FROM SWINGER TO STATESMAN — COMES OF AGE IN THE TIME OF PIERRE ELLIOTT TRUDEAU

Michael B. Stein and Janice Gross Stein

Pierre Trudeau burst on the scene in the spring of 1968, in a season known as a . “Why not? It’s spring,” he declared when a young female fan asked for a kiss. He famously proclaimed a vision of a “” in which the law would be an instrument of social tolerance, and economics a means of redistributing wealth. As a result, he left Canada a more tolerant and generous society, but one deeply in debt —

the federal debt increased by over 1,000 percent during the Trudeau years. He pledged The Gazette, to put “Quebec in its place,” but insisted “its place is in Canada.” In the Official Languages Pierre Elliott Trudeau, prime minister Act of 1969, he did just that, sparking a decade-long backlash in English-speaking Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to in the 1970s, a controversy that today seems as dim and distant as the one over the 1984. He left a more tolerant, generous Canadian flag in the 1960s. Hero of the 1980 referendum, he seized on the result to Canada, but also one deeply in debt. deliver a promise of constitutional change, which he realized in 1981-82 by patriating the Constitution with an entrenched Charter of Rights. On the world scene, he pursued the North-South dialogue and his 1983 peace initiative in an attempt to lower the temperature of the arms race. When he left office, after four terms and 15 years, the swinger had become a statesman. Michael B. Stein and Janice Gross Stein reflect on the 15th prime minister and conclude his time was a coming of age for Canada.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau a pris la scène politique d’assaut au printemps de 1968, en cette mémorable saison où la « trudeaumanie » a déferlé sur tout le pays. «Pourquoi pas, puisque c’est le printemps », répondit-il d’ailleurs à une jeune admiratrice qui sollicitait un baiser. Selon sa célèbre vision d’une « société juste », la loi se devait d’être l’instrument d’une plus grande tolérance sociale et l’économie un moyen de redistribuer la richesse. Et de fait, le Canada est devenu sous son règne une société plus ouverte et plus généreuse, quoique sérieusement endettée : les années Trudeau ont vu la dette fédérale augmenter de 1 000 p. 100. Il voulait aussi donner au Québec la place qui lui revenait, insistant toutefois pour que ce soit dans le cadre fédéral. Comme le confirma la Loi sur les langues officielles de 1969, qui déclencha au Canada anglais une vive réaction qui se prolongea une décennie durant et semble aujourd’hui aussi lointaine que la controverse sur le drapeau canadien des années 1960. Héros du référendum de 1980, il promit des changements constitutionnels en cas de victoire du non et remplit sa promesse en 1981-1982, rapatriant la Constitution et y adjoignant une charte des droits et libertés. Sur la scène internationale, il intensifia le dialogue Nord-Sud et lança en 1983 une initiative de paix visant à réfréner la course aux armements. Quittant ses fonctions à l’issue de quatre mandats et 15 années de pouvoir, le noceur avait acquis la stature d’un homme d’État. Michael B. Stein et Janice Gross Stein analysent le parcours du quinzième premier ministre du pays et estiment qu’il a permis au Canada d’accéder à la maturité.

ierre Elliott Trudeau became prime minister in 1968 in sparkled, and who delighted in challenging intellectual and an unparalleled frisson of public excitement. Brilliant, social convention. Trudeau was broadly travelled, worldly, P dashing, unconventional, fluently bilingual, the new and had come to office with few of the traditional political prime minister was a magnet that drew public interest. debts candidates generally accumulate. Looking at their new Canada had a prime minister whose lifestyle was unconven- prime minister, Canadians themselves felt less conventional tional, who dazzled in conversation, whose intellect and more engaged. Truly, a new era was beginning.

