Trudeau of being Marxian to the degree that
1 Pierre E. Trudeau, "Materiaux pour servir a une enque*te sur le clerical isme", Cit/ Libre, # 7, May, 1953. 2. any democratic socialist thinker or even as any social scientist can be accused of it. Since the subject is far too wide to deal with and has only an incidental relevance, only a few observations are necessary here.
Trudeau is a democrat. He believes in human rationality, in free will aid most important, in individual responsibility. He believes in the natural obsolescence and consequent demise of the free enterprise economy, and is confident in the future of socialism. His main concern is not for the coming of this future, but whether this future will be democratic or
totalitarian.
He could hardly pass for a good Marxian with such a set of ideas.
The dialectic is not among contending economic classes: it is between
democratic forces and the totalitarian, between the "essences" of reason
and irrationality within men.
What philosophy does he follow then? If he is not a Marxian,
Trudeau has used Marx. Nor is he a Platonist, an Actonian, a Fabian, nor
in the last resort a Laskian, but has used their thoughts in forming his
own. Are we trying to evade the question? Definitely not. Such an elu-
siveness is in fact the answer: Trudeau belongs completely to no philos•
ophical tradition, and yet he belongs to them all. He is perhaps the
closest that Canada has achieved in a cosmopolitan political thinker; he
ranges across the nations, rarely but sometimes the cultures and the ages
of civilization. He has attempted to synthesize within a highly personal
construct what he finds the best in all political thought. Though he may
be no more than the Renaissance midget on the shoulders of classical giants, 3.
Trudeau has constructed a complex and internally unassailable philosophy.
His greatest interest and greatest failing stem together from the "total"- 2 ness of this thought, b) Purpose of the Essay
The purpose of this essay is a straightforward examination of the writings of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Although he deserves a far wider treat• ment, there are a number of reasons why we cannot, at this point, attempt
a political or philosophical biography. The subject of our study is not
only in the prime of life but is the occupant of an important and sensitive
office. Information about his personality and personal life beyond glimpses 3 in his own writing are unavailable.
Though we shall try to place Trudeau in the Canadian political con•
text as far as possible, we shall do so only to the degree that the context
has a bearing on the content and import of his thought. We are not, I must
emphasize at the beginning, studying Trudeau as the "prime minister in lat•
ency". Though this may seem the most obvious rationale for a study of this
nature, there are others of equal, if not higher, validity. 2 But Trudeau is not so purely a normative theorist as this description by association may imply. For though he was already writing a number of years before its publication, a good deal of his political theory is strongly re• miniscent of the systems approach taken by Gabriel Almond in the "Civic Culture" and it is far from impossible to alternate the name 'just society' based on rational responsibility with Almond's term 'civic society' based on a 'civic culture's1 participatory politics. It must not be forgotten either that much of Trudeau's fame stems from his sociological examination of Quebec in the first chapter of Trudeau (ed.), La Greve de l'Amiante, Editions du Jour, Montreal, 1956. 3 Martin Sullivan, Mandate 1968, Doubleday Canada Ltd., Toronto, 1968,p.372. 4.
Trudeau is the embodiment of a period in the intellectual and political history of French Canadian society, whose complexities are only now beginning to receive serious academic attention. The role that Tru• deau1 s Cite Libre group played in the development of Quebec would be suf• ficient cause to examine his writings. We shall pay some attention to the concrete manifestations of their struggle later on in the paper.
We cannot regard Trudeau's written material as the expression of an original political philosophy. But the failure to be original (if we can even use such value terms) cannot detract from the innate social and
intellectual value of Trudeau's writings. They never claimed to be orig•
inal, but they were didactic. Trudeau was a pamphleteer in the classical
tradition, a tradition that has until very recently been totally absent from
all but the French speaking part of this continent. Trudeau, the pamphleteer•
ing social critic was a phenomenon inseparable from Quebec of the 1950's, the
environment were public social criticism was so important, and could be ex•
pressed in the medium Trudeau found so congenial - the journal.
c) Organization
The research task involved in this paper has been very complicated
at times; this is not because of any scarcity of material, but rather as a
result of the way that the material was written.
Trudeau wrote in response to issues. Each article had to be a com•
plete exposition of the writer's view point and had necessarily to contain 5. a capsulated if incomplete version of the philosophical premises of the argument. Reading Trudeau has consequently been repetitious, and it has been our major task to glean the philosophical argument which forms the connecting thread.
The organization of the paper has consequently often followed a theoretical structure of its own, rather than any chronological or topical construct. Since Trudeau has been, if anything, all too consistent, the former approach would have been purely descriptive, and since his writing is topical, the latter would have consisted largely of indexing the articles
Trudeau applies a number of basic principles to politics. These can be summed up as a belief in the dignity and uniqueness of a human being, in human freedom and socially expressed responsibility. On these he builds his conception of the values of political life. He applies them to
Canadian society, and in the process becomes one of the few, genuine polit•
ical thinkers in the country.
In the effort to reflect this pattern of thought, we are dividing
the paper into two main sections: the first to outline Trudeau's philos•
ophic and political commitments and the second, to study his attitudes to
Canadian problems and issues.
The distinction is necessary since, though Trudeau's more general
philosophical ideals stand quite independently of any particular context,
the Canadian analysis rests completely in his philosophy. 6.
The remaining part of the introduction contains bibliographical notes on the essay and a biographical sketch of Trudeau. The bibliograph• ical limitations involved in the research for the paper have been most important in delimiting its scope. Eor this reason it appeared useful to include a brief note on the question. The biography is a brief device to introduce the subject of the study in a general perspective.
The general philosophical section is divided into four chapters.
The first chapter is a discussion of the central place of the individual in his thought, and of his concept of human nature and social relations.
The second seeks to define Trudeau's ideal society and to discuss his be• lief in democracy as the political system closest to the ideal. The third chapter is an attempt to show that, for Trudeau, federalism is the supreme form of democracy.
The fourth chapter deals with the question of rationality and irra• tionality in politics, contrasting the federal with the nationalist alter• natives. For Trudeau, Reason, not some "destiny", is the motive force of human progress; any political system based on irrational goals is consequently unacceptable.
The second section is a treatment of Trudeau's more specific concern
- Canadian and Quebec politics.
The first chapter in the section describes Trudeau's analysis of
Quebec's history wherein he seeks to show that in English-French relations,
the province, as the country, has permitted itself to reach barren stalemate.
This discussion should lead to the question of where Canada stands now, and 7. what are the alternatives open to her. The treatment of this subject
will constitute the second chapter.
The concluding section is envisioned as a critical discussion of
Trudeau's political philosophy, content and style, his place in Canadian
political thought, his importance as a political figure.
d) Bibliography
Our examination is of the pre-Liberal Party Trudeau, the political
thinker, and to this end we have examined all of his printed material within
the scope of Canadian university libraries, from the period between 1950
and 1966.
Even within the purely chronological limitations, we encountered
difficulty in finding a complete bibliography. His articles for Quartier
Latin, if any, were unavailable, and since Le Devoir is just now (1969)
undergoing indexing, we have simply used fragments that were cited else•
where. The main source is undoubtedly Cxti Libre, to which Trudeau contri•
buted consistently from its foundation until 1966. The other major source
was Jacques Hebert's weekly Vrai which appeared in Montreal between 1954
and 1959, at which point it ceased publication after certain revelations
reflecting unfavourably on members of the Quebec hierarchy.
Trudeau appears to have written only one article specifically for
a professional journal, and this highly untechnical piece appeared in the
McGill Law Journal in 1962. The remarkable profusion of his articles in English Canadian periodicals are translations for the most part, although several of his articles appeared originally in English language collections. The now famous "Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec", for which, ostensibly, he won the Governor General's medal is almost a literal transcription, although updated, of an article that appeared in Cite"" Libre in 1952, under the title "Reflexions sur la Politique au Canada Francais". Several of his 4
later articles also tend to be repetitive, though this may be less a re•
flection on him than on the readership that demanded the reiteration of
his basic message without seemingly being able to understand it.
The "monumental" and somewhat mythologized first chapter to " La
Greve da L'Amiante" as well as the completely forgotten epilogue he wrote
in the same volume, have been used in this study, although with what may
strike some readers as unwonted skimpiness. While a very solid and inter•
esting social history of Quebec, "La Province de Quebec a l'Heure de la
Greve" is not in any but a derivative way a philosophical work, and it has
been used here to illustrate his analysis of Quebec's problems and nothing more.
e) Biography
The Trudeau clan dates its arrival in Quebec to the 17th century.
The family lived in Napierville, a somewhat exceptional town in that it lay
4 Most notably the essay "Quebec and the Constitutional Problem", which was originally a brief for submission to the Constitutional Committee of the Quebec Legislative Assembly in March, April -1965. A year later the most significant part of the essay appeared in Cite Libre under the title.,"Le Que'bec, Est-il As siege-", (No. 86, April-May 1966). In 1968 it appeared in Federalism and the French Canadians, MacMillan of Canada,Toronto, 1968. 9. in a progressive farming area on the edge of Eastern Townships, and was bilingual. Trudeau spent his early summers in this environment.
The Elliott family is United Empire Loyalists and Mme. Trudeau was educated in private schools in Ontario. She is also completely bilingual.
But Pelletier feels called upon to be defensive in his mention of her:
Quebecoise, elle aussi, bien au fait de la vie, de la societe canadiennes - frangaises, pas du tout "minoritaire anglophone", ni de mentalite, ni surtout par la langue, puisqu'elle s'exprime en franc_ais avec le plus parfait naturel, a tou- jours fre'quente' des amis de langue franchise et collabore'' aux initiatives culturelles du milieu francophone. 5
Trudeau was born in Montreal in 1919; there went to private grade
school, and later to the French Jesuit College de Jean de Breheuf, rather
than the more assimilationist English Loyola, which many others of the
French Canadian elite preferred.
He travelled widely through the province in this period. Only his
own speeches in the 1968 campaign give us some concrete information on
these trips, but he seems to have wandered both the South and North shores
of the St. Lawrence and struck up further north to Rouyn Noranda, either
by motorcycle, canoe or hitching rides. He also worked in the coal and
iron mines for at least one period of summer vacation.
The first record of his public political activity appears in Le
Devoir's November 26, 1942 issue when he participated in Jean Drapeau's
5 Re'ponses de Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Introduction by Gerard Pelletier. 2e edition, Editions du Jour, Montreal, 1968, p. 13. 10. campaign for "La Ligue pour la Defense du Canada".0 Trudeau's sense of language and sense of humor are obvious in the headline "Finie la Fleche du Conquerant - Vive le Drapeau de la Liberte".'7 The speech starts in a nationalistic tone, but proceeds far more in style to attack the undemo• cratic processes of the Liberal party.
Pelletier speaks of this period:
De'jel, pourtant, c'est l'aspect proprement politique qui retensit son attention plutQt que 1'emotion na- tionaliste soulevee par ces evenements. II s'elevait contre la trahison d'une promesse ... II refusait des moeurs politiques ou la franchise n'avait aucune place. II derendait le droit pour le Quebec de de- mander des comptes a un parti qui l'avait tenu dans 1'illusion, et refusait a la majorite' anglophone le droit de condamner comme traitres ou comme laches des gens qu'on avait berne's par des promesses pour obtenir leurs voix, au lieu de leur presenter courageusement une realite internationale transformed.
II condamnait, au fond, une politique de mensonge larve' de demi-verite's, de louvoiements perpetuels dont le resultat inevitable n'etait que trop evident; on avait encourage'' le Quebec a rester dans son isolement; on lui faisait desormais un crime de n'en pas vouloir sortir. 8
It was probably during this time that politics was revealed as his
true "vocation". After law school in Montreal he went on to an M.A. in
political economy at Harvard, then to Paris and the London School of Econ•
omics. He left there in 1948 before he gained a degree, and the same year
6 Pierre E. Trudeau, Le Devoir, November 26, 1942. 7 General Lafleche was Mackenzie King's candidate in Outremont, and Jean Drapeau was, at the time, a vigorous opponent of Conscription. 8 Re'ponses, Introduction, p. 16. 11. started travelling in what Pelletier calls "des cours pratiques", to exper• ience the social problems of the world first hand, and apparently to have some adventure. He made his "famous" sortie into Koumintang Shanghai in
1949. He came back that year in time to take part in the strike in Asbestos, and paradoxically to join the Federal Service as "economic advisor" to the
Privy Council. In the year and a half that he was in Ottawa he spent week• ends in the founding of Cite Libre, successively to be director, co-editor and writer of the journal until 1966. He left Canada again in 1952, toured
Africa and visited the U.S.S.R., sending a series of reports to Le Devoir, 1© critical of the English position in Egypt and of Western views of Russia.
He was to travel constantly and almost always on a shoestring.
Apart from this consistency, he was a "dabbler", albeit an incredibly ef• fective one. Though called to the bar, he seems not to have practiced,yet he acted as legal counsel to the C.S.N., and to Jacques Hebert, when the latter faced contempt charges arising out of the Coffin case.^ He wrote for Cite* Libre and contributed to Hebert's weekly Vrai - the organ of sev• eral political reform groups, such as the Comite pour la Moralite* Politique and Drapeau's Ligue de L'action Civique. His first series of ten articles for Vrai in 1956 were excerpts from the introductory essay to "La Greve de
1 'Amiante", The book appeared the same year and drew strong reactions from
9 Reposes, Introduction, p. 20. 10 Trudeau, Le Devoir, February 2, 5 and June 14,16,17,18,19,20,21,1952. 11 Trudeau, "Au Palais de Justice", Vrai, February 22, 1958. p.5. 12. all sides and violent, if ineffectual rebuttals from its main target - 12 the Quebec elite. During the 1950's Trudeau became actively involved in two popular fronts of democratic opposition to the Union Nationale. Of these, the Rassemblement was a failure, and the Union des Forces Democrat - ique in the final analysis was only a partial success. The failure of the
CCF. to lend its support to the U.F.D. turned Trudeau against the Social• ist party.
He continued to travel and to write. "Deux Innocents en Chine" is the fruit of six weeks spent in China in 1961. The year also marked the
Quiet Revolution in Quebec, and Trudeau, who for years had been excluded from an academic post in the province, joined the Law faculty at University of Montreal, to become a member and later, director of a newly founded Institut de la Recherche en Droit Publique.
He continued to write for Citd Libre while at Montreal and was in• volved in commissions dealing with the constitution for the Privy Council.
Then in 1965, he, Pelletier and Jean Marchand shocked their socialist col•
leagues at Cite Libre by joining the Liberal Party and deciding to run for
Parliament. Why Trudeau in particular chose to do this is open to a number of interpretations, but most clearly it stems from his ever changing reaction to Quebec's political reality. 12 Jacques Cousineau, S.J. "Notes dans la Merge de la Greve de l'Amiante - Contribution critique a une recherche." Les Cahiers de l'Institute Social Populaire, No. 4, September, 1958. Francois Albert Angers also wrote a long series of articles in L'Action Nationale in rebuttal to Trudeau. 13.
Trudeau's changing relations with a changing Quebec are reflected 13 in his work and fall roughly into four segments. The period between
1950 and 1958 was possibly Trudeau's finest and purest as a zealous social critic. There was virtually nothing in Quebec's socio-economic political structure, except the unions, of which he could approve. It was a period 14 of total blackness, total war, and he spared no one.
Trudeau was convinced that Quebec's fundamental evil, its nation• alism, prevented the growth of Democracy in the province. The import of his realization can only be fully appreciated given a sense of Trudeau's expectations of democracy which will be outlined further in this paper.
Trudeau fought to wake the Reason of the elite prisoners of "nationalism".
He spared no effort and practically no conventions or politeness or toler• ance in decrying what he saw as Quebec's almost hopelessly reactionary social structure. Then in 1958, Trudeau sensed the first signs of the death crisis
of this reactionary Quebec. Ironically and almost alone, he saw it in
Quebec's support of John Diefenbaker and the Conservatives. Regardless
of the rather low opinion he had of both, Trudeau was elated. Quebec was
at last on the threshold of democracy. It seemed to have shaken off, it
appeared to Trudeau, the archaic ideas of Ottawa as a distant battleground 13 Re ponses, Introduction. Pp. 18-25. 14 Pierre E. Trudeau, "De la Verite' et de la Liberte en Politique: Les Canadiens Francais et le Defi Fe'ae'ral", J.P. Meekison, ed., Canadian Federalism: Myth or Reality, Methuen, Toronto, 1968, p. 3 91. 14. for the preservation of the race. For the first time Quebecers voted for a party because of economic and social proposals, rather than because it posed as the defender of the French Canadian race.^ The nationalist ideology had, Trudeau felt, at last began to lose its grip, and democracy was on the ascendant.
Between 1958 and 1960 his hopes mounted; the Union Des Forces
Democratiques. though it failed to get the C.C.F.'s support, helped in the somewhat tainted consummation of the years of the bitter struggle for democracy in Quebec - the overthrow of the Union Nationale. Trudeau would have liked to have voted for a socialist party but he blamed the
CCF. for refusing to respect the U.F.D. 's mild nationalism. They lost their chance in Quebec and their ostracized potential leader, Ren/ Levesque, 16 broke away to help lead the Quiet Revolution.
The two years to the end of 1962 were years of mingled anticipation,
satisfaction and apprehension for Trudeau. Then in May 1962 the prodigal
son, who found his home in the New Quebec, decided once again to return
partially to exile. He had not joined the Liberals, though as early as
1954 he had been invited to In any case, he returned to the attack in
"Les Progres de 1'Illusion". 15 Trudeau, "Note sur la Conjoncture Politique", Cite'Libre, #49, August, September 1962, p. 2. 16 Trudeau, "L'Homme de Gauche et les Elections Provinciales - L'Opinions de Pierre E. Trudeau", Cite^Libre, # 51, November, 1962, p. 5. 17 Georges Lapalme in an interview, January 17, 1970 on C.B.C. Montreal programme Hourglass. Some indications for his reasons not to do so may be found in: Trudeau, "L'Avenir du Pajrti Liberal", Vrai, November, 8, 1956,p. 9. 15.
The Quebec Revolution had achieved some reform, talked about more, but was changing nothing fundamental. His fears in 1960 that the Liberals would stagnate if not alert to the corruptive influence of power seemed to have come true. The democratic revolution was not at all complete and it 18 would be a mistake to take a new progressive Quebec for granted.
Trudeau had not changed his target. In 1962 he was still calling for basic social reform in Quebec. He warned then, and he was to inten•
sify the warning later on that the forces of reaction were far from dead, that the Union Nationale was still to be reckoned with. Nationalism had 19
risen in a new guise to pose a greater danger to Quebec than ever before.
As he felt the revolution betrayed, his attacks became more vehement.
As he saw the appeal of this ideology infect those whom he felt
were the most able to lead Quebec into modernity, the student and the young
generally, he came to emphasize a theme that he had previously relegated to
a secondary place. The failure and possibilities of the Canadian federa•
tion which had always been overshadowed in his thought by the internal
questions of establishing democracy in Quebec, now took dominance in his
writing. The failure of democracy in Quebec stemmed from problems within
the Confederation. The inability of English Canadians to treat French 18 Trudeau, "Les Progres de 1'Illusion", Cite'* Libre, # 47, May, 1962, p. 1, 2. 19 Trudeau, "Note sur la Conjoncture Politique", Cite'' Libre, # 49, August, September, 1962, p. 2-3. 16.
Canadians as equal citizens in the country as a whole and even in Quebec was largely to blame for the Province's intellectual and political history of isolation.
Trudeau became convinced that the solutions to Quebec's problems had to come from the country as a whole. It was probably instrumental in his decision to enter politics. He wrote as much in explanation of the decision to friends and readers in 1965:
Par ailleurs, nous pensons que le nationalisme extrelniste est presque toujours le produit d'un echec; 1'inaptitude des regimes ant/rieurs a in- staurer la justice dans le secteur ethnique. Sans doute que la facon la plus efficace de gu/rir 1' alienation nationaliste, c'est d'instaurer un re• gime meilleur. C'est a cela aussi que nous vou- lons nous employer. 21
20 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cit/ Libre,# 46, April, 1962, p. 8. 21 Pierre E. Trudeau et Gerard Pelletier, "Pelletier et Trudeau s'expli- quent," Cit/ Libre, # 80, October 1965, p. 4. CHAPTER II
MAN, SOCIETY, THE STATE a) Introduction
There are potent objections to undertaking this following
chapter, let alone including it in the main body of the work. The
evidence is extremley skimpy. Yet the political thought that Trudeau has championed for twenty years is based on these rarely and vaguely
stated, but all too clear and evident premises about the nature of man 22 and society.
Trudeau has never published a philosophical essay. It would
have made the researcher's chore a good deal easier if he had done so,
and more important, it would have made Trudeau for better or for worse,
much less of a mystery to his readers, to his political colleagues, his
"fans" and his enemies. The inner contradictions of the testimonials
and criticisms alone make it obvious that they were based on an inability
to understand what Trudeau has been saying for so long. This public
mystery illustrates a serious shortcoming in what is a broad body of pol•
itical writing.. Trudeau, for reasons we can only guess, has never fully
explained himself. Though all his thought in concrete issues rests on
the basic premises we shall try to outline in this chapter, he has not
22 At times in this paper, the statement of these premises may seem too much like a catechism. Given Trudeau's statement of these beliefs however, any less descriptive an approach would confuse the presentation and misrepresent the subject. 18. made the effort to state them. Perhaps they seemed so obvious to him that he felt it only natural that all intelligent men of good will would feel them self evident; his inability to engage those whose premises differ
fundamentally from his own, most notably the nationalists of Quebec,would
support the hypothesis. b) Man
Ge qui prime toute autre consideration quand on fait le choix d'un systeme politique, c'est la personne humaine. Non pas la personne comme notion abstraite; ce qui importe ,ce sont les gens biens concrete ... 23
Though this is electioneering rhetoric from 1968, Trudeau has
clearly felt it for a long time. What is his conception of this "per•
sonne bien concrete"?
We can extract the essence in the following:
La liberte' est un don gratuit, un attribut de naissance qui distingue l'homme de la btte. 24
Trudeau's idea of human Freedom is very structured and quite
specific. Man is Alone, and hence at least negatively free, owing no
obligation to anything outside himself. This is only the first prere•
quisite of "human freedom", however. It is Reason that makes man aware
of Loneliness, of his freedom. This awareness of self is unique to man,
23 Reponses. Pg. 111. From a speech delivered to the Richelieu Club in Montreal, April 2, 1968. 24 Trudeau, "Les Chemeniments de la Politique - IX - Un Etat Fait sur Mesure," Vrai, April 12, 1958,p.7. 19. though the existential freedom is common to all things. Reason on a practical level is most basically the application of this realization to thought and action. In other words, it is "pragmatism". In making man aware of his loneliness, Reason makes man the measure of all things, the goal of all human action. In the awareness of an independent self is the element of independent action, of free choice, and unavoidably total in• dividual responsibility.
Trudeau judges human action in terms of this freedom. The freer the act, the better the act. Human freedom _is Reason, and since Reason in act•
ion is pragmatism, the more pragmatic act, the freer, the better. It is just this spirit of pragmatism that motivates man to join society.
" ... les hommes vivant ensemble puissent se realiser plus pleinement que s'ils vivaient seyoarement" 25
Society has no other purpose or justification than service to the
individual.
Si les hommes ne pouvaient (pas) orienter leurs efforts collectifs a cette fin ils ser- aient mieux d'aller vivre tout seuls dans les bois et sur les collines. 26
It is interesting that though Trudeau assigns the social side of
human life so great an importance, he sees society itself as so expendable.
25 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - VII - Saper la Majeste de l'Etat", Vrai,March 29, 1958, p. 7. 26 Loc. Cit. 20.
By making society a "simple arrangement of convenience" that can as easily be repudiated as it was espoused, Trudeau lays the basis of his position on all social and political questions. The connection between the individ• ual and the society, the individual and any collectivity is always depen- 27 dant on the individual. It is up to him to judge the degree to which it satisfies him; indeed it is his duty to do so.
This duty devolves around Trudeau's general concept of Morality.
Reason makes man free, and hence freedom means responsibility; res• ponsibility in its turn is one facet of yet another element - morality.
Morality is the acceptance of individual responsibility, the exercise of freedom on a plane slightly higher than, though incorporating the pragmatic.
It is more than pure reason; it is meant to be "social reason" - a form of enlightened self interest, modified by incorporating an extraenous element, the "golden rule".
Trudeau doesn't introduce the concept of human dignity and equality
as a way of modifying what may seem too cynical a view of human nature. It
is elemental to his concept of man. Man is free; the social corollary of
individual freedom is that all individuals are free and that one person
cannot exercise his freedom to the detriment of the freedom of others, be•
cause in doing so, he denies the essence of human freedom in himself. In
effect this "golden rule" is another aspect of human pragmatism.
The preservation of human Freedom is Trudeau's central preoccupa•
tion in discussing the individual in society. 27 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique'- VI - Obe'ir, Mais k
Qui?" Vrai, March 22, 1958, p. 2(for example). L'homme 'disait Renan' n'appertient ni a sa langue, ni a sa race; il n'appartient qu'a. lui meme, car c'est un etre libre, c'est-a- dire un etre moral". 28
The social corollary of this is that,
A / " L'ordre social et politique doit etre fonde au premier chef sur les attributs universels de l'homme, non sur ce qui le particularise. Un ordre de priorite, au niveau politique et social, qui repose sur la personne est total- ement incompatible avec un ordre de priorite appuye sur la race, la religion, ou la nation• ality. 29
Society brings the moral face of freedom to the fore. Outside the social context, the moral quality of man refers only to the fact that he is alone responsible for the efficiency of the methods he used for sur• vival. With the entry into social relations, this pragmatism has to be judged on yet another level. For the question of efficiency refers not only to the survival of the individual now, but to all the individuals who are affected by the decision; the quality of the act has now to be judged by the added dimension of its effect on other human beings. It is unavoid able then that in considering social actions, means and ends are judged to gether. Every act or every failure to act is judged in terms of morality or social pragmatism, in terms of how successfully it reaches how valuable a goal, and how in the process it affects others.
28 Julien Benda, La Trahison Des Clercs. Paris, 1946, p. 143, quoted in Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite Libre, # 46, April 1962, p. 6. 29 Trudeau, et.al. "Pour Une Politique Fonctioncielle", Cite Libre, # 67, May 1964, p. 11. 22.
For example:
" ... lorsqu'une forme donne*e d1 autorite' brime un homme injustement, c'est tous les autres hommes qui en sont coupables; car ce sont eux qui par leur silence et consentement permettent a l'au- torite' de commettre cet abus. S'il cessaient de consentir, 1' autorite'tomberait. 30
31
Since Trudeau accepts man's sociability as a given, it is not unnatural that his conception of morality equates the personal and the political. The power that society has in molding individuals, in regu• lating their affairs, makes it imperative that people participate in the society's activity and do so morally. " Ce qu'il en coffte aux gens de ne pas s'occuper de politique, c'est d'etre gouvernes par des gens pires qu'eux me\nes." 32
Trudeau prefaced his long series of articles in Vrai with this dictum. Individual freedom, and individual responsibility in society
are inseperable from freedom and responsibility in the society as a whole.
In order to be moral on the personal level it is essential that the indi•
vidual participate in the guiding of the society, in the actions of the
society. This participation is Trudeau's broadest understanding of Politics.
Man created not only his own environment, but that of all his fellows
through society; if he tries to abrogate his social responsibility, he denies
30 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - IV - Le Juste Doit Aller en Prison", Vrai, March 8, 1958, p. 4. 31 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - III - Pour Pre'venir Les Seditions", Vrai, March 1, 1958, p. 5. 32 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique,,- I - Gouverne's par des Me'diocres", Vrai, February 15, 1958, p. 5. 23. responsibility not only for others but for his own actions through the society as well. If he does not participate but allows and accepts the decisions made in the name of society, he has simply lost his freedom and any possibility of a full individuality. The concrete results of such behaviour are what Trudeau has used Plato to say; the destiny of the society and the individual not only pass into other hands but hands that are necessarily worse than his own would have been if he had parti• cipated. Those who would accept the individual's abrogation of his free• dom and take advantage of it to exercise power over others are immoral and bound for failure.
Trudeau adopts a quantitative approach to social morality. When one man or a few men decide the actions of many, not only have they rob• bed others of their freedom, but they have condemned themselves and the
society to failure. In robbing people of their freedom, they had also
to let the society to do without the people's pragmatism.
" Les tyrans pr/tendent toujours fonder leur ordre social sur le bien commun et sur le bien de la race, mais ils se re'servent a eux memes le droit de definir ces biens, et leurs lois obligent les citoyens a agir en consequence. OE pretendre qu'un ou plusiers dirigeants sav- ent mieux que le plus grand nombre quel ensem• ble d'actes est bon pour tous c'est porter at- teinte au fondement meme de la mora lite' sociale. Car un acte n'est bon et ne peut avoir de valeur morale que s'il est librement voulu, c'est k dire choisi par la conscience eclairee de celui qui le pose". 33
But the power of the few to decide,is no more than the decision
33 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - V - Faut-il Assassiner le Tyran?" Vrai, March 15, 1958, p. 4. 24.
-of the many to obey. Trudeau comes doggedly back to this point. Polit•
ical power is simply political obedience. The quality of the decision to
obey is the key to the form of society a people will have. If obedience
is the product of pragmatism, the act of responsibility of the citizen,
the society's leadership shall always rest in the hands of the people.
On the other hand,
11 Un Etat ou les citoyens se^desinteressent de ^ la chose politique est vouee a 1'esclavage."
What is it then that will determine the quality of the people's
decision to obey?
It is worthwhile to ask Trudeau this question if only to demon•
strate the stupidity of the claim that he is a "Marxist". His concept of
man and society are fundamentally opposite to those of "Scientific Social•
ism". They both see a "Dynamic" to history, but where Marxists see it in
economics, Trudeau saw it in the individual's search for freedom through
Reason.
" Le progres pour l'humanite, c 'est son lent ^ acheminement vers la liberte de la personne."
Men are not determined by class or economics or anything else.
They are their own destiny. They are free and able to understand their
34 Trudeau, "Manifeste pour Une Politique Fonctionnelle II", Cite Libre, Vol. 1, # 2, February 1951, p. 28. 35 Trudeau, "Les Separatistes: Des Contre-Revolutionnaires", Cite Libre, # 67, May 1964, p. 4. 25. society to the point where they can consciously use it, change it. Given correct information, man will institute the necessary changes that morality dictates. He is not predetermined.
In concluding a discussion of nationalism, for instance, he quotes
Father Delos' "La Nation"
" La question est de savoir si l'homme est fait pour abonder en son £tre historique, si I'his- toire est au dessus de 1 'homme, si l'humain ne constitue pas une reserve qui deborde toute culture, toute civilisation re'alisee par l'his- toire et portant un nom de Citef si ce n'est pas nier la valeur de l'homme que de la reauire I s' identifier avec un peuple." 36
The argument applies with equal validity to a definition by economic class as to one by 'blood'.
Marx's Moral Individual is born once the dialectic has eradicated economic classes. Trudeau disagrees; for him the inequalities are elim• inated by moral man, not classes. Men are free to act, and have a respon• sibility to do so. The key to action is the awareness whose quality will determine the quality of the action.
Just as the oppressed can accept their oppression only until they become aware of it, the oppressors too reject oppression when they become aware of it. In effect thought can, does and should precede practice.
Trudeau stands Marx on his head, for where Marx counted on the coincidence
36 J.T. Delos, La Nation Montreal, 1944, Vol. I, p. 196 quoted in Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite Libre # 46, April, 1962, p. 6-7. 26. of oppressive objective conditions and subjective awareness by the op• pressed of both their power and their oppression to start the revolution,
Trudeau sees pure pragmatism as the force of change. If material condi• tions become intolerable, awareness will make revolution inevitable. But it is precisely this that Trudeau hopes will be forestalled by an aware- 37 ness before the final deterioration makes violence unavoidable.
He agrees with the existence of a "false consciousness", but de• nies that it is surmountable only in a material dialectic. On the con• trary it can be, it must be eradicated before material misery forces ignorant people to realize the shortcomings of their society. But
Trudeau's false consciousness does not relate to economics. It is con• cerned with the perennial issue of freedom and responsibility.
On peut done dire que la force des gouvernements vient d'une disposition psychologique chez la plupart des gens a croire qu'il est "bon" d'obe^ir et "mauvais" de "de*sobeir . .. La disposition psychologique a" l'obeissanee est e'galement entretenue dans la masse par tous ceux qui exercent quelque forme d' autorite' ... de la sorte, on est assure d'/lever un bon petit peuple avec lequel on n'aura pas d'histoxres. L' autorite' a condition qu'elle ne depasse pas toutes les bornes de la stupidite' . . . est bien certaine de rester en place. 38
37 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XVII - Un Me'pris de Legislature", Vrai, June 7, 1958, p.7. 38 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - IV - Le Juste Doit Aller en Prison", Vrai, March 8, 1958, p. 4. This "obedience" is not "natural" to man, on the contrary:
Les hommes croient qu'il est bon d'obeir a de telles personnes et k de telles lois parce que ces hommes sont nes et ont grandi dans une civilisation ou on leur a dit que cela est naturel. 39 But "Man does not live by bread alone, and he will never be content until the dichotomy between those who may arbitrarily command and those who must humbly obey is abolished." 40
It is up to the individual to question his obedience to make it 41 contingent on the degree to which the laws he obeys satisfy him.
Society is man's tool for controlling and shaping his environment.
The attainment of these ends is possible only if the individual uses the society he has created^and uses it effectively.
The awareness of human freedom, of the cooperative nature of society, of individual responsibility for social as well as personal action, is the means to assure a just society. This awareness, this "correct consciousness",
is an integral part of any society's history. It varies only in the mode of
its arrival. Should it be the desparate product of misery, it becomes a cat•
alyst for violent action*, if it is a constant presence, it is the element of
equity and harmony in the society's affairs. It is the people's responsibil-
39 Loc. Cit. 40 Pierre E. Trudeau, "Economic Rights", McGill Law Review, Vol. 8, No.2, June, 1962, p. 124. 41 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - V - Faul-il Assassiner le Tyran?" Vrai, March 15, 1958, p. 4. 28. ity to charge the state with fostering awareness; giving it both expressi and power. . . . 1'Etat ne pourra et ne devra faire que les lois qui correspondent en gros a ce que les citoyens veulent; autrement ils de'sobeiront aux lois en attendant de renverser l'Etat. Conse- quement les lois ont pour (leur) fonction d'e^iuquer le citoyen sur le bien general, de le persuader a agir en vue de 1'interSt commun bien plus que de commander et de contraindre. 42
Trudeau reaffirms his faith in men, when he quotes Jefferson's dictum: Je ne connais de depositaire sur pour les ultimes pouvoirs de la societe que le peuple lui-meme; et si nous ne croyons pas que le peuple soit assez eclaire pour exercer son autorite avec une salu- taire discretion, le remede n'est pas de nier son authorite mais d'eduquer sa discretion. 43
The question then is what society will be the one most conducive
to this end? To answer this, we must first specify what Trudeau expects
of the society for the individual.
Les hommes vivent en societe afin que chacun puisse se realiser au maximum; et l'autorite n'a de justification que pour permettre l'in- stauration et le developement d'un ordre qui favorise une telle realisation. 44
42 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de laPolitiqu e - IX -Un Etat Fait sur Mesure," Vrai, April 12, 1958, p 7. 43 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de laPolitiqu e - XX - Pour que vive la Democratie", Vrai, July 8, 1958,p . 7. 44 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de laPolitiqu e - IV -Le Juste Doit Aller en Prison," Vrai, March 8, 1958,p . 4. 29.
Society has value only insofar as it furthers the purpose for which
men joined it. This end is Liberty, personal freedom pragmatically defined.
But studying the complication of this concept leads us into a philosophical
dimension. For Trudeau, freedom occupies a secondary place; it is only a
means, not necessarily the "final end". Self-perfection is the final end
for which the individual uses society; freedom within the society is the
secondary end permitting this perfection.
This belief is a corollary of his faith in individualism. Man must
act for himself, pit himself against the elements that act upon him, and do
his best to emerge freer, wiser. This final perfection is nowhere described
by Trudeau. He emphasizes freedom as an ultimate social value, presumably
since it is a prerequisite, one still remote enough to require clear defin•
ition and defense, whereas human perfection is too remote and personal an issue for profitable speculation.
He refuses to deal with the question of individual perfection for a
more positive reason. Self perfection is after all a totally private enter•
prise by definition - an act of personal morality which the society should
encourage with amenable environment, but never interfere with. Trudeau is
not a philosopher or theologian, he is a social critic whose goal is the
establishment of a society to permit the individual a full possibility of
self perfection. He refuses doubly since his society is based on Free Will.
Here Trudeau is very much a classical eighteenth century 'philosophe1, be•
lieving in human perfectability given "freedom and the facts". 30.
... it must be borne in mind that the idea of a better life can be interpreted according to many different standards ... economic pres• sures may be counterbalanced by moral,patriotic or sentimental forces. 45
The evidence does not permit us to speculate further on Trudeau's philosophical foundations. It is necessary only to understand that individ ual freedom is the highest social goal; beyond that, questions become irrel evant, for once the individual is able to achieve freedom, he will have to achieve enlightenment alone and internally. c) Society and The State
To understand the relation of man and society, we must first exam• ine "society" in more detail. Simply put, Trudeau's society is a given aggregation of individuals and groups of individuals bound together for while common purposes, and which/by no means necessarily complementary, con• stantly interact.
The purpose of a social structure above the particular infra•
structures, what Trudeau calls the state, is twofold. On the one hand,
it is to regulate the conflict of the particular structures and on the
other to act positively for the promotion of the common good. It is also
far more than this. It is the one instrument that the whole society shares
in promoting its welfare.^ 45 Pierre E. Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians. "Quebec and the Constitutional Problem", The MacMillan Co. of Canada Ltd., Toronto. 1968, p. 10. 46 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - VII - Saper la Majeste de l'Etat", Vrai, March 29, 1958,p.7 This makes the relationship between the people and the state int• imate. The individual has an obligation to use social structures only as long as he feels them useful. But, says Trudeau, he is obliged to partic• ipate in the use of the state because the state is always relevant, always affects the individual. It is the tool for the direction of the society by the society.
Or L'Etat, c'est pre'cisement l1 instrument par lequel la societe' humaine s'organise et s'ex- prime collectivement. 47
Since man is man only if he is responsible for his actions, man
as member of society must be responsible for the actions of the state.
Politics, the participation in the use of the state, becomes a moral imper•
ative in Trudeau's society.
The state's highly complex role is to fill society's mission to
liberate the individual. It is the people's shield and their means to
the promotion of their welfare, functions which in application can become
dangerously close to contradicting each other.
The balance between these roles is a theme to which he returns often,
as is another, that the state can function well only under strict control.
Trudeau's concept of the state as servant makes it essential that it always
be held responsible, that it never rise above the individual in society,that
it serve as the membership of society wants it to serve, not as it feels is
47 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - VII - Saper la Majeste de l'Etat", Vrai, March 29, 1958, p. 7. 32. the best way to do so. 48 The expressed and sovereign authority of the people is the most pragmatic guide the state could have. The people should know to what degree priority should be assigned to freedom or welfare, to what degree, in short, the state may act.
The forces influencing human decision are many and varied, And this is precisely where political fac• tors become important.
The state may resist certain pressures, but not others ... But the state must take great care not to infringe on the conscience of the individual. I believe that in the last analysis, a human being in the privacy of his own mind has the exclusively auth• ority to choose his own scale of values and to decide which forces will take precedence over others. A good constitution is one that does not prejudge any of these questions, but leaves citizens free to orient their human destines as they see fit. 49
As we shall see later, this kind of thought underlies Trudeau's
firm commitment to a federalist society. All sizes and forms of organiza•
tion have a value, since different social tasks require different tools.
The value of a social structure lies totally in its fitness, moral, and
practical for the task assigned to it. This judgement applies to all as-
sociational groups, and is equally valid for the state; it too must -accom•
modate itself constantly to meet the demands placed on it by citizens, who
in turn are influenced by changing forms of social organization, changing
48 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XIII - L'Homme d'Etat: un serviteur", Vrai, May 18, 1958, p. 7. 49 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Con• stitutional Problem11, p. 11. 33. styles of technology. No form of government is sacred, and is to be valued only so long as it can respond effectively and acceptably to the peoples' demands as they arise:
... aucun gouvernement ni aucun regime n'a un droit (absolu) a 1'eXistence. II n'est pas de droit divin, ni de droit naturel, ni contrat social qui tienne ici: un gouvernement c'est une organisation dont la fonction est de sat- isfaire les besoins des hommes et des femmes, qui groupes en societe7, acceptent d'y obe'ir. Consequemment la valeur d'un gouvernement ne de'coule pas des promesses qu'il fait, ni de ce qu'il pre'tend eNire, ni de ce qu'il affirme prote'ger: la valeur d'un gouvernement reside dans ce qu'il accomplit en pratique, et c'est a chaque citoyen d'en juger. 50
This firmly puts the state in its place; the individual is re•
affirmed as the ultimate legitimate decision maker in society. Since
the state is only an instrument to execute these decisions, then the
judgment (and judgment there must be) of the state is to be solely in
terms of its responsiveness to the wishes of the people.
Oe qu'est-ce que les citoyens desirent? Voila. la question que doit sans cesse poser tout gouvernement democratique. Et c'est ici que- mieux que tout autre - l'Etat democratique met a* profit la liberte** cre*atrice des personnes vivant en societe. Car s'il veut instaurer un ordre auquel les citoyens consentiront a. adherer, l'Etat doit non seulement s'enquerir de leurs besoins, il doit aussi les encourager a re'clamer ce qu'ils estiment juste.
50 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - V - Eaut-il Assasiner le Tyran?" Vrai, March 15, 1958, p. 4. 34.
Dans un tel Etat, la liberte* des citoyens est voulue pour elle mime; les autorite's n'en con- siderent pas l'expression avec irritation,mais la souhaitent au contraire et la favorisent ^ comme le plus sur des guides vers le bien commun.
Only a state that values the will of the individual for its own sake, and as a guide to action will successfully respond to the challenges before it. Trudeau puts it in the following way:
Nationhood being little more than a state of mind, and every sociologically distinct group within the nation having a contingent right of secession, the will of the people was in con• stant danger of splitting up - unless it were transformed into lasting concensus. ... A concensus can be said to exist when no group within the nation feels that its vital inter• ests and particular characteristics could be better preserved by withdrawing from the na• tion than by remaining within.
A (modern) state needs to preserve and develop this concensus as its very life. 52
d) The State's Duties
Just the maintenance of freedom is a goal of the state. Hence in
"laissez faire" it fulfills a duty, one it may have to balance against a
need for material improvement, but one it cannot repudiate in any case.
51 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XVII - Un Mepris de Legislature", Vrai, June 7, 1958, p. 7. 52 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism, and Reason", p. 189. Originally delivered to a joint meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association and the Association of Canadian Law Teachers in June 1964, and subsequently published in P.A. Crepeau and C.B. Mac- Pherson (eds.), The Future of Canadian Federalism, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1965. 35.
The means (the relation of state to people) and the ends (in part this same relation of the state to the people) once again prove inseper- ablv-, e x• n social action.5 3 The state's role in ensuring individual freedom is many faceted:
it must not only desist from overruling or stifling individualism but it
has the obligation to control those particular forces within society that
may detract from individual freedom.
Mon ide'e d'un Etat "fait sur mesure" s'applique abondamment ici: L'Etat ne doit user de force que dans la mesure ou des personnes ou des organ• isations tentent elles-m§mes d'en user contra le bien commun. S'il est vrai qu'en derni^re analyse, l'Etat doit devenir le monopole de la force, ce n'est pas tant pour en faire usage que pour empe^cher quelqu'un d'autre den usurper les foudres. 54
But the state's role as champion of the "bien commun" goes beyond
the preservation of the fundamental civil and human rights and the protec
tion of the public good from the power of particular interest; the state
must guarantee such a degree of material welfare as to permit the individ
ual to experience full enjoyment of his freedom. The case for economic rights might then be stated as follows: Since economic goods are necessary to satisfy the needs of mankind, and since these goods - to become serviceable - must in some way be produced, it follows that every social order should guarantee the rights of man, as a consumer, and as a producer. As a producer, man has a right to demand from society that it offer him a market
53 Trudeau, "Practice and Theory of Federalism" in Federalism and the French Canadians, p. 124, and e.g. "Quebec and the Constitutional Problem" in Federalism and the French Canadians, p. 12. 54 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XVII - Un Mepris de Legislature", Vrai, June 7, 1958, p. 7. for his useful labour ... As a consumer, man has a right to a share of the total pro• duction of society, sufficient to enable him to develop his personality to the fullest extent possible. 55
This passage bears testimony to Trudeau's concern with the balance between freedom and welfare. Though liberalism is the most overt philosophy of freedom, in practice its ability to guarantee the individual's economic welfare has been woefully insufficient. A state whose philosophy is based on a dedication to the principle that least interference in the social forces constitutes the best form of government is patently out of place in societies where powerful infrastructures constantly jeopardize the material freedom of
the individual citizen. Though liberalism was an acceptable philosophy at a
time when material progress was hindered by state interference, it is for the
identical reason as unacceptable at a time when unrestrained capitalism hin•
ders individual freedom. In both cases it affected the struggle of society
to achieve a higher material level for its members. During the Industrial
Revolution liberal democracy replaced an outdated state structure; in the
case of the "corporate, post-industrial revolution" it itself became the
backward system which begged to be replaced.
As Trudeau puts it, "That ... erroneous concept of (private) pro•
perty has erected a wall of prejudice against reform and a wall of money again
democratic control."
55 Trudeau, "Economic Rights", McGill Law Review, p. 122, June 1962, Vol.8, No. 2. 56 Ibid., p. 125. Yet if this society does not evolve an entirely new set of values, if it does not set itself urgently to producing those services which pri• vate enterprise is failing to produce,if it is not determined to plan its development for the good of all rather than for the luxury of a few, and if every citizen fails to consider himself as the co-insurer of his fellow citizen against all socially-engineered economic calamities, it is vain to hope that Canada will ever really reach freedom from fear and freedom from want. 57
Quant a moi, il me semble evident que le regime de la libre entreprise s'est avere incapable de r£soudre adequatement les problemes qui se posent dans le domaine, de l'education, de la sante, de I'habitation, du plein emploi etc. C'est pourquoi personellement je suis convaincu que devant les boulversements promis par 1'automation, la cyber- netique et l'ehergie thermonucleaire,la democratic liberate ne pourra pas long-temps satisfaire nos exigences grandissantes pour la justice et la lib- erte, et qu'elle devra evoluer vers des formes de democratie sociale. 58
The belief in democratic socialism is integral to Trudeau's com• mitment to human liberation. But Socialism, as expressed in the state's sophisticated and responsible use of power for the regulation of powerful private interests, and for a more equitable distribution of the society's resources, is valuable only as means to freeing the individual for self fulfilment. Consequently, it should be no surprise when he proceeds:
/ v Mais je prefere renoncer au socialisme plutot que d'admettre qu'on doiveledifier sur des fondements non democratiques: la Russie nous a demontre que c'est la voie du totalitarisme. Quant au "national" - socialisme, tres peu pour moi, merci bien. 59
57 Ibid., p. 125. 58 Trudeau, "Un Manifeste Democratique", Cite'Libre, # 22, October 1958, p. 21. 59 Ibid., p. 20. 38.
For the state then as for the individual in social act±on}means and ends are Inseperable. In the final analysis both are only means to a
final end - inner human freedom and perfection. Both ends and means of
social action affect people and the good effects of one cannot excuse
the bad effects of the other.
So the state's role is most delicate. If its means are autocratic,
if it imposes more on the individual than harmony requires, it violates
freedom. But if on the other hand, it does not impose itself enough, it
fails as well. Omission and commission can be equally sinful.
The sword's edge on which the state must balance - between auto•
cracy and anarchy - is being constantly honed with the progress of social
complexity, for as the social forces increase in size and number, the scope
of the state's intervention has to grow and the chance of totalitarianism
grows with it. Let us follow Trudeau's exposition of this dilemma:
" ... states are free to intervene in the action of demographic, economic and technical forces, but they must pay the price of their interven• tion." 60
We get a taste of the complexity as he proceeds:
In a very general way these /^social objectives*/ consist in so organizing a political community that all its members have the essential, before a few are allowed to enjoy the superfluous. 61
60 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Con• stitutional Problem", p. 14. 61 Ibid., p. 25. 39.
But this goal does not necessarily mean a set of dirigistic pol• icies. On the contrary, Trudeau presents us with a rather conservative view of the state's relations with the economy:
Economic forces operating ... according to certain laws but unhampered by administrative red tape or territorial barriers-will tend to enrich the community as a whole. 62
Once the economy accords with certain basic social norms, it must
be left as free as possible to develop on its own. Economic just as all
other social structures perform a role in human liberation and must be
encouraged rather than set upon. Government protection can only hurt the
economy by limiting the competition it has to meet, and thus discouraging 63 the essential technological progress which free markets stimulate.
Beyond the problems in the state's economic involvement lurk
complexities still: ... social objectives sometimes conflict with economic objectives; and whereas the latter can only command limited state intervention, the former can command a great deal. For example, automation is good for the progress of industry but bad for the labourer who becomes redundant as a result; and a state that allows automation must also be responsible for the workers affected by it. 64
"The conflict is not always easy to resolve ..." and although it
is obvious that Trudeau always places the social objectives above the
62 Loc.cit. 63 Ibid., p. 22. 64 Ibid., p. 25. 40. economic, the latter is the means to the former, " ... unless the economy is fundamentally sound, a strong progressive social policy can be neither 6 5 conceived or applied", and thus social priorities have constantly to be redefined in terms of economic feasibility. But we have still not reached the limits of the state's respon- sibilities.
We have seen that the state must occasionally intervene in the play of economic forces to better ensure the pursuit of social objectives. But it must not stop here; if it does we could find ourselves promoting the development of a community that was rich, technologically advan• ced, equitably structured, but completely deper• sonalized. 66
An inevitable cultural levelling Trudeau asserts, follows uniform affluence. As the consumer becomes the mass man, the definition of the taste and mores of the society come to be seen in terms of the lowest
common denominator , as simply the readiest level at which to gear pro•
duction. Though Trudeau gives disproportionately and surprisingly short
treatment to the subject of cultural freedom, it is clearly an indispen•
sable part of a good society.
Creative liberty can only flourish in cultural heterogeneity, and
so material progress must be offset with a spiritual, a cultural freedom,
to ensure that man can enjoy technology and that machines and production
economics do not create a "consumer" man.
65 Ibid., p. 26. 66 Ibid., p. 28. 41.
Technology, which brings abundance and material happiness, presupposes an undifferentiated mass of consumers; it also tends to minimize the values that let a human being acquire and retain his own identity, values that I am grouping here under the vague term 'cultural' ... In other words just as the state intervenes in economic matters to pro• tect the weak through social legislation, so it must intervene to ensure the survival of cultural values in danger of being swamped by a flood of dollars. 67
But Trudeau goes on to say, the same risks for the state exist here as did for its interference with the economy. The protection of the culture may make it too weak, too self reflective to be of any rel• evance, and every act of state interference carries the danger that the state, and not the people, will come to define their culture.
For it presupposes that the state knows better than the citizen what is 'good' for him cultur• ally, and such a hypothesis must always be ap• plied with the utmost prudence and consideration. More than any other, this kind of value is inter• national and common to all men; in the long term then, the state should promote an open culture. 68
Trudeau's ideal state then, exists within a series of constantly
changing balances. It must weigh material welfare against the individual's
personal freedom. It must weigh its own power against the powers of the
particular interests that may be a danger to society, but always within the
understanding that its own power is the power of the people, and its very
existence is contingent on the support of the people. It must weigh the
necessity of interfering in the economy to protect social and cultural
67 Ibid., p. 28-29. 68 Ibid., p. 29. 42. values against the need of the economy for maximum freedom.
Trudeau's state is in constant and tense activity, operating on a tight line between possible disasters. Its sole guide is the wisdom
of the people which it must consult constantly. As the executor of the
people's decisions, it has to make its decisions and its acts as effective
as possible. It needs to be attentive, strong, clever, responsive and
just. What form of government approximates thisfdeal? CHAPTER III
DEMOCRACY
Certains nous ont reproche' notre "angelisme". Est-ce done qu'ils refusent de concevoir qu' une societe'* politique puisse se guider dans son devolution sur des normes ratio imelles? 69
But the criticism to which he refers is unjustified on the one hand as Trudeau is as aware of the dark side, the corrupting side of
political power as he is of its usefulness to society. It is correct,
on the other hand, in that it identifies the drive for the purification
of politics as the force behind Trudeau's preoccupation with the subject.
The state is power. It is the machine invested with the trust of
the whole society to carry out certain tasks. The state is dangerous be•
cause the complexity of society requires a matching complexity in its
tasks, its structures, and these complexities can easily serve to put it
beyond the control of the society.
Je veux que l'Etat agisse d'avantage mais seulement apr^s que nous aurons cesse de le conside'rer comme un maitre absolu. En effet augmenter les pouvoirs de l'Etat sans avoir multiplie nos moyens de "contro'ler" cet Etat ^ ce serait aggraver un peu plus notre esclavage.
It has a multiplicity of relationships with society. At the same
time it is their servant, somewhat as a steward is a servant, as a pedag•
ogue is a servant, as a doctor who is trusted to heal is a servant. And
69 Trudeau, et.al. "L'Agriculture au Quebec", Cite Libre, # 78, July 1965, p. 9. 70 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - VII - Saper la Majeste de l'Etat", Vrai, March 29, 1958, p. 7. 44. the state machinery is in the final analysis a part of the people them• selves .
It is a criticism that can be made of Trudeau that while he seems conscious of all these relationships, he chooses to over-emphasize the concept of state as steward-servant.7^
Trudeau is perpetually of two minds about the state. It is a
"good" if it performs efficiently. But it can't perform efficiently without the guidance, the control of the people.
The delicacy of his position leads him into issueless obscurities.
The state is a machinery staffed by individuals, and it is at the service of a society of individuals. It is conditionally invested with the power to make decisions which affect a great number of people, but as a machine
it is incapable of the inner responsibility for its actions. It has no
free will, no conscience.
The masters, the people whose commands and wishes it must follow,
add the moral element to the functioning of the state. Without the exer•
cise of control by free individuals the state becomes dumb, powerless,
whimsically autocratic, or worse still, falls under the control of the 72 minority that sees the advantage in exploiting its power.
The state machinery must be clever, efficient, but most important,
subservient. To construct the "good polity" Trudeau posits a dialectic 71 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XIII - L'Homme d'Etat: un serviteur", Vrai, May 10, 1958, p.7. 72 Trudeau spends the article "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs" (Cit// Libre #46, April 1962) in discussing the issue. 45. within the state, a tension between the state machinery, the bureaucracy, whose raison d'etre is efficiency and whose greatest liability is the
irresponsibility of those who act for others, and the popular means of 73 control, the legislature and the laws.
Since the state must be pragmatic and expert in filling its tasks,
the means of controlling it must be equally efficient and pragmatic. Trudeau
returns insistently back to this time and again. The only way for a society
to preserve its freedom and progress materially at the same time is to have
an efficient and active legislature represent the people both as watchdog
on the state machinery and as the initiator of policy.
La liberte', disent les Anglais, se paye au prix d'une vigilance eternelle. Mais pour e*tre vigil• ant, il faut £tre renseigne sur ses droits. II importe done de savoir sur quoi notre statut d1 hommes libres est fonde' et en quoi l'Etat a autorite'pour le resteindre ... il faut etablir les limites strictes a 1'interieur desquelles un homme a le droit de commander a un autre homme... 74
For the sake of human freedom, it is essential that the state be
so constituted as to be an efficient societal tool under the highest pos•
sible public control. Constitutional democracy, says Trudeau, is the system
that best fits this need. Let us see how.
Trudeau's love of democracy is unquestionable. Constitutional dem•
ocracy ensures the highest degree of popular control over the state; it most
clearly recognizes the state's life force as the will of the people. The
73 Trudeau, "Manifeste pour une Politique FonctionnelLe II", Cite Libre, # 2, Vol. 1, February 1951, p. 25. 74 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - I - Gouverne's par des Mediocres", Vrai, February 15, 1958, p. 5. 46. constitution formalizes and protects this relationship.
Dans une societe' constitutionelie, ce ne sont pas tant des hommes qui nous commandent, mais plutot les lois. Les gouvernants sont eux memes soumis aux lois, et ils ne peuvent exer- cer d'autorite' que dans la mesure exacte ou la loi le permet. Nous n'obe'issons done pas a des individus, mais plutSt a la volonte' ge'ne'rale de la nation, volonte" incarnee dans des lois, au service et a I'exe'cution desquelles les gouver• nants sont pre'pose's. 75
The Constitution is the accumulated wisdom of the society, the
people's ultimate expression of the common norms of equity and justice.
"It is time", Trudeau says, "that people realized that in a dem•
ocratic country the constitution is the shield protecting the weak from
the arbitrary intervention of power."
To be an effective shield It must be flexible enough to adjust
to changing conditions:
I do not consider a state's political structures or constitutional forms to have absolute and eter• nal value,... With the exception of a certain number of basic principles that must be safeguarded such as liberty, and democracy, the rest ought to be adapted to the circumstances of history, to tra• ditions, to geography, to cultures and to civiliza• tions. 77
The concession to culture implied here is more apparent than real
It is not enough even that the laws protect; they must also guarantee
75 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XIII - L'Homme d'Etat: un serviteur", Vrai, May 10, 1958, p. 7. 76 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitutional Problem"p• 8. 77 Ibid., p. 6. 47. popular decision making. Trudeau sees parliamentary democracy as the means to fill both these requisites.
Parliamentary democracy I take to be a method of governing free men which operates roughly as follows: organized parties that wish to pursue - by different means - a common end, agree to be bound by certain rules according to which the party with the most support gov• erns on the condition that leadership will revert to some other party whenever the lat• ter 's means become acceptable to the greater part of the electorate. The common end - the general welfare - which is the aim of all par• ties may be more or less inclusive and may be defined in different ways by different men. Yet it must in some way include equality of opportunity for everyone in all important fields of endeavour; otherwise "agreement on fundamentals" would never obtain. 78
It may be somewhat unexpected that a political thinker who desires
both the utmost liberty and maximum efficiency possible in government
should opt for representative democracy. In fact it is not, if we remember
that on the one hand the stress on the "Possible" is an important part of
the entire theory, and that on the other, these goods, freedom and effic•
iency, are of equal value. Efficiency in the means of the state can never
be the excuse to intrude on the individual freedom which the state must
seek to promote. One is impossible without the other. Parliamentary dem•
ocracy is the system best able to maintain them in balance. Trudeau ex-
78 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec", p. 114. Originally appeared in: Mason Wade, ed., Canadian Dualism. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, I960,and Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, Vol. XXIV, No.3, August 1958. 48. plains:
... il faut remarquer que la democratie parlem- taire n'exige pas que la decision des gouverne's s'exerce a propos de chacun des problemes tech• niques que pose l'art complexe de gouverner dans le monde modern. II serait illusoire d'espeirer, par exemple, qu'on puisse se refeirer au vote des citoyens pour e'tablir les details d'une politique fiscale ... L'ensemble des citoyens ne peut juger de telles mesures que par les re^sultats qu'ils ont produits, ou semblent devoir produire, pour la bon- heur de l'ensemble.
C'est pour cela que les democraties modernes n'util- isent qu' exceptionellement le plebiscite ... Au contraire le systeme electoral exige seulement de chaque citoyen qu'il se prononce sur un ensemble general d'idees et de tendances, et sur des hommes capables de les penser et les mettre en oeuvre. Ces ensembles d'id/es et d'hommes constituent les partis politiques, indispensables au fonctionnement de la ddmocratie parlementaire. 7 9
Representative democracy is able to combine the best virtues of
state systems that aim at freedom, and those that emphasize efficiency.
The ultimate power of consent lies with the people, through the choice
of representatives who stand both for their constituents, and for a set
of ideas they propose for the approval of the citizens. The everyday af•
fairs of state as well as the complexities of policy are in the hands of
responsible legislators and expert administrators. While the decisions
of the state are based on the expert and rational consideration of a small
number, these act at the conscious free command of the citizenry. There
79 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XX - Pour que Vive la Democratie", Vrai, July 5, 1958, p. 7. 49. is a rational implementation of the popular will, and if the citizenry is moral, a condition which the state must seek to promote, the popular will 80
also be based on reasonable estimates of the common good.
No other system can come as close to satisfying the state's duty
as can representative democracy. The plebiscitary system is bound to be
inefficient, since it asks the people without the time or expertise to
judge complex questions of state. It is the most open to demagoguery as
a result. Autocracy is even less acceptable. Les tyrans pretendent toujours fonder leur ordre social sur le bien commun et sur le bien de la race; mais ils se re'servent a eux-memes le droit de de'finir ces biens ... Or pre'tendre qu'un ou plusieurs dirigeants savent mieux que le plus grand nombre quel ensemble d'actes est bon pour tous, c'est porter atteinte au fondement meme de la moral- ite' sociale. Car un acte n'est bon et ne peut avoir de valeur morale que s'il est librement voulu^c'est- a-dire choisi par la conscience eclaire's de celui qui le pose. 81
Trudeau is convinced that despotism carries the seeds of its own
destruction. In denying the individual his responsibility to participate
in deciding the society's future, it denies half the justification for the
state's existence: its duty to protect freedom, and denies the rest, i.e.,
its responsibility to manage society efficiently, by implication. For in
denying the people's voice, the tyrant has deprived himself of the surest
guide to the people's wishes and leads the state inevitably to the point
80 e.g. Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XX - Pour que vive la Democratie", Vrai, July 8, 1958, p. 7. 81 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - V - Faut-il assassiner le Tyran?" Vrai, March 15, 1958, p.4. 50.
82 where popular dissatisfaction will destroy it. No amount of coercion can compensate for the people's refusal to accept the state's authority; it can only delay and make more violent the final confrontation.
Parliamentary democracy can prevent the violence inherent in authoritarianism. By recognizing the people's sovereignty and the rules of the democratic game, it enables peaceful succession to political power, whereas violence would be the norm in autocratic systems. Democracy is the surest way to prevent revolutions; the people will not oppress them• selves; people can not revolt against themselves.
The democratic system is also the one best able to respect not only individual, but group freedom. Implicit in the concept of popular sovereignty is the tolerance that should come from rule by numbers.
"Simplement, nous croyons que sa /Jproblemes ethniques.7 solution durable ne peut venir que par 1'organisation d'une societe moderne, appuye'e sur les caracteres universels de 1' homme; L'elaboration de solutions rigoureuses aux difficulte's resultant de la vie en commun produira une organisation sociale diversifie'e, qui tiendra netessairement compte des differ- ants particularismes, y compris le linguistique et le culturel. " 83
The right of the minority to exist and propagate is guaranteed
by this respect, which in turn is guaranteed by the concept of "rule by
number". This view of democracy implies a good deal about Trudeau's
expectations of people. It demonstrates that for him, permanent group-
82 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - III - Pour Prevenir les Seditions", Vrai, March 1, 1958, p. 5. . 83 Trudeau, et.al. "L'Agriculture au Quebec", Cite Libre # 78, July, 1965, p. 9. 51.
84 ings on all social issues are incompatible with democracy. It reiter• ates as well his belief in the pragmatic rationality of human beings.
He relies on people's ability to change their minds, to be open to new
and different ideas, and to respect the rights of others to do the same.
Without any of these elements, democracy, or at least his democracy, be•
comes impossible.
A certain contradiction becomes manifest when the theory is ap•
plied to reality however. Trudeau is, or would be, at the same time, a
cultural pluralist and a moral absolutist. Consider his comments on the
ideal constitution that we cited above. Such a constitution may stem com•
pletely from its culture, "with the exception of a number of basic prin•
ciples that we must safeguard, such as liberty and democracy". In other
words, any political system is all right as long as it is Trudeau's polit•
ical system - moral, rational, tolerant, pragmatic, etc. ad infinitum.
The problems that result of this inner inconsistency become clear
when "within the bosom of one state two cultures do exist". It is largely
to this problem that he addresses himself in the further refining of the
democratic by the federalist ideal.
84 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec", p. 114. CHAPTER IV
FEDERALISM
Trudeau is unwilling to categorize forms of association. All have one final end - the improvement of some aspect of the life of its participants,and all can be equally judged in the means they use to the goal. If the means are democratic, the organization is beneficial; if not, it is harmful. The organization's ultimate right to existence is then judged uniformly. When acceptable associations compete for the same support, though for varying means, to a common purpose, it will be the individual who decides which to support;if they compete for support for different interpretations,different aspects of the good,the individ• ual will have to decide again on the way to apportion his support.
As far as Trudeau is concerned, this is what society is all about
It is the daily task of the individual to choose and participate in the different forms of social organization. The state is only one such organ ization, albeit the only one to involve all members of a society. This
changes nothing about its right to exist: the state has the moral right to do so only as long as it is democratic. However, its universality doe throw the necessity for the individual's participation into high relief.
First some observations we must reiterate. There is no such thin as state sovereignty. The state is never master; it is always the people that are the sovereign. This established, it is relatively easy to re-introduce the feder
alism that forms the armature to Trudeau's Canadian polity. 53.
Since all social structures share an ultimate right to existence
(as long as they are democratic) the state must co-exist as best it can with all the others. In fact, as the people's servant, it has an obligation to help 85
the other systems achieve their goals. It is obliged to nourish plural•
ism in its society, an obligation it must fulfill with considerably more
relish than its opposite role of controlling the lesser social elements. In
this latter respect it must proceed with care lest it destroy organs that
benefit the common good.
But again Trudeau balances his basic call for "laissez-faire"
with the emphasis of the state's positive role in human liberation.^
The lesser social substructures to which the state has an obliga•
tion include the gamut of economic, religious, cultural, professional and
other associational groupings whether formally organized or loosely struc•
tured. The state's obligation is aimed within as well as outside society;
it deals with problems on many levels; and, in order to most efficiently
and most democratically deal with them, it must exist on many levels too.
Though a perfect federal political system is still in the realm
of theory, it ... would have divided the totality of its sovereign powers between regional and central governments with such sharpness and adequacy
85 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 21-29 (for example), and "Manifeste pour une Polit• ique Fonctionnelle II", Cite Libre, Vol. I, # 2, February 1951, p. 25. 86 One is reminded of Trudeau's strong common law prejudice in his advocacy of Federalism, presuming all organizations fruitful until proves other• wise . 54.
that those governments would have been able to carry on their affairs in complete independence of one another. 87
But there is far more to Trudeau's federalist ideal than a sym• metrical apportionment of jurisdictions.
Les veritables raisons de tenir a une certaine autonomie ... devraient d'ailleurs rallier tous ceux qui croient en la liberte de la personne.. ... 88
The ideal federal system seeks, with a clear dedication to human
freedom, to make the authority of the state as diffuse, as functionally
oriented as possible,
Le veritable autonomisme ... s'emploiera a donner des pouvoirs reels aux gouvernements locaux, et JLaissera le JJIUS possible de res- ponsabilites a la portee du peuple. 11 en- courgera aussi le principe du self gouverne• ment dans les corps semi-publics: syndicats, fabriques, associations d'etudiants et le reste. 89
Federalism is the best means to assure public control of the state.
Trudeau demonstrates this in the following way:
"Cette liberte est assuree sous notre forme de gouvernement par le droit de chaque citoyen de n'etre pas commande contre son gre. II obeit (aux fonctionnaires) parce que ceux-ci
87 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "The Practice and Theory of Federalism", p. 134. Originally appeared in: Michel Oliver, ed., Social Purposes for Canada, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1961. /• 88 Trudeau, "Manifeste pour une Politique Fonctionnelle II", Cite Libre, Vol. 1, # 2, February, 1951, p. 28. 89 Ibid., p. 25. 55.
administrent des lois qu'il s'est lui-meme donnees par le truchement des ses represent- ants elus. 90
Or dans un Etat trop centralise, les fonctions executives et legislatives deviendront extre- ment onereuses ... une bureaucratie de plus en plus nombreuse et puissante, c'est-a-dire de moins en moins controlable. 91
The increasing complexity and volume of government makes it inevitable that even the good bureaucrat tries for the sake of efficiency to free himself of his responsibility to overburdened legislators. But,
Ce qui parai\t certain, c'est que toute central• isation est tyrannique, si la puissance acrue de la bureaucratie n'est pas assujettie a un controle plus energique des representants du peu• ple ou du pouvoir judicaire. 92
So it is even more important that a federal system increase the number of the people's representatives who control the state's activity, that it allows better representation of local interest than a central parlia
90 Loc. Cit. 91 Loc. Cit. 92 Ibid., p. 26. This is an interesting revelation of his prejudices. At first glimpse, it seems that Trudeau forgets that bureaucrats are people too. Or is it that he considers them all too human and that his is es• sentially a negative estimation of human nature? He presumes here that unless the bureaucrat is constantly watched he will slip his leash and take decisions for which he cannot possibly be fully responsible. Unless we presume the bureacrat to be a separate entity from common man, we must conclude that in Trudeau's estimation a constant reassertion of a sense of responsibility is essential to keep individuals moral. Given this est imate, it is easy enough to see Trudeau's self image as being one of the "Reminders" for a weak humanity. 56. ment. A unitary system which tried to give as comprehensive representa•
tion would be futile by sheer weight of numbers. And if the number were
smaller, not only popular control but the ability to express public opinion 93 would suffer. Federalism strikes the correct balances.
Federalism also offers people easier access to these jurisdictions.
But such access is meaningless unless people are ready to take advantage of
it, unless they are motivated by a civic conscience. Here too, federalism
has the advantage over centralist systems.
With a centralised state, the individual is too far from the "ner•
ves of power" to feel effective in approaching the state. Federalism brings
the government within the reach of the people. Des lors 1 autonomisme apparait comme le moyen par excellence de remedier a cette fatale indif• ference, en redant frequents et vitaux les con• tacts entre gouvernants et gouvernes. 94
Trudeau is not, however, content only to increase public control;
he seeks to restrict the state to as little authority as it absolutely needs
to fill its duties effectively:
The ideal state would therefore seem to be one with different sizes for different purposes. And the ideal constitution for it would be one that gave the various parts, whatever their size, the powers they needed to attain their own particular objectives. In practice the federal state comes closest to this ideal ... able to create a state that fits the dimensions of the problem; ... the measure of sovereignty ... is dictated by necessity. 95
93 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Practice and Theory of Federalism", p. 133. 94 Trudeau, "Manifeste pour une Politique Fonctionnelle II", Cite Libre, Vol. I, # 2, February 1951, p. 28. 95 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 35. 57.
But he does not limit the virtues of federalism to its ability to prevent the abuse of state power. It is also the most efficient form of government today.
In attempting to specify the goals to be sought by political communities, we have seen that for some purposes it is desirable that the state be limited in size, while for others a larger ter• ritory is definitely preferable. For example, in social or cultural matters,where needs often vary from region to region and where a citizen must feel that he can communicate directly with the source of power, there is an advantage in limiting the territorial jurisdiction of the state. In other areas, such as economic matters, it is much more efficient for the geographical unit to be considerably extended. In still other areas, such as peace or trade agreements, the trend will be toward international political groupings. 96
So what may have seemed a relatively modest localized ideal assumes
a universal aspect in Trudeau's thought.
He seems to have concluded that though the world's societies are a
heterogeneous totality, such differences are only superficially greater than
those within societies.
On both levels, different forms of government are needed for the
different areas and needs. The sole moral obligation on the governments for
all mankind is that they be democratic, the sole reason for their existence
that they be effective in the tasks they are assigned.
World government then is part of Trudeau's politics, but on the
same conditions as he imposes on primary groups or national states, that they 97 champion their people's freedom and their welfare.
96 Loc. Cit. 97 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", p. 195-196. CHAPTER V
NATIONALISM
Since Trudeau's universalized concept of political organization is federal, and states have no different or superior right to existence than any other form of human organization, they should have power only to the extent that the area of concern is most efficiently and freely handled by them.
The role of the state then is delicate and in need of constant adjustment. As Trudeau assumes that the state is naturally unable to maintain its proper direction without public control, his concern with
the nature of the state's power rests logically enough on the nature of
public responsibility.
Popular pragmatic control is essential. The greatest danger to
the people arises when the state is allowed to assume an independent
identity, when it becomes something above and beyond the control of society,
when it is vested with some value above and beyond the purely pragmatic.
Irrationalism, and specifically Nationalism allows, indeed forces this to
happen. ... des lors que l'Etat souverain fut mis au service de la nation, c'est la nation qui dev- enait souveraine, c'est-a-dire au dessus des lois. 98
98 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite* Libre, # 46, April 1962, p. 7. 59.
The evil of nationalism and all other irrational ideologies is that rather than being means to the liberation of the individual they are tools for his demoralization. It is a fundamental principle of na• tionalism that the individual is not the center of political action. The
Individual is an actor in a struggle for some greater good, he is not the good itself. Nationalism identifies the person as collective - as an ex• pression of some organic entity which includes both its living members, its dead and its future generations. Since such an entity cannot express itself in the concrete matters that confront societies, those who define this entity, take it upon themselves to interpret its wishes and its
destiny. The elite disposes and the common men have no other role than 99 to abide by its interpretation.
The entire rationale of a "good" society is turned on its head.
Where Trudeau sees Society's cohesion as the result of a constant and
continuing decision by individuals to pool certain of their resources
and control their activities to ensure their own welfare, the nationalists
see the individual born into a society which gives his life meaning and
order.The nationalists deem any freedom a gift of the society; Trudeau
insists that freedom is innate and that its restriction by the state, be•
yond that necessary for the freedom of all, is immoral. People owe the
state nothing for its service. Service is the state's sole reason for , . 101 being.
99 This rather simplistic view of nationalism is all Trudeau offers on the subject. He scorns the argument that nationalism is a way through which the individual will be freed. 100 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite' Libre, # 46, April 1962, p. 11. 101 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique - XIII - L'Homme d'Etat: un serviteur", Vrai, May 10, 1958, p. 7. 60.
Any conception that places an inchoate Whole above the individual is by nature an immoral one. Since only the individual is rational, only he can be moral. Society is an aggregation of individuals and can only be moral to the degree that its individual members are moral. But the people cannot be moral without a sense of individual responsibility,and
Nationalism, positing some higher entity that is able to define the moral• ity of an action, absolves the individual of his own responsibility.
An interesting practical example of his attitude appears in an article on Egypt in the February 2, 1952 issue of Le Devoir. He wrote
" ... 1'ultra nationalisme ... du gouvernement actuel apparait surtout comme une operation de diversion,destined a distraire I'opinion^^ populaire de la maladministration interne."
The nationalists invert Trudeau's conception of morality, calling moral the irresponsible and labelling the free immoral, the cynical, pragmatic.
On the subject of nationalism we encounter a basic rigidity of
Trudeau's politics. The moral absolute that people must be responsible, that they cannot be given the chance to forget their responsibility is essential to his polity. In this way he and the type of nationalist he
condemns meet at the opposite ends of the spectrum. He demands a total
involvement from the individual that is based on the person's moral aware•
ness; the nationalists do the same. It is only the object of the awareness
that differs - for Trudeau it is individualism and Reason; for the Nation-
102 Trudeau, "Les Anglais auraient tort de s'obstiner", Le Devoir, February 2, 1952. 61.
103 alist, the Nation.
Once free of the pragmatic rule of the people, ruling by the
interpretations of myths and spirit, those in power he says, are inevit•
ably immoral, coming to restrict the freedom of the people and to view
their material welfare as secondary to some "greater cause".
The end of political freedom cannot help but usher the end of
the social and the economic liberty. The need for machinery of opinion,
expression and collection is obviated since the only acceptable opinions 104 are those that agree with those already expressed by the leadership.
Democratic structures in nationalist states are impossible at whatever
level of social organization they occur. Basic freedoms can only be a
part of the system to the degree that they do not transgress officially
defined codes. Cultural pluralism must be eradicated since the national•
ist socio-political ethos is defined in terms of a monolithic culture.
We should re-emphasize the point here that Trudeau is not, as he
has often been called, only an anti-Nationalist. He is, almost ironically,
an anti-totalitarian. His objections to Stalinism are identical to those
to Fascism or Quebec separatism. It is in the immoral denial of the supre- 103 It is likely this proximity that makes Trudeau so violent a critic of nationalism. A treatment of Quebec's current political thought which puts forward similar ideas is found in an unpublished paper by Daniel LaTouche, "La Nouvelle guerre des religions, un survol de l'ideologie anti- separatiste au Quebec depuis Duplessis". 104 Trudeau, "Les Cheminements de la Politique" - XVI - "Le Peuple au Pouvoir", Vrai, May 31, 1958, p. 7 62.
105 macy of the individual that for him, these systems are identical.
For Trudeau, there is no higher cause for the state than the wel•
fare of the individual. A political philosophy based on the assumption
of some other higher value necessarily debases the individual as it in•
evitably debases the society. The only appeal of a state founded on dogma
is irrational and hence in itself demoralizing.
But if nationalism is such an immoral and impracticable basis for
a political society, why is it so frequently a political philosophy?
Though we shall examine his historical interpretation early in this sec•
tion, Trudeau also offers a brief political analysis of the appeal of
nationalism.
He sees political society founded on consensus. The state der•
ives its existence and its power only from the consent of the people. If
it is unable to gain this confidence, it is unable to effectively partic•
ipate in society and hence becomes irrelevant, or it seeks to participate
in spite of the people and becomes a positive evil. Since it is difficult
to persuade great numbers through national argument alone, the politicians
are often tempted to reach out for emotional support.
105 This is a fairly good demonstration that Trudeau's politics do not revolve around economics. Any economic system is acceptable if it works and is freely accepted; any political philosophy is good if it is based on individualism. Trudeau is not interested in the smaller discussions within a democratic eschatology. His target, his preoccupation has been with the defense of the whole democratic realm fromthe anti-democratic forces that constantly threaten it. He ventured forth, determined to meet challenges that lesser men failed to recognize from ignorance, weakness or lassitude. 63.
... the most convenient support has obviously been the idea of nationalism. It becomes morally "right",a matter of "dignity and honour", to pre• serve the integrity of the nation. Hence, from the emotional appeal called nationalism is derived a psychological inclination to obey the constitu• tion of the state ... 106
Those who wish to control the state and have no respect for its people will use nationalism to achieve their ends.
We have a succinct summary of Trudeau's historical analysis of nationalism in one of his most stimulating articles.
Until the middle of the 18th century ... The existence of certain peoples inhabiting cer• tain land areas, speaking certain languages or dialects, and practicing certain customs, was generally taken as data - choses donne'es - by the European states which arose to est• ablish their authority over them. It was not the population who decided by what states they would be governed; it was the states which ... determined the area of territory over which they would govern. And for that reason they could be called territorial states. .. for the philosophers, too, territory and population were just data; their philosophies were mainly concerned with discovering the foundations of authority over a given territory and the sources of obedience of a given population. ... the theories of contract which they derived from na• tural law or reason were meant to ensure that within a given state bad governments could readily be replaced by good ones ... 107
Quite frankly Trudeau too would probably be happier not to concern
himself with "what section of the world's population occupying what segment
106 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", p. 189. 107 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", pp. 182-83. 64. of the world's surface should fall under the authority of a given state".'"'"
He seems to deem the question irrelevant, a waste of time.
But he is forced to admit that the question does occupy many minds.
Regretfully he plunges on to ask why.
The answer is an interesting, if not overly original analysis of classical nationalism. Though he is not an outstanding historian nor an especially methodical thinker, he is an exceptionally perspicacious obser• ver of his own society, and is quick — perhaps too quick -- to begin to draw a fascinating analogy;
In America, it became necessary for the people not merely to replace a poor government by a better one, but to switch their allegiance from one territorial state to another ...... the consent of the population was required not merely for social contract, which was to be the foundation of civil society, or for a choice of responsible rulers, which was the essence of self-government; consent was also required for adherence to one territorial state rather than to another; which was the beginning of national self-determination. 109
... henceforth it was to be the people who first defined themselves as a nation, who then declared which territory belonged to them as of right, and who finally proceeded to give their allegiance to a state of their own choosing or invention which would exercise authority over that nation and that territory. 110
108 Ibid., p. 182. 109 Ibid., p. 183-84. 110 Ibid., p. 184-85. 65.
So far Trudeau should not be able to see anything wrong with what has happened. These peoples were seeking only self government after all.
But he does:
As I see it, the important transition was from the territorial state to the nation state. But once the latter was born, the idea of the national state was bound to follow, it being little more than a nation state with an ethnic flavour added. With it the idea of self-determination became the principle of nationalities. Ill
Trudeau makes a logical mistake, because for him the concept of the "nation state" is an extremely limited one.
La democratie en effet ouvrait aux classes bour• geoises, d 'abord, puis aux classes populaires, beau- coup plus tard, les voies par ou tous pouvaient participer a 1'exerciCe du pouvoir politique. L1 Etat apparut alors comme 1'instrument par lequel eVentuellement toutes les classes, c'est-a-dire la nation entiere, pouvaient s'assurer la paix et la prospe*rite. 112
But he continues:
Et par un effet naturel tous voulurent que cet instrument fut le plus fort possible vis \ vis les autres Etats-Nations. C'est ainsi que le nationalisme est nehde 1'union de la democratie libe*rale avec la mystique e*galitaire. 113
He is almost casual in the way he manages to glide above the dis•
tinctions he has drawn. He has described the nation state as the result
111 Ibid., p. 185. 112 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite7 Libre, # 46, April, 1962, p. 7. 113 Loc. Cit. 66. of the people's revolt against a feudal state whereby the whole people of a geographic area - the nation - the society assumes its rightful res• ponsibility to rule. He manages to assume that the elevation of the "na• tion" to sovereignty and the displacement of the individual will follow this automatically.
This unexpected grossness in an otherwise refined argument results perhaps from his projection of anxieties about modern Quebec onto history, making his reading of the particular into a universal absolute with which 114 to cudgel his contemporaries. He makes the assumption that the build• ing of the state to serve the nation will turn the nation into a protec• tive totem of the state, and will turn the people from citizenry to sun worshipers.
He tries to distinguish the nation state from the national state by this transition. While the state is still an instrument of responsible
self government (in the sense of individual participatory self government),
it is an acceptable form of political organization."'""' Once, however, and
he views the change as inevitable, the state becomes the champion of an
abstract Nation whose glory, rather than whose people, it serves, it be•
comes the unacceptable undemocratic National State.
The transition from one to the other is the thing of real interest
here, and it is doubly so because the "fall" seems a result of two goods,
liberal democracy and the egalitarian ethos. With the failure of individ- 114 Examples of this would be "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs" and "Quebec, Est-il Assiege?" both in Cite'.Libre. 115 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", p. 185. 67. ual members of the polity to maintain strict control over it by allowing it its own justification, the state will inevitably become its own master and the people's despot. He ponders a body-soul explanation of such a fall: Whereas self-government was based on reason and proposed to introduce liberal forms of government into existing states, self-deter• mination was based on will and proposed to challenge the legitimacy and the very exist• ence of the territorial states. 116
But Trudeau is not being entirely fair to himself here. While reason may be superior to will in the conduct of the affairs of state, he maintains at another point, that the will of the people must be the basis of the decisions of state. In effect then it is not the fact that nation states are based on will that he holds immoral, but that the will
is based on undemocratic premises.
116 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, National! and Reason", p. 185. CHAPTER VI
QUEBEC
His argument with nationalism leads Trudeau to what is perhaps a more extreme position on modern history than that he would really care to
take. The claim that the Wilsonian doctrine of self determination was aimed at the free self government of peoples, in the sense of "people" 117
as individuals, not "nations" as cultural groups sounds quite false.
More serious is the extreme assumption he makes about nationalism in
Quebec, for he presumes that: C'est a. 1'interieur du phe'nomene nationaliste global qu'il faut conside'rer le sous-sous-cas qu^b/cois du sous-cas Canadien. 118
It is the assumption that history is a repetition of themes that
leads him to identify the post 1960 nationalists of Quebec as traitors,
as irresponsible selfish petty tyrants. Let us follow what, in spite of
its limitations, is an incisive treatment of this historical example "le
sous-sous-cas Quebecois".
... les nations dominees, ampute'es, exploiters et humilie'es concurent une haine sans mesure pour leurs oppresseurs; et solidaires dans cette haine ils inventerent contre le nation- alisme aggresseur, un nationalisme de"fensif. 119
English Canadian nationalism created its own nemesis in French
Canada.
117 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cit/ Libre, # 46, April 1962, p. 4. 118 Ibid., p. 7. 119 Loc, Cit. 69.
Aussi bien, les Anglais qui mirent tant d'adresse et de genie politique a devel- opper chez eux le culte des libertes civ- iles, n'eurent jamais l'idee de proteger les droits minoritaires (au Canada). 120
v
Canadian history consisted of "toute sorte de stratag&mes grace auxquelles la democratie ne vint qu'a signifier le gouvernement par la minorite."
So, "Le nationalisme canadien britannique engendra, comme c'etait
inevitable le nationalisme canadien-fracais."
Trudeau goes to lengths to show that political tradition in Quebec was a defensive nationalism. Longtemps, 11adversite nous donna un principe d'action. Dire non fut toute notre politique, et a bon droit nous ap- pelions chefs ceux qui dirigerent une resistance efficace. Notre peuple alors etait entoure de dangers reels, surtout 1'assimilation ethnique et religieuse,et notre bien se definissait dans une con• tradict iore. Mais ca n'est pas tout d'eviter le mal, il faut faire bien ... Helas! c'est le fait de certains peuples, qui, ayant trop lutte, finissent par croire que la vertu est une negation. 122
This futile ideology managed only to keep Quebec progressively
further behind the life of North America.
120 Ibid., p. 8. 121 Loc. Cit. 122 Trudeau, "Manifeste pour une Politique Fonctionnelle I", Cite Vol. I, # 1, June 1950, p. 20. 70.
L'histoire impartiale demontrera, que nous avons commence7 de tout perdre le jour ou des ennemis devenus subtils, rendirent injustifiable nos negations. Maintenant notre langue est devenue si pauvre que nous n'entendons plus a quel point nous la par- Ions mal] . .. 123
This defensive nationalism, the "lamentable masse des negations" was an anachronism among the political currents which dominated the last
two centuries of world history.
Quebecers had never reached awareness of the usefulness of the
state. The classic precondition for nationalist revolution3 a people 124 with sufficiently advanced political ideas to include popular consent,
was patently absent in Quebec. What the Quebec "pense'e" rejected in the
republican nationalisms of Europe however, it managed to substitute with
indigenous reactionary elements. The ideal of popular devotion to the
"nation" was replaced by the acceptance of a divine authority in politics,
but the state was used as freely by the elite to define the nation as it
was in cases where the people had invented, rather than ignored the state.
Why Quebec nationalism never became expansionist is explicable by 125 just the same negativity that had created it. 123 Loc.cit. 124 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", p. 184. 125 Trudeau, La Greve de l'Amiante, Chapter I, La Province de Quebec au Moment de la Greve, pp. 87-88. 71.
The state was useful only to maintain an archaic social structure; it was never used for its advancement. The elites did not even bother to use the political system for national and personal glory. They were con• tent largely to ignore it. Totally contrary to the European nationalists, those of Quebec had no respect or use for politics. It was for them an exploitative but controllable game. Ideals were not involved. Its only real function was to isolate rather than propagate the culture.
Pre 1960 Quebec was:
... un Elat provincial dont l'essentiel de la politique a £t£ d'aliener les meilleurs et les plus accessibles de nosressources naturelles, et d'abdiquer toute jurisdic• tion sur 1'organisation sociale et 1'orien• tation intellectuelle des Canadiens francais. Cette politique ... nous a xmpos ie par nos Elites cle'rico-bourgeoises; de tout temps celles-ci ont empe'che' de s'accre'diter parmi ^ nous la nation d'un Etat dont la fonction eut ete d'intervenir activement dans les processus historiques et d'orienter positivement les forces communataires vers le bien ge'ne'ral. . . . dans chaque cas de prote*ger des inte'revts de classe et de caste contre un pouvoir civil dont 1'affaire exclusive eut dte l'lnte^t ge'ne'ral. 126
It is interesting to note how Trudeau qualifies and rationalizes
this criticism to sustain his general political principles:
Je ne veux pas dire, evidemment^que les clercs et bourgeois pretendaient rechercher autre chose que le bien commun; mais ils se croyaient seuls aptes a. en concevoir la definition, et
126 Trudeau, "L*alienation Nationaliste", Cite' Libre, # 35, March 1961, p. 3-4. 72.
par consequent ils ne voulaient pas d'un Etat democratique qui eute/quelque realite en dehors d'eux-memes, ni d'hommes politiques qui eussent pu exercer quelqu' autorite en conflit avec la leur. 127
But the student must ask why this society grew as it did. The answer characteristically is both simple and complex. Most basically
it rests on Trudeau's single assertion about Quebec history.
Depuis le debut de leur histoire jusqu'a nos jours, les Canadiens francais n'avaient guere crua la democratie. C'est du moins cette hy- pothese qui me permit d'expliquer de nombreuses constantes de leur comportement politique de• puis la^conque'te: amoralisme profondj inciv- isme, mefiance de l'Etat conservatisme social, esprit de parti mu par des ressorts tantSt nationalistes e^23 tantot individualistes, mais rarement ideologiques.
Trudeau's pre-*conquest Quebec is possessed of none of the glamour
attached to it by the Groulx group. He accepts Gustav Lanctot's descrip- 129
tion of an autocratic oppressive society, more feudal than the home
country, living more under the power of the clergy, and seigneurs than
the near revolutionary France.
The conquest changed the society drastically; the richer seigneurs
and the higher clergy returned to France, leaving minor clerics as the
only part of the old elite to guide the society.
127 Ibid., p. 4.
128 Trudeau,"Note Sur la Conjoncture Politique", Cite Libre, # 49, August-September, 1962, p. 1. 129 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Some Obstacles t o Democracy in Quebec", p. 103-104. 73.
...As it turned out, she £the Church/ discovered that her position had in a sense improved.For after the debScle of 1760 she remained alone as a social beacon to give strength and guid• ance to a vanquished people, and to the victor she had the potentialities of a formidable op• ponent . 130
For the only remaining French Canadian leadership then:
When the faith lay safe, no distant call to democratic liberty held much appeal ... 131
Its task was to preserve the faith and with this faith, the social structure, the "Mystical Body" that nourished and guarded it.
Democracy was associated with the French Revolution, and later with the English conquerors, and the Church was not eager to support a philosophy potentially so antithetical to its self-defined interests.
French Canada's failure to appreciate Democracy stemmed from other aspects of Quebec's history. Before 1763, French Canadians knew only an authoritarian rule founded on the divine right of kingship. Authority and the state were always conceived of as above and separate from the
society. ... forms of sovereignty which were to give an ever widening place to the principles of self government /jwere"7 first brought about ... by the English colonists. 132
The end result was that ... regardless of how liberal were the conqueror's political institu• tions, they had no intrinsic value in the minds
130 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec", p. 108. 131 Loc.Qir,. 132 Ibid., p. 104. 74.
of a people who had not desired them, never learned to use them, and who finally only accepted them as a means of loosening the conqueror's grip. 133
The resulting popular attitude was a com• bination of political superstition and social conservatism, wherein the state - any state - was regarded as an ominous being whose uncontrollable caprices were just as likely to lead it to crush famil• ies and devour Crucifixes as to help the needy and maintain order. 134
When we compare this traditional attitude to Trudeau's, the enor• mity of the gulf between them appears staggering. It may help explain the intensity of his language and the heat of his argument.
They (the French Canadians) had succeeded so well in subordinating the pursuit of the commonweal to the pursuit of their partic• ular ethnic needs that they never achieved any sense of obligation towards the general welfare of the French Canadians on non racial issues. 135
To cross the t's, we may say: Dans nos relations avec l'Etat nous sommes passeblement immoraux:... 136
Political ignorance made justice in the non-political spheres
impossible. Equity stems from the society's agreement on common standards
and common goals. The state's role in the application, cultivation and
defense of these is indispensable.
133 Ibid., p. 106. 134 Ibid., p. 109. 135 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec", p. 107. 136 Trudeau, "Reflexions sur la Politique au Canada Francais", Cit/ Libre, Vol. 2, #3» December 1952, p. 53. Si nous vivons encore au stade de la democratie combattante, si par conse• quent, les obstacles antidemocratiques resistent avec succe's aux forces dont nous disposons pour les renverser ..., la dialectique de 1'action nous impose imperieusement de concentrer nos effec- tifs sur un object if unique: la democra• tic. ... Car il faut a tout prix fabri- quer l'enveloppe democratique avant de se diviser sur la definition de son con- tenu. 137
Trudeau refuses to temper the criticism he heaps on the Quebec elite, not because they espouse the defense of the French Canadian cul• ture but because:
" Ils ont tous les uns apres les autres, amb it tonne*'l'honneur de la doctrine' et celle-ci a fini par steriliser com- pletement leur esprit." 138
In adopting defense as an ideology, they lost all the positive ambitions for their culture. They failed utterly to give French Canada the practical leadership that modernization required,
" ... ils ont formule* une pensee sociale impossible \ realiser et qui a toutes fins pratiques laissait le peuple sans direction intellectuelle efficace." 139
Its leadership was content to leave the people's welfare by the wayside for the sake of their "cultural purity", a thing in which only the
elite were ever able to share.
137 Trudeau, "Un Manifeste Democratique", Cite* Libre, # 22, October,1958, pg. 19-20. 138 Trudeau: La Greve de l'Amiante, Chapter I, p. 14. 139 Loc. Cit. The social sciences, the legal system, the technical and physical sciences in Quebec were all successfully isolated from the modern world, and remained as servants of the "faith", ineffectual, but harmless. The list of Quebec's backwardness is staggering and Trudeau dedicated the best part of his introduction to "La Greve de l'Amiante" to it.
The indictment of his society in 1958 sums it up.
Deux forces surtout commandent a nos destines; le capitalisme international et le cl^ricalisme qu/bec-ois. Elles ne composent pas avec un Etat qui repres- enterait le bien commun temporeljelles composent entre elles,et il ne reste plus a l'Etat qu' a sanctionner leur modus vivendi. 141
When we place this conclusion beside Trudeau's conception of a
"good" state/society, the revolutionary character of his work becomes
fairly clear.
The 1950's was the first conscious decade of the "quiet revolution".
Men more or less like Trudeau added to the impact of a developing historical
dialectic in that they made coherent a turmoil growing of its own volition.
They were at the intellectual front of the battle, confronting the ideolog•
ical dodoism of the established intelligentsia. Their confidence in the
inevitability of change brought a heterogeneous group of rebels together,
each fighting for different revolutions and united essentially only in a
vaguely statist commitment. Many of them it may be shown, were those who
140 Ibid, p. 38-80. 141 Trudeau, "Un Manifeste Democratique", Cite Libre, # 22, October 1958, p. 2.-3 77. benefited and fell so quiet under Sauve and Lesage; a number were socialist nationalists seeking now to incorporate the state in the struggle for the 142
"nation". A few, like Trudeau, were deeply committed (social) democrats.
All, including the few English among them, were proudly Quebecois.
The Liberals in 1960 campaigned under the slogan "Time for a Change".
That they succeeded is in no small way due to the decade long enlightenment campaign of the radicals. But it was not long after the Quiet Revolution when the old maurassism seemed dead and the negative nationalism, crumbled, that the New Nationalism took its place. Trudeau had seen the seeds of its perversion in the revolution itself; Quebec society was still unable to pro• duce genuine democracy. Pour ma part, je croirais a quelque chose d1analogue au sentiment democratique d'ou naquirent les nationalismes en Europe, il y a un si^cle ou deux. La mort de Duplessis c'est la fin d'une dynastie et de 1'obigarchie qu'elle favorisait. L'instauration de la demo- cratie lib/rale est la promesse que dorenavant toutes les classes nouvelles pourront acc/der au pouvoir. Mais en pratique, ces classes de- couvrent que plusiers des voies de promotion sont obstruees: le Clerge conserve sa main mise sur l'education, les Anglais dominent notre fin• ance, les Americains envahissent notre culture. Seul, l'Etat du Quebec est a 1'ensemble des Canadiens francais: on veut done pour cet Etat la plenitude des pouvoirs ... Bref on croit a une energie creatrice qui donnerait du genie a des gens qui n'en ont pas, qui apporterait le courage et 1'instruction a une nation indolente et ignor- ante. 143
142 Louis Savard, "L'ideologie politique et religieuse de Cite Libre, premiere serie". Resume: Recherches Sociographiques. IV, 2, 1963, p. 228-236; and Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite Libre, # 46, April 1962, p. 11. Vadeboncouer, Morin,Dagenais would be examples. 143 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cit/ Libre, # 46, Apri 1962, p. 13. 78.
So where before the state was nothing, it must now be everything.
The classical, the unavoidable pattern of nationalism came, if a hundred years late, to Quebec. Trudeau applies the analysis he did to the clas- 144 sical national revolutions to Quebec. He is content to see the first stage of such a revolution, where the state is recognized as the most important organ of society. But the issue in Quebec, as in all other nationalist revolts is deeper than merely the extending of the power of the state. There was no coordinate extension of the people's control over the state. Et, inconsequence criminelle, les se'par- atistes en fermant les frontieres remet- traient inevitablement les pleins pouvoirs souverains a ces elites monies qui etaient responsables de l'e'tat abject d'ou les 145 separatistes se faisaient forts de nous tirer.
If isolation results in exploitation and degradation similar to what characterized Quebec's history, the alternative obviously lies in the
opposite direction, not in a Canadian nationalism, or a greater isolation,
but in Canada none the less - in a Federal system that exists in a form 146 that offers the greatest opportunities for all Canadians.
144 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitutional Problem", is devoted to such an analysis. 145 Trudeau, "L'Alienation Nationaliste", Cite Libre, # 35, March 1961, p. 4. 146 Trudeau, "Quebec est-il assiege?", Cite^Libre, # 86, April-May 1966, p JB,10. CHAPTER VII
CANADA
Trudeau approaches the "Canadian Problem" with surprising aplomb.
But rather more unusual is the degree of objectivity which someone so
emotionally involved could bring to the subject.
Canada's problem, simply stated, has been that statesmen and
citizens have allowed Confederation's original pragmatic spirit to degen•
erate into a contest of dogmas. The real purpose of the federation, a
rational purpose, has been forgotten.
The "real" purpose as Trudeau sees it was simply to establish
order in chaos.
" ... I am inclined to believe that the authors of the Canadian federation arrived at as wise a compromise and drew up as sensible a consti• tution as any group of men anywhere could have done. Reading that document today, one is struck by its absence of principles, ideals,or other frills; even the regional safeguards and minority guarantees are pragmatically presented, here and there, rather than proclaimed as a thrilling bill of rights. It has been said that the binding force of the United States of America was the idea of liberty, and certainly none of the relevant constitutional documents let us for• get it. By comparison, the Canadian nation seems founded on the common sense of empirical politic• ians who had wanted to establish some law and order over a disjointed ha1f-continent. If rea• son be the governing virtue of federalism, it would seem that Canada got off to a good start.
147 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, National• ism and Reason", p. 197. 80.
The purposes are those of any state, the material welfare of all its people, the enjoyment of all possible freedom by the members of its society.
In a hundred years Canada has managed to give its people the sec• ond highest standard of living in the world. It is also, as Trudeau rat- 148 her melodramatically puts it, among the last free countries on earth.
Since it has achieved so much, Canadians must give Confederation a chance, and few Canadians ever have. The French Canadians mistrusted federalism as an English trick to use their overwhelming numbers to suppress French
149
Canada. English Canadians rejected the true federalism, by doing just that. The egoist attitude of the federation's richer members also contri• buted to its problems. By expecting to receive no less than they contribu•
ted, they widened the gap between rich and poor parts of Canada.
Canada then faces two aspects of this one problem. Both French
Canadian nationalism and regional disparity result from the failure of the
majorities in Canada to apply the Federalist ideal equitably.
Duplessis's passivity was eminently acceptable as far as English
Canadians were concerned:^® they regarded French Canada as an anomaly of
language and an alien "priest-ridden" society. They did what seemed, at
least to French Canadians, their best to keep French Canada an unequal asso•
ciat148 e Trudeau. , "De Nouveau, la Carte d'identite", Cite* Libre, # 33, January 1961, p. 18. 149 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite Libre, # 46, April 1962, p. 8; but there are always two sides to these issues, c.f. "De 1'Inconvenient d'etre Catholique", Cite Libre, # 35, March 1961. 150 Trudeau, "De Libre, Tributo et Quibusdam Aliis", Cite Libre, # 10, October 1954, pp. 6-8. 81.
French Canadians' reaction to the pressure of assimilation was predictable.
" Ce peuple se crea un systeme de securite, mais qui en s'hypertrophiant lui fit at- tacher un prix parfor's demesure a tout ce qui le distinguait d'autrui et consid- erer avec hostilite tout changement (fut- ce un progres) qui luietait propose de 1' exterieur." 151
We are familiar with this analysis from the previous chapter. We can describe Trudeau's view of the pre-1960 period as one of complementary nationalisms in Canada. Confederation was viewed as a partnership. English
Canada never made an attempt to accept Quebec as an equal partner; the French
Canadians did their best to avoid any such possibility, and as a result, Can•
adian federalism was in stalemate, and what is more, was accepted as such.
Leadership and people accepted an unavoidably negative compact federalism.
The English proceeded with industrialization within their own areas, and in
Quebec they left the French society to stagnate until well into the early
part of this century, at which point they started a massive exploitative in•
dustrialization in the province.
French Canada's socio-economic situation was worse than this agree•
ment to differ would indicate. While, or because Quebec missed all the
advantages of progressive labour legislation and labour structures in the
151 Trudeau, La Greve de l'Amiante, Le Province de Quebec a l'heure de Greve, Chapter 1, p. 12. 82.
20th century, it suffered all the dislocation of rapid industrialization.
As the agricultural economy sank into decline an ever increasing popula• tion was forced into the cities - and there, uneducated, unorganized,they 152 were exploited for cheap uncomplaining labour. With little provision for the protection of labour and almost no guarantees for the rational development of its natural resources, Quebec's industry was primarily exploitative, and was consciously placed in the hands of outside business concerns, which the elite preferred for their desire to not interfere with the social structure and culture. It was fitting that in cooperating with
Union Nationa]£the English Canadian and American companies became the 153
Colonialist bogeyman which helped arouse the revolution.
For the"English" companies used their own people for responsible positions and excluded French Canadians consciously from industry and
corporate business; they thus managed to turn a rising group of profession•
als from natural allies into fervid enemies. Similarly, arrogant labour
policies turned what were originally designed to be docile, domestic and 154 Catholic syndicates into militant unions. But to all this, for over fifty years there was no constructive pro•
test from official French Canada; only reaction in the form of nationalism,
whose sole solutions consisted of carefully nurtured negation, and whose 152 Trudeau, La Greve de l'Amiante, Chapter I, p. 78-80. 153 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 24-25. 154 Trudeau, La Greve de l'Amiante, Introduction, p. 80-83. 83. early objectives were centered on a hopeless effort to maintain Quebec in isolation.
These efforts, as were to be expected, were futile. In an age when even legally sovereign states have retained almost only a purely legal sovereignty, Quebec in one corner of North America would pay an impossible price for maintaining its isolated spiritual garden.But still the opin• ion makers of Quebec persisted in believing all states, including Quebec's, evil, and so they withdrew from politics, leaving the state to those who appreciated it, the English. And indeed the state served French Canada in only one respect. By accepting and encouraging the French Canadians' re• fusal to participate, the state in Quebec acted alone in fulfilling a self defined mandate to preserve French Canadian culture. If we accept Trudeau's
interpretation of the culture's shortcomings, this apparent service was in
fact the gravest disservice the state could have performed for French Canada.
The state, in accepting the citizens' abrogation of responsibility, became
itself irresponsible in both a moral and practical sense
" In the field of political culture no less than in other fields, our institutions do not deserve to survive at all unless they can successfully survive external compet• ition." 156
Quebec governments, with the possible exception of the Godbout
Liberals, relied for their political strength on their image of the defen-
155 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 11-21. 156 Ibid., p. 35. 84. der of the Nation and the Faith.Anything it did as a result was by definition done for the nation and could consequently be questioned only at the questioner's risk of being branded traitor and heretic. The Federal
Government was equally irresponsible. It could pose as the defender and propagator of English Canadian nationalism on the one side, vis a vis the
United States and French Canada, or as a passive guarantor of Quebec's cul- 158 ture on the other (as the Liberals so long and so successfully did). In neither case were they called on to answer for their actions on any grounds but the nationalist, which the politicians easily enough turned into emo• tional putty. They used it to cover incompetence, corruption and their
failure to concern themselves with the material issues facing the country.
Both levels of government failed in their duty. In sealing the two cul•
tures from each other, they betrayed their duty toward cultural and individ•
ual freedom; and by exploiting the tensions of race, they ignored the real
socio-economic questions facing the society. By the tacit consent that
federal-Quebec relations were fundamentally nationalist, they managed to
aggravate the economic and social tensions within Quebec and the rest of
the country. The realization of the inadequacy of Quebec politics and con•
federation itself became manifest with the Quiet Revolution, when the real•
ization suddenly blossomed among the majority of Quebeckers that the state
had a usefulness in promoting their welfare. They became discontent to
157 Trudeau, "Un Manifeste Democratique", Cite' Libre, # 22, October 1958, p. 2-3. 158 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec", p. 119-120. 85. leave it a passive bystander, though still without a precise idea of what this welfare was, nor of how effectively to use it to achieve these ends.
But things had not changed overnight in Quebec. In fact, the con•
scious Revolution against the Old Order got under way after the Second War.
And if ever proof be required that nationalism is a sterile force, let it be considered that fifteen years of systematic non-nationalism and sometimes ruthless anti-nationalism at a few key points of the society were enough to help Quebec to pass from a feudal into a modern era. 159
But the reaction which followed the European revolutions came nat
urally on the heels of the revolution. The essential element of public
control of the state was not lost, as in 1789; it had simply not existed
in Queb ec.
When in Europe the dynasties and traditions had been toppled, the new societies quickly found a new cohesive agent in nationalism; and no sooner had privilege within the na• tion given way to internal equality than privilege between nations fell under attack; external equality was pursued by way of na• tional self determination. In Quebec today the same forces are at work; a new and mod• ern society is being glued together by na- tionalistrij it is discovering its potential• ities as a nation, and is demanding equality with all other nations. This in turn is causing a backlash in other provinces, and Canada suddenly finds herself wondering whether she has a future. 160
159 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism, and Reason", p. 201. 160 Ibid., p. 201-202. 86.
Trudeau is very careful to distinguish the nationalist political
"victory" from the pragmatic social modernization of the 1950's. He is proud of his own role in it.^^''" The progress the reformers achieved was destined to be short lived however since no political reform to support them was forthcoming. As a result of the elite's preoccupation with the ideological questions of nationalism, the social reforms achieved in the private sector never became the concern of the state. The latter managed in spite of everything, to stay irrelevant in Quebec, even after 1960.
French-English relations has been permanently upset by the Quiet
Revolution, but the change in the Quebec government's role was only formal.
It now became an active, rather than a passive champion of the French
Canadian nation. That this role entailed a stronger involvement in social
questions only camouflaged the nationalist role that the state still played
in Quebec. Because it was a revolutionary date in Quebec's development, 1960
was an even more important moment in Canadian history. For while profound
changes had occurred in Quebec's social structures, its politics and its
relations to the rest of the country, there was no compensatory change in
163
English Canada. The trends that characterized its relations towards
Quebec continued unchanged, thereby aggravating an increasingly sensitive
situation. So that when in 1960, Quebec was ready for a new relationship
of the two societies, English Canada failed to perceive, let alone respond 161 Ibid., p. 201. 162 Trudeau, "Les Progres de l'lllusion", Cite7 Libre, # 47, May 1962,p.1-2. 163 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", p. 200-201. 87. to the common challenge. 164 Now that complementary nationalisms became
impossible, confederation was confronted with the absolute necessity of
a new alternative that the majority of the country was not prepared to see
introduced. Instead of the old relationship or a constructive new form of
federalism, a result was reached by default.The two nationalisms rea•
ched a stage of confrontation (or better, the moment of historical dialectic
that Trudeau sees as the inevitable result of the failure of the undemocra•
tic politics in Quebec and Canada).
What is to be done? ... if not a pure product of reason, the political tools of the future will be designed and ap• praised by more rational standards than anything we are currently using in Canada today. 166
... because it seems obvious to me that nationalism - and of course I mean the Canadian as well as the Quebec variety, has put (Canada) on a collision course, I am suggesting that cold, unemotional rationality can still save the ship ... (functionalism in politics) perhaps will prove to be inseparable from any workable concept of federalism. 167
Though Trudeau is always eager to characterize political actions
and theories as either functional and good or ideologically dogmatic and
bad, we are hard put to define "political pragmatism" in any but the crud•
est form."''0^ Trudeau gives it certain attributes, but these are generally
164 Ibid., p. 201. 165 P.E. Trudeau and Gerard Pelletier, "Pelletier et Trudeau s'expliquent", Cite Libre, # 80, October 1965, p. 4. 166 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason, pp. 202-203. 167 Ibid., p. 203. 168 Trudeau, et.al. "Pour Une Politique Fonctionnelle; Un Manifeste", Cite Libre, # 67, May 1964, p. 17. too vague to be anything but hints. Functionalism eschews the emotional in political appeal and political decision making. Trudeau holds a crea• tive freedom as the highest political value, the only means to direct
society well. Therefore, any political form that seeks to manipulate the
individual is ipso factoi dysfunctional. It neglects its real duties, its
concern with the equitable inner workings of the society, it places free•
dom below some irrelevant totality. The state is a servant, at best a
clever but a dumb machine which can only have its proper goals if it is
directed by a free people. The state must seek to champion its people's
freedom at the expense of its own.
Given the scope of the state's responsibilities, it is imperative
that it carry them out efficiently. Since service is its only reason for
being, the two consequences of its failure, the people's unhappiness, and
its own demise are both things to be avoided. This may be the core of
functional politics then: the state's realisation of its subservience,
and the efficiency of its service.
How then do we apply so vague a concept to the Canadian context?
The first step, Trudeau insists, is to free Canadian politics of
the Nationalist emotionalism with which lesser men than the Fathers of 169 Confederation have loaded it. Cultural heterogeneity must cease to be
a point of argument. It is a Value, and the only discussion concerned with 169 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", p. 200. 89. it should be about the best means to its promotion. Canadians must stop shadow-boxing with problems which have substance only as long as they in- sist on seeing them.
The second step is to understand what the "real" problems are.
That achieved, the necessary machinery must be established to solve them.
Then at the bidding of the people or at least with their active support, the state must solve them.
Let us for the sake of argument accept his premise that Nationalism is a wicked invention that ruling classes, or those aspiring to power would use to dupe people.'''7''' Let us further accept Trudeau's assumption that it has ruled in Quebec and in Canada by default. We can now try to understand what Trudeau plans to offer Canadians as an alternative.
In his writings and his active politics the emphasis on language rights and regional disparity have unquestionably been dominant. In com• bination they offer an extremely powerful alternative indeed. 172 "The first rule of politics is to start from given facts." Canada as it stands is Trudeau's given, although he applies the principle somewhat too selectively to the society. Canada is ten provinces and a federal
government. It is an immense and extremely varied terrain. The majority
of its people are English speaking, and a large minority live a French cul•
ture. Smaller groups find other cultures cogenial. From these givens
Trudeau entirely and consciously excludes the fact that the large French 170 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 44. 171 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason, p. 195. 172 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 8. 90. minority is concentrated in one area, and for the most part within the jurisdiction of one provincial government.
This selectivity on Trudeau's part is intentional because his entire attack on the rival nationalisms rests on the somewhat artifical premise that the two great cultures have free play in the entire territory 174 of Canada. By acting on this theory, Trudeau can bypass the provincial structures which have given political power to French Canadian nationalism.
He has proposed legislation, both before and since actual participation in party politics to ensure the congenial environment for the practice of both 175 cultures in the whole of Canada.
There can be no denying that his plea refers to French rather than
English language rights (which he feels have always been safe in Quebec anyway). He has wanted to make it very clear that French Canadians have
a home in Canada, not only in Quebec. This tactic may be viewed as another version of the "divide and conquer" policy. In ensuring French Canadians
that they are not solely dependant on the government of Quebec for protec•
tion of their culture, Trudeau can effectively nullify the province's claim
to nation-state status.
Though not as completely, the theme of regional disparity is also
aimed at Quebec. It is the positive aspect of the "real" economic issue
in Canada. Quebec's real problem Trudeau insists, the nationalists notwith- 173 This is not to say that the Quebec government does not bear a heavy responsibility for the preservation of French culture, but it does this as its duty towards the majority of its citizens, who happen to be French speaking. cf. "Le Quebec e^st-il Assiege'?" Cite' Libre #86, April-May 1966, p. 9-10. 174 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Quebec and the Constitu• tional Problem", p. 47. 175 Ibid., p. 48-51. 91.
J17/ 6D standing, is its socio-economic backwardness."' The answer to this is not further withdrawal from the mainstream of North American life, but rather a more vigorous participation in it. The way to satisfy the real demands of the ordinary majority of Quebeckers is to give them the mater• ial welfare that modern technology can offer. Defense of the culture is a provincial responsibility that should occupy a place secondary to the assurance of an economic base which will make the enjoyment of cultural freedom possible. Trudeau wants Quebec incorporated into the economic life of the country as a whole, by the country as a whole.
The emphasis on regional equalization is not restricted to Quebec however. It is fundamental to Trudeau's policy that all, or at least the majority of the people in a state be satisfied with living in the state,
and that none be permanantly disaffected. The great inequalities within
the country pose an unavoidable source of just such permanent discontent
and it is to preventing their aggravation, that he addresses himself.
The answer is a concerted effort by the country as a whole to bring
the poorer areas nearer the general level of prosperity. The task is enormous, as Trudeau is very much aware. His feeling
that in Canada good politics must be nationally desirable and provincially 177 feasible is adequate testimony to this. The richer members must be
brought to realize that the sacrifices required to promote the poorer areas
are in their own interest as members of a larger society which can render 176 Trudeau, et.al. "Pour une Politique Fonctionne lie :Un Manifeste", Cite* Libre, # 67, May 1964, pp. 11-17 177 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "The Practice and Theory of Federalism", p. 128. 92, them higher benefits, than they, as smaller units, could gain alone. They must be persuaded of this just as they must be persuaded of the necessity of satisfying the cultural needs of the French part of the population.
Canadians must be persuaded that the healthy functioning of Canada is to their greater advantage than the satisfaction of particular regional egoisms.
The responsibility for persuading the people of this lies with the political parties. Though these may disagree on methods to their achieve• ment, all democratic parties are dedicated to freedom and equality. Given this it is the parties' responsibility to champion both language rights and
regional equalization in Canada.
The CCF and the NDP failed, and Trudeau never ceases to damn them
for it, because of a rigidity of dogma. While they were strong advocates of
economic justice, they ignored French Canada's cultural demands almost com-
178 pletely. He calls more in sorrow than in anger to Canadian socialism. " Federalism must be welcomed as a valuable tool which permits dynamic parties to plant socialist governments in certain provinces, from which the seed of radicalism can slowly spread." 179
The other parties failed equally badly because they lacked any coherent
ideology at all. Partially this failure stems from the lack of democratic
spirit within the parties. Not being included to trust to the leadership
178 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "The Practice and Theory of Federalism", pp. 129-130 and "L'Homme de Gauche et les Elections Provinciales I, Les Opinions de Pierre Elliott Trudeau", Cite Libre,# 51, November 1962, pp. 3-5. 17 9 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "The Practice and Theory of Federalism", p. 127. 93. and advice of their membership, the Liberals and the Conservatives failed 180 to understand what the people wanted. The political parties failed to
define the society's democratic goals, and the different levels of execu•
tive power ignored this basic question in order to concentrate on irres•
ponsible squabbles about jurisdiction.
The value of a federal structure lies in its ability to distribute
political power in proportion to the need for it. Being a pragmatically conceived form of government, jurisdiction in Canada is functionally and
flexibly apportioned. Trudeau noticed an unfortunate tendency though for
governments to raid jurisdictions, on the excuse that the level responsible
was not performing its duty.
He objected most vehemently to this kind of paternalism when the Saint Laurent government insisted on federal support for Quebec's univer- 181 sities. This instance was about the only time that Trudeau and the 182
Union Nationale found common ground. His objection was founded on a pro•
found conviction of the role of responsibility in democratic government. A
government is responsible to its own citizenry for the policies pursued
within its jurisdiction, and only the government with this responsibility
can act justifiably within it. If, for example, the federal government
steps into a field where only provincial governments have jurisdiction, it
acts for and on a population to whom it is only partially responsible. This
example180 Trudeau, as wel, "Diefenbakel as its reverser Mont,e eins Ballon"an outrigh, Citt edenia Librl e o#f 26th,e Apriprincipll 196e0 of and "Pearson ou I'abdication de I'Esprit", Citd Libre # 56, April 1963. 181 Trudeau, "Les Octrois Fe'deraux aux Universites", Cite Libre # 16, February, 1957. 182 Trudeau, "Projet de lettre a M. Duplessis", Vrai, December 11, 1954,p.2 94. self government.
Trudeau is convinced that the parties and the different levels of government failed even to approach the first step towards truly functional and democratic politics. As to how he proposes to institute it we have only the vaguest indications. The first step is the democratization of
183 the parties. Essentially this process would involve a change in the decision-making process of the parties, shifting the power from the leader to the caucus and even further, the membership as a whole. This change would give the leaderships the necessary sources of public opinion that a more hierarchically organized structure does not allow itself. The second major step is to turn the political parties into educational insti• tutions aimed at acquainting the citizenry with the democratic alternatives towards the major "real" problems which the society faces. Given the tasks, the state must make its structures as efficient as possible in their execution. The responsibilities^the jurisdictions must be clear, allowing the public to exercise its control in the most effective manner, as well as enabling the establishment of the most functional channels for
the duties concerned. Equally important as the structure is the quality
of the men constituting the executive machine. Political and technological
expertise equal to the task is essential for Functional Politics.
Apart from these simple aspects, Functional Politics is more a 184 state of mind than an actual political structure. It is the practice 183 Trudeau, "L'Avenir du Parti Liberal", Vrai, November 3, 1956 and "M. Pearson ou 1'Abdication de l'esprit", Cite" Libre # 56, April 1963. 184 Trudeau, et.al. "Pour une Politique Fonctionnelle :Un Manifeste", Cite'' Libre # 67, May 1964, p. 17. 95. of a morally motivated pragmatism, the constant weighing of alternatives, the constant sense in the political leader of responsibility and feasabil- ity. Though such a description for Canada's politics may seem oversimpli• fied, there is little in what Trudeau has written with specific reference to federal politics which would enable us to say more. The theoretical construct of the servant state we had described in chapter III applies universally, Canada not excluded.
The single mindedness expressed in such universal concepts of morality and "correct" politics may be the most significant attribute of the body of writing we have examined. It may be both Trudeau's major
strength, or his greatest weakness. Truly, it is probably both. Some
observations on his approach to politics are all we can offer as a pre•
liminary evaluation, of how as public thinker he has been a successful or
Utopian interpreter of the subject. CHAPTER VIII
CONCLUSION
It is interesting to note how really sacred Trudeau holds politics, how far above other human activity. It is the means to the real social 185 ends. It is "serious" business and it must be approached "seriously".
Emotion may be acceptable in private life, in anything really, but not
politics. Here the participants (ideally all citizens) play with fire.
They play with the lives, the welfare, the perfection of their fellow men.
Here one could not afford to act on impulse but only with the most
exacting rationality, the most precise information. Politics is really a
sort of sacred sphere, where we must leave behind mortal flaws, where we i
must seek to be perfect in order to be worthy to partake.
Trudeau's has always been a moralistic approach to politics. He
has applied the norms of an universal ethic to the Canadian case. Demo•
cracy, though justified simply as the most pragmatic and successful of
political systems, is far more. It is an ultimate form of human organiza•
tion. Politics is the ultimate social activity, and social activity is
the means to human fulfillment. Man is destined for self perfection. Any•
thing that helps him to achieve it then is necessarily a Good, anything
that impeded it a Bad. Politics is the ultimate tool of both salvation and
damnation, and is necessarily then the activity of the deepest moral sign•
ificance . 185 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", pp. 195, 202-203. 97.
The commitment to this philosophy has never seemed to change in what he wrote. The approach varied at times, but the insistance on the absolute value of democracy has remained.
This commitment may be germinal to the most significant paradox in the thought of Pierre Trudeau. He considers himself a pragmatist. By this he means something rather more particular than a common distaste of dogma. Pragmatism is flexibility in the rational pursuit of human freedom.
We discussed the concept earlier in this paper and there seems no need to re-elaborate here. Of importance, however, is the fact that Trudeau dis• dains any definition of human purposes other than the search for liberty and material welfare of individuals. Dogma for him is any ideology other than his humanism. Such ideology takes on the proportions of an obstacle to human progress and thus becomes elevated onto the moral plane; it be• comes Evil. It corrupts. We see ample demonstration of this attitude throughout his work. It is his dominant negative theme. In effect, rather than a pragmatist, Trudeau is an anti-Dogmatist. The attitude slips easily
into a dogmatism in its own right, and presents a serious doubt about the
inner consistency of Trudeau's own personal code of politics.
The first law of politics, he has told us, is to start with given
facts. The question raised in an observer's mind is if he is capable of
following his own first law. It would seem that Trudeau is unable to con•
ceive of people who in good faith and with a modicum of intelligence, have
different premises about society and humanity from his own. The intolerance
186 Trudeau, et.al. "Pour une Politique Fonctionnelle: Un Manifeste", Cite7Libre # 67, May 1964, p. 17. 98. so often evident in his tone of righteous indignation has brought the fre• quent charges of arrogance in Quebec, where he is after all, best known.
As we have seen, Trudeau is literally quite merciless with the nationalists. He refuses to take their aspirations as expressions of sincerity, and has taken several occasions to characterize the movements 187 as pet it bourgeois, feudal, reactionary, fascistic and totalitarian.
Declarations of this nature would hardly lead one to believe that the man could engage in any kind of meaningful exchange with his ideological op• ponents. Given that the nationalist school in its various shades expresses an important, and certainly the most vocal part of French Canadian political thought, it may be wise to reflect on Trudeau's ability to practice prag• matic democracy in this most important of Canadian areas. The rigidity of the basic commitment to Reason prevents him from exercising a political pragmatism that by definition must contain some tolerance of the non symet- rical.
Like other thinkers who start with unquestionable premises, Trudeau has unavoidably tried to sidestep anything that may have been anti-thetical to his theory.
Though his philosophy is almost geometrically consistent if viewed in isolation, the thought it spawned has often teemed with contradiction.
A most noteable example is in his attitude to the repatriation of the Canadian economy. There is nothing extraordinary in his argument. It
is in fact a sober analysis which points out that in order to achieve econ- 187 Trudeau, "Les Separatistes: des Contte-Revolutionnaires", Cite7 Libre, # 67, May 1964. (p.4.) 99. omic independence, which he deems a slightly desirable democratic objec• tive, Canadians would have to accept some material deprivation. The rate of saving, of course, can only rise with a drop in spending. He feels
Canadians will accept the sacrifice and expresses confidence that they wil-It l dA o so. 188 On the identical issue, the repatriation of control of the Quebec 189 economy, he is equally confident of the opposite.
It seems here as elsewhere, that Trudeau succumbs to a perverse and wishful thinking. He deems Canada as a political entity, a value, and
Quebec as a lower political entity, a value of a much more limited kind.
The sacrifices he expects of people are equally proportioned. Trudeau is
certain that legal sovereignty for Quebec evokes passive repulsion from
its citizens while Canadian economic independence meets with active sacr•
ifice .
This emotionally based rationalization appears frequently in his
writing and always for much the same reason; a dogmatic convict ion in the
universal power of Reason.
We have made allusion early in this paper to differences that so
readily distinguish Trudeau from the Marxians, and pointed to their one
significant similarity. The Marxian concept of correct and False Conscious•
ness is reflected in Trudeau's concepts of Reason and Irrationality. The
states of grace, correct consciousness and Reason are the inevitable porters
188 Trudeau, "A Propos de Domination Economique", Cite'Libre # 20, May 1958, p. 9. 189 Trudeau, "La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs", Cite/ Libre # 46, April 1962, p. 12. 100. of Utopia. The broad popular achievement of both is equally miraculous.
Trudeau's concept of Rationality suffers primarily from his ambi• valence in defining it. In effect his definition is as perverse as the
Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven. A decision is rational if it calculates for contingencies, takes a long view (adlnfl.nlturn ) in other words, if it is successful. A rational act, i.e., a moral act, is a suc•
cessful act and the same applies in reverse, an immoral act is an act with
dysfunctional consequences. One cannot help contemplating a parallel
Marxist definition of correct consciousness as being "when people revolt".
Rationality is pragmatism. It deals with possibilities, weighs
alternatives and seeks success. This cold pragmatism and the frequent
failure to refer rationality to the higher moral levels which we elabor•
ated in the first chapter has led some observers to see a political cynic•
ism in what Trudeau has written. There is no question that his idealism,
his express and implicit belief in human perfectability, and his succinct
pragmatism make confusing mixture.
What then is the significance of the political thinker Trudeau? He
is not original or especially methodical as a philosopher; he is neither a
revolutionary nor a leader of reaction as a politician.
Servan Schreiber thinks him the statesman of the 21st century; others
see him a child of the sixteen hundreds. Socialists disown him, supporters
of "free enterprise" are afraid of him. The paradoxes run into infinity. But
perhaps it is in the very essence of Paradox that Trudeau is most at ease. 101.
His idealism is unbounded, and yet he exposes his Utopian social system in terms of functional pragmatism. He seeks to free the individual through social behavior. He wants a world of reason through the will of numbers.
These, as all paradoxes, harbor an inner consistency. His total
faith in the possibilities of humanity help explain away whatever may seem a contradiction and lead him to expect too much of people. It may be this
total faith that gives him what has bean now called charisma, (the religious
implication of the term not being altogether out of place). But it would
be outside the bounds of our analysis to attempt a description of interpre•
tations of Trudeau's personality; it is our aim only to seek an understand•
ing of the political critique he has applied to Canada.
He is without a doubt one of the most striking of modern Canadian
thinkers. Though his emphasis on Reason, which is the main character of
the work, may itself seem sometimes unreasonable, this should not detract
from the innate interest of what he holds; it does reflect on the way he
holds his beliefs. He is at his worst a dogmatist. The strong, sometimes
seemingly arrogant position he takes with the more human men, the weaker
less self assured, the "petits bourgeois Quebecois" Is Trudeau at his most
determined and most inflexible. At best, he is a strongly committed but
highly pragmatic activist. The insistence on "liberalization" of the
Criminal Code, and the systematic presentation of the case for regional
equalization both represent this side of him.
He is above all the "messenger", the advocate of a social philosophy
based totally on rational acceptance. He appeals to human reason, eager to 102.
190 explain, to argue, to advocate, to discuss and to dispute. He has al• ways made the effort to be understood, to persuade, but he has restricted
his appeal to peers, who very largely understood already. The style is
elegant, the thought often profound, but the pearls, disjointed, dulled, were most usually cast in front of unappreciative eyes.
Though Trudeau's message and his principles stayed the same, his
audiences changes radically with the Quiet Revolution and once again in
1966. The failure of the Liberal elites to institute the democratic struc•
tures he yearned for in Quebec led Trudeau to concern himself more with
the young, the university group, and somewhat more with the English. When
even this far wider and still limited audience failed him, Trudeau turned
to the "People" in active politics.
There is nothing inconsistent in this change. Rather it demon•
strates the strength of the ideals motivating him, and constituted a purely
tactical change. For while it is the elite which is the spark that wakes
the people to democracy, it is the conscience of the people which must 191 first wake the elite. The question is where to initiate the process?
The ambivalence of Trudeau's political activity reflects this intel•
lectual ambivalence well. He tried to be the conscience to the elites. But
during the fifties he insists that he also spent himself in waking the com•
mon people. His final disillusionment with the Quebec elites, and we may
add, with the English elite, (as it were, in translation) was the preclude
190 But to say that he was eager to engage in discussion and explanation is not to say that he succeeded. 191 Trudeau, "Manifeste pour une Politique Fonctionnelle II", Cite"' Libre, Vol. 1,' # 2, February 1951, p. 28, illustrates this. 103. to his entry into popular politics. What he couldn't persuade the elite
of, he sought to preach to the people.
A good deal militated against the majority of people however, in
spite of his own hopes for them, ever understanding what the Functional
politics really were. To internalize such a concept one must understand
its rationale, and Trudeau has unfortunately never described the inner pro•
cess of his own rationalization. We have had to piece the inner structure
together, as best we could, in this paper. His audiences have seen what in
reality is a Creed, rather than a philosophy.
Trudeau has expected his readers to have done the prior reasoning
with him, to be ready to listen for its reaffirmation, its coherent expres•
sion. But to understand, we also need the moral code on which Trudeau
based his thinking just as much as geometry needs its axioms.
What has seemed the rigidity in Trudeau's thought may likely stem
from this inflated expectation of people. He expects clear accord with
complicated ideas he never explains; he expects selfishness to be metamor-
phasized into social conscience at the revelation of these ideas; he expects
pure reason to replace mingled human decision making. He seems in fact to
expect an almost complete revolution in human behaviour - one so total as
to be Utopian.
This element in his writings is well reflected in the published
observations concerning his political style and thought. The word "charisma"
appears frequently in contexts that seem to imply more than the Weberian
meaning of the term and verge on Messianism. The appearance of a "thoughts 104. of ..." style book entitled "The Gospels According to Saint Pierre" and more significantly Servan Schreiber's estimation of Trudeau also indicate that in the view of some, he is sufficiently removed from the common run of life, sufficiently spiritual and uncompromising to be thought a Utopian, or a visionary or a man before his time, depending on the writer's prejud• ice.
The "totalness" of his thought is probably its most distinguishing
characteristic. He calls for absolutes; the servant state as robot state,
the citizens as conscious, intelligent, morally motivated, sensitive, yet
firm, pragmatic yet long-sighted. As Utopian thought, it is bound to be
rigid. Trudeau is able to dismiss all the incongruencies of the socio•
political reality that seem a permanent bar to the functional good society.
He presumes that if only people were as he would like them to be, the system
would bring itself into being.
This rigidity and totalness is unfortunate in that it alienates pre•
cisely the type of sensitive pragmatism he would like to attract and engen•
ders the dogmatism it is meant to supplant. Foremost example of the former
is Claude Ryan's critiques of Trudeau's 'pens/e', which he finds repellant
in its moralistic ascetism and unreality. The reaction of the more extreme
nationalists in French and English Canada provide an example of the latter,
polarizing around what they have legitimately (given its weak exposition)
construed Trudeau's position to be.
But the power of these ideas, even if they seem excessive, had also
given him extraordinary fortitude in the pursuit of their attainment. "La 105.
192 Guerre! La Guerre!", his call for Total War, sums up his position well. The violence of the contrast between his ideals and those of his
society, and the energy with which he proceeded in exposing it, contribute, more perhaps than anything, to making him an outstanding radical in Canad•
ian political, social and intellectual history.
The articles examined in this study represent an important and
neglected phase of Quebec's political development in a period Trudeau has
called "years of un-nationalism, or even violent anti-nationalism". These
years were also the point at which an influential segment of one of the
two "partners" in the Confederation compact, came seriously and construct•
ively to question the nature of Canadian federalism. These two moments
find a focus in Trudeau himself, for in the questioning of the worn Quebec
social superstructure, the Cite' Libre circle came inevitably to challenge
the French Canadian isolationism that constituted the sum and substance of
Quebec's external policy. To question Quebec's defensive passivity was to
challenge English Canada's cynical aggressivity, and thus to destroy what
had become an accepted and respectable basis for the country's constitution.
The Cite7 Libre group was little supported outside the province. This
may be one of those great missed opportunities of which French-English rela•
tions are so full, for it is likely that if their proposals had received a
serious hearing in Canada, they would have been able to slow the violent
hardening of advanced Quebec opinion which followed the statist victory of
192 Trudeau, "La Guerre! La Guerre!", Cit/ Librei # 42, December 1961, p.l 106. the provincial liberals in 1960. The Functional Politics proposals that were last stated by Trudeau in 1959 were in fact never adopted, and the cycle of nationalist conflict in Canada grew ever steeper. The ancient and 'respectable' passivity that Trudeau depicted so clearly as the mo• tive force of the "ancien regime" was replaced by the inevitably more violent and activist nationalism of a generation which differed from their predecessors only in a cynical awareness of the state's power. From the point of view of Canadian politics, then Trudeau was significant, even if unnoticed.
From a more detached perspective of purely the intellectual and
literary history of French Canada too, Trudeau is an important phenomenon.
It may seem too harsh to describe the quality of Quebec social thought of
the period as liturgical, but with the significant exception of the Laval
group under Father Levesque, most students of contemporary Quebec were more ideological than analytic, and failed abysmally to reach the level of
scholarship attained by Siegfeid's study of Quebec in 1907.
In such an atmosphere, Trudeau must often have seemed even more of
a 'bloody' revolutionary than he really was. Though observers have inevit•
ably compared him to Laurier, the resemblances are more apparent than real.
As an intellectual and a political figure Trudeau is far more reminiscent
of Bourassa, though the obvious differences in their social contexts make
even the parallels between the Cite' Libre circle and "Les Rouges" of little
value. The times made Trudeau far more a threat to the traditional social
structures than they did Bourassa though the two were equally condemned by
the elites. The clergy's heightened erudition allowed them only to elabor•
ate this to make Trudeau into the "Canadian Marx". 107.
Trudeau's form of thought was completely at odds with the norm in Quebec. His sophistication in the social sciences, his disregard of the national myth, his English approach to law, his social-democratic orientation, his erudition in French, all combined to make him an outstand• ing example of the small group of reformists pamphleteers that the Cite7
Libre group was. The journal as a form had occupied an honored place in
Quebec literature, but it had been usually for reaffirmation rather than rebuttal of the Catholic nationalism which formed the foundations of the
French Canadian elite's ethos.
Trudeau was, unlike Bourassa, very much an outsider in Quebec's political and intellectual life. Pelletier and Trudeau himself have been on the defensive about his credentials as a good Quebecker, and while he is one, he is in some ways very much a foreigner. His early career was orthodox enough, but once he left the University of Montreal, he drifted
from from the usual path of the French Canadian elite. Harvard and London were rather unorthodox, especially the former. His globe travels in 1949-
50 were so unusual that Jacques Hebert was able, at approximately the same
time, to have published accounts of similar travels in prominent spots in
Le Devoir. Trudeau's admiration for Laski and Blum brought him severe
criticism from the clerico-establishment, and his objective reports from
Moscow in 1952, though innocuous enough read today, must have taken con•
siderable courage to print them. Both his participation in and his later
report on the Asbestos strike put him very far outside the official pale.
But this does not mean that he inevitably found his home among the
rebels either. On the contrary,the strength of his convictions, and the 108. seeming weakness of many colleagues made their gradual separation inevit• able. As the majority of the Cite Libre group came to accept the Quiet
Revolution for its reformism and came to terms with the nationalism that underlay it, Trudeau went his own way and gradually drifted away from the journal and the group.
But were we to accept that Trudeau was very much an outsider in
Quebec, we should still have to ask why he stayed so long and so persist•
ently in Quebec. His proclamations of love for the country and the people may explain it in part, but as he travelled he must have encountered far more congenial places for a man of his tastes and resources. The answer may lie to a degree in the totalness of thought to which we referred above.
Trudeau was a revolutionary, and by circumstance of birth had chosen Quebec
as his revolution. Both his formal education and the exposure to social
thought in its most advanced form abroad puts his thought far outside the
Quebec context. In contrast to most other French Canadian reform thinkers
of the period he applied a universal and consistent personal synthesis to
the particular situation in Quebec, while the others, perhaps as a result
of intellectual or cultural limitations, applied a large degree of Quebec
localism to the formulation of a universalist thought which they finally
applied back to the very circumstances from which it had sprung.
Trudeau has remained constantly loyal to his ideals to the exclu•
sion of the loyalty to more temporal realities. His critics, though admit•
ting his intellectual integrity, insist that it would have been better to
remain honest in adjusting his thoughts to new situations, rather than
trying to adjust the realities to his thought. This questionable integrity 109. makes of him an unusual figure in a number of ways. He has been rejected by the intellectual vocalists whom he has sought to persuade in Quebec as a Utopian, or worse, a conscious tool of those cynical interests that would eradicate French Canadian nationalism for the benefit of a colonialist
interest. As sad as this present rejection is, it may be that Functional-
ism will become the potent ideology in the rest of the country that he hoped
it would be. With the increase in Canadians' sophistication, it is possible that in the long run, as it is adopted by one party to the great Canadian misunderstanding, it may help to reconcile the other.
But this is only speculation and time alone can show its accuracy.
Trudeau has been an outstanding figure in this country's intellec•
tual history. He had brought a degree of cosmopolitanism, pragmatism, cold•
ness of thought and logic that has been a novelty in Canada. He has played
an active role in a phase of social history that makes of him a genuine hero
of Canadian labour. He engaged in a struggle to topple an anachronistic and
despotic government, and so helped to bring on a political revolution he
feared and yearned for. He has developed and propounded political ideas
that could bring with them a revolution in the thought on, and conduct of,
the country's public affairs. He has achieved more in the varied phases
of political activity than any man in this country. He has been revolution•
ary, reformer, ideologue and philosopher.
This essay has sought to describe what he, at a time when he stood
in opposition to the political life of his society, would have wanted to
see that system replaced with ... and why. There are innumerable other ap•
proaches to the compiling of a political and intellectual biography, that are, it is to be hoped, forthcoming. BIBLIOGRAPHY
ESSAYS BY PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU
1. CITE LIBRE Manifeste pour une Politique Fonctionnelle I. Cit Manifeste pour une Politique Fonctionnelle II. Cite" Libre, Vol. I, #2, February 1951. Reflexions sur la Politique au Canada Francais, Cite' Libre, Vol. 2, #3, December 1952. Materiaux pour servir a une Enquete sur le Clericalisme I, Cite Libre, #7, May 1953. L'Election federate due 10 aout 1953, Prodromes et Conjectures, Cite Libre, #8, November 1953. Fluctuations economiques et Methodes de Stabilisation, Cite Libre, #9, March 1954. De Libro, Tributo et Quibusdam Aliis, Cite Libre, #10, October 1954. Essais sur le Quebec Contemporain, Cite Libre, #10, October 1954. Les Octrois Federaux aux Universites, Cite Libre, #16, February 1957. In Memoriam: Albert Be"guin et Jacques Perrault, Cite Libre, #17, June 1957. A Propos de Domination Economique, Cite Libre, #20, May 1958. L'Affaire Coffin, Cite Libre, #21, July 1958. Un Manifeste Democratique, Cite Libre, #22, October 1958. Le Pere Cousineau, S.J., et "La greve de l'Amiante", Cite Libre, #23, May 1959. Mauvais Foi et Bonne Conscience: 1'argumentation selon Saint Ignace? Cite Libre, #24, January-February 1960. Lecon de science Politique dans un Pare qu'ils s'agiront de Preserver, Cite Libre, #25, March 1960. Diefenbaker Monte en Ballon, Cite Libre, #26, April 1960. De la Notion d'Opposition Politique Cite Libre, #27, May 1960. Notes sur 1'Election Provinciale, Cite Libre, #28, June-July 1960. L'Election du 22 Juin, Cite Libre, #29, August-September 1960. De Nouveau, la carte d'ldentite, Cite' Libre, #33, January 1961. A 1'ouest rien de Nouveau, Cite- Libre, #34, February 1961. L'Alienation Nationaliste, Cite Libre, #35, March 1961. Note sur le Parti Clerialiste, Cite Libre, #38, June-July 1961. La Guerre! La Guerre! Cite Libre, #42, December 1961. La Nouvelle Trahison des Clercs, Cite Libre, #46, April 1962. Les Progres de 1'Illusion, Cite Libre, #47, May 1962. Note sur la Conjoncture Politique, Cite Libre, #49, August-September 1962. L'Homme de Gauche et les Elections Provinciales I L'Opinions de Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Cite Libre, #51, November 1962. Pearson ou 1'Abdication de 1'Esprit, Cite Libre, #56, April 1963. Les Separatistes: des Contre-Revolutionaires, Cite Libre, #67, May 1964. Pour une Politique Fonctionnelle: Un Manifeste, Cite Libre, #67, May 1964. with: BRETON, Albert BRETON, Raymond BRUNEAU, Claude GAUTH1ER, Tvon 1AL0ND, Marc PINARD, Maurice L'Agriculture au Quebec, Cite Libre, #78, July 1965. Pelletier et Trudeau a'Expliquent, Cite Libre, #80, October 1965. Le Quebec est-il Assiege? Cite Libre, #86, April-May 1966. VRAI: Series of 20 articles under the general title "Cheminements de la Politique." Gouvernes par des Mediocres, Vrai, February 15, 1958. Quand les Fous Pensent Etre Ministres et Deputes, Vrai, February 22, 1958. Pour Prevenir les Seditions, Vrai, March 1, 1958. Le Juste Doit Aller en Prison, Vrai, March 8, 1958. Faut-il Assasiner le Tyran? Vrai, March 15, 1958. Obiir, Mais a Qui? Vrai, March 22, 1958. Saper la Majeste de l'Etat, Vrai, March 29, 1958. Les Elections, Vrai, April 5, 1958. Un'Etat fait sur Mesure, Vrai, April 12, 1958. Le Tyrannicide, les Jesuites et la Pere de Lery, Vrai, April 19, 1958. La Revolution et M. Andre Dagenais, Vrai, April 26, 1958, Contrat Social et Souverainete Populaire: Doctrines Condamnables, Vrai, May 2, 1958. L'Homme d'Etat: un Serviteur, Vrai, May 10, 1958. L'Argument d'Autorite, Vrai, May 17, 1958. La Trouille, Vrai, May 24, 1958. Le Peuple au Pouvoir, Vrai, May 31, 1958. Un Mipris de Legislature, Vrai, June 7, 1958. Le Droit de Protester, Vrai, June 21, 1958. Saint Thomas d'accord avec Karl Marx, Vrai, June 28, 1958. Pour que Vive la Democratie, July 5, 1958. Vrai. LE DEVOIR Lettre d'Egypte. Les Anglais auraient tout de s'obstiner, Le Devoir, Saturday, February 2, 1952. A series of seven articles from the USSR under the general title "Je reviens de Moscow." L'Auberge de la grande URSS, Le Devoir, June 14, 1952. Premieres Rencontres, Le Devoir, June 16, 1952. Un Peuple Sympathique, mais Conventionel jusqu'a la Nausee, Le Devoir, June 17, 1952. Le Citoyen Sovietique Demeure un "Cochon de Payant", Le Devoir, June 18, 1952. La Conference Commence, Le Devoir, June 19, 1952. Les Conclusions de la Conference, Le Devoir, June 20, 1952. ESSAYS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN COLLECTIONS "Quebec a 1'heure de la greve," the introductory essay to "La Greve de l'Amiante", Pierre Elliott Trudeau (ed.). Les Editions Cite" Libre, Montreal, 1956. 115. "Epilogue" to "La Greve de l'Amiante", Pierre Elliott Trudeau (ed.), Les Editions Cit/ Libre, Montreal, 1956. "Quebec and the Constitutional Problem", translated from the French by Joanne l'Heureux. "A Constitutional Declaration of Rights". Originally an address delivered to the 49th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in Quebec City on September 4, 1967. Both published in Federalism and the French Canadians, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, (ed.), Introduction by John T. Saywell, MacMillan Company of Canada Ltd., Toronto 1968. Originally published in French with the title Le Federalisme et la Societe^, Canadienne-franchise. Editions HMH LtSe, Mto. 1967. "Practice and Theory of Federalism" in Oliver Micheal (ed.), Social Purpose for Canada, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1961, reprinted in Trudeau: Federalism and the French Canadians. "Federalism, Nationalism and Reason", in Crepeau, P.A., and Macpherson, CB (eds.), The Future of Canadian Federalism. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1965. Reprinted in Federalism and the French Canadians. 5. ESSAYS APPEARING IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS Economic Rights - McGill Law Review, June 1962, Vol. 8, No. 2. "Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec" in the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, August 1958, reprinted in Federalism and the French Canadians. B. BOOKS BY PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU Trudeau, P.E. (ed.) - La Greve de 1'Amiante Editions Cite' Libre, Montreal, 1956. Trudeau, P.E. and Hebert Jacques, Deux Innocents en Chine, Editions du Jour, Montreal, 1961. Trudeau, P.E. , Responses de Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Edition du Jour, Montreal, 1968. Note: Other than those pieces cited above, there has been no indication that Trudeau has published originally in English. The plethora of his articles in English Canadian magazines: (most notably Canadian Forum) are without exception translations (sometimes slightly revised) of articles previously published in French. CRITIQUES OF PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU Until recently, there have been hardly any articles in journals or collections that dealt exclusively with Trudeau. For the most part even the flood of articles on Trudeau which appeared after his ascent on the horizon in 1968 were, as Joseph Wearing pointed out, more intent on the phenomenon, the image than the intellectual content of the subject. This, it must be said is with the major exception of Claude Ryan's editorials in Le Devoir, and isolated, and unpublished comments such as D.V. Smiley's paper to the Conservatives Thinkers Conference in 1969 at Niagara Falls. His comment expressing astonishment at the lack of any serious academic attention to Trudeau's "pensee" seems all too accurate. Of the comments on Trudeau that have been published, the following may constitute an unrepresentative sample, as they include on the one hand the more perceptive, and on the other hand the most widely read: Bergeron, Gerard Ne Bougez Pas, Edition du Jour, Montreal, 1968. Harbron, John This is Trudeau, Longmans, 1968 Toronto. Peacock, Donald Journey to Power: The Story of a Canadian Election, Ryerson, Toronto, 1968. Smiley, D.V. Rationalism or Reason: Alternative Approaches to Constitutional Revision in Canada. Paper delivered at the National Policy Convention of the Progressive Conservative Association of Canada at Niagara Falls, Ontario, October 1969. 117. Ryan, Claude La Devoir, March 15, 1967, April 5, 1967, April 6, 1967, April 18, 1967, September 8, 1967, October 30, 1967, December 23, 1967. Servan Schreiber, Jean Jacques l'Express, December 25, 1968. Taylor, Charles The Pattern of Politics, McLelland Stuart, Toronto, 1969. Of less direct personal relevance, though throwing some light on the background of the subject is the article by Andre Carrier in the Canadian Journal of Political Science. Carrier, Andre "L'Ideologie Politique de la Revue Cite Libre." Canadian Journal of Political Science Vol. 1, December 1968, No. 4 The decade of the 1950"s for Cite Libre was discussed in an unpublished paper: Savard, Louis "L'Ideologie Politique et Religieuse de Cite Libre, premiere se'rie." Resume published in Recherches Sociographiques IV, 2 (1963) pp 228-36 Of a more dated vintage are a totally different class of critiques, unleashed at various times during the 1950's by clerical propagandists and like minded individuals. Angers, Francois-Albert A series of articles attempting to rebut Trudeau's essay in La Greve de l'Amiante appeared in L'Action Nationale in 1957. Pere Jacques Cousineau "Notes dans la Marge de La Greve de l'Amiante - Contribution critique a une recherche." Les Cahiers de L'Institute Social Populaire. No. 4, Sept. 1958. A host of less imposing critics engaged in the often personal and sometimes bitter attack on Trudeau. Some of these were: Dagenais, Andre "Detourner la Revolution", Le Salaberry March 13, 1958. Pere de Lery Relations, April 1958. 118. Richer, Leopold in Notre Temps, the week of June 15, 1958. Abbe St. Pierre "Le Royaume de Diable" in Le Nouvelliste, (Trois Rivieres), February, 1961. Le Soleil, (Quebec) , Montreal Matin in anonymous editorials the week of June 15, 1958. Trudeau brought an unsuccessful libel suit against Abbe St. Pierre as a result of this article. cf. "Note sur le Parti Glercaliste", Cite' Libre, No. 38, June-July 1961.