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Trudeau came to the prime minis- impact on the attitudes of Canadians ship. The Official Languages Act, passed in tership with deeply held views about toward their system of government. It 1969, was designed to enhance official both domestic and foreign policy. As a transformed a highly deferential mass bilingualism in the upper echelons of the francophone from Quebec, he, like political culture into one that is much federal public service by requiring those many others, was preoccupied with the more challenging of our political elites officials who were not fully bilingual in role of French Canadians in Quebec and more vigilant about the functioning one of Canada’s two official languages to and in Canada. Unlike many of his of Canadian democracy. Those groups take linguistic training. It was intended as contemporaries, however, he bitterly whose equality rights were formally guar- well to produce a more representative opposed the growing sovereignist anteed — Aboriginal groups, women, and equitable balance between those of movement. His deeply held liberal religious groups, and French language French and English mother tongues in individualist values shaped his strong and ethnic minorities — have formed leading positions in the civil and military opposition to and associations dedicated to protecting and bureaucracy. Trudeau also promoted led him to devise policies which gave advancing these rights in the political more French-speaking politicians to top Quebecers a prominent and visible role and legal systems. These “Charter positions in the federal cabinet, the for- in Canadian politics. At the same time, groups,” with support provided by sym- eign service and federal government he was committed to deepening the pathetic members of the legal and aca- commissions and advisory bodies. He rights of all Canadians. He believed demic communities, formed what has supported the wider use of French in fed- passionately that Canada could distin- been aptly called “the Court Party,” and eral and provincial legislatures, the guish itself through its bilingual and subsequently spearheaded a dramatic courts, and other major political institu- multicultural personality. rights revolution in Canada. The Charter tions. And he encouraged the construc- Trudeau is probably most tion and financial support of closely identified with the The Charter of Rights is undoubtedly French-language schools and search for constitutional reform Trudeau’s most significant and immersion programs in areas of in Canada in response to the enduring constitutional legacy. Both Canada in which there were suf- threat posed by the sovereignist ficient numbers and a large movement in Quebec. For a fundamental individual and collective enough demand. long time, it seemed a fruitless minority rights of citizens were At the time, many opposed undertaking. His commitment entrenched in a renewed constitution. policies of official bilingualism as to constitutional reform began impractical or even pernicious. even before he became prime minister has prompted not only significant legal Decades later, it is clear that, at the sen- in 1968. Almost immediately after his changes, but also demands for much ior levels, these measures did transform convincing election victory later that broader popular participation and gov- the federal public service into a far more year, he launched a three-year constitu- ernmental accountability in Canadian bilingual institution. They did not, how- tional round that culminated in the political institutions. In a deep sense, the ever, dramatically increase the number failed Victoria Accord in 1971. He tried landscape of Canadian political participa- of Canadians claiming to be fluent in the again and again over the next several tion was fundamentally altered by the other official language. Nor did they sig- years, until he finally succeeded in culture that the Charter created. nificantly increase the use of the minor- patriating the Constitution in 1982. For ity language, French or English, in the the first time in their history, rudeau also hoped that the Charter legislatures and courts of most Canadians could now amend their T would solidify national unity and provinces. But they did alter the wide- Constitution through their own parlia- combat the appeal of the indépenden- spread perception of many Canadians, mentary institutions. Canada had final- tistes in Quebec by focusing the loyal- both English and French, that Canada is ly come of age. But Trudeau’s dream ties and political attachments of essentially a unilingual English nation. was only partially fulfilled: Quebec Quebecers on their national govern- They also helped to make many more remained outside the process and ment. These hopes were not realized. A French-speaking Canadians, both within embittered, and the amending formula majority favoured their provincial Bill and outside Quebec, more comfortable proved so rigid that it has been difficult of Rights, which provided many of the about using their mother tongue in their to use on all but the smallest issues. same protections for individual citizens. public and private sector activities. Most The Charter of Rights is undoubted- And they looked to the override clause important, they helped to cultivate ly Trudeau’s most significant and endur- (Section 33) as the ultimate guarantee mutual respect between the French and ing constitutional legacy. Both of their language and culture. English language communities, and a fundamental individual and collective A second major and lasting contri- greater sensitivity to the other commu- minority rights of citizens were bution was Trudeau’s transformation of nity’s linguistic and cultural priorities entrenched in a renewed constitution. French-English relations into a more rep- and needs. In this sense, they profound- The Charter has had an extraordinary resentative and equal political partner- ly changed the way Canadians think of

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their country and changed the face 1968, and was in a vulnerable position Canada Pension Plan, and the Canada shows to the world. with international bond-rating agencies Guaranteed Income Supplement, there Trudeau succeeded least in econom- and currency markets. was no significant innovation in social ic and social policy, a critical test of any In social policy, Trudeau consolidat- policy during the Trudeau years. leader’s performance. In his economic ed rather than innovated. Perhaps his philosophy, Trudeau was a moderate left greatest achievement was to impose rime ministers are also responsible liberal, a follower of the ideas of Keynes curbs on the increasingly large federal P for foreign policy, and Trudeau and Galbraith. He had studied for brief government expenditures on the univer- came to office predictably impatient periods at Oxford and Harvard at a time sal publicly funded health care system with the established clichés. We were when these economic ideas were still that his predecessor, Lester B. Pearson, not designated eternally by providence prevalent within the academic commu- had initiated through the Medicare Act of to play a role of “helpful fixer” within nity. But he was disinterested in the 1966. In 1977 Trudeau altered the finan- the established rules of Cold War inter- more arcane and abstract theoretical cial structure of this program from a con- national politics. We were more than a aspects of the “dismal science,” and ditional cost-sharing arrangement, in quiescent ally, and our foreign policy brought to his economic decision- which the federal government con- could no longer be animated princi- making a strong desire to promote the tributed up to 50 percent of the rapidly pally by the smoothing out of ripples goals of increased economic justice and expanding health care costs, to an between the two lodestars of Britain equality. He therefore pursued an eco- unconditional block funding transfer. and the United States. Canada was a nomic agenda of state-directed demand This change greatly reduced federal gov- bilingual and multicultural country management and low unemployment, ernment health care (and higher educa- and, Trudeau argued, its foreign policy at a cost of incurring large budgetary tion) payments in return for greater should reflect its interests. How did the deficits and long-term economic debt. provincial government autonomy in the prime minister define these interests? In the immediate post-World War administration of these transfers. His words are eerily contemporary. period, this strategy was workable, since However, provincial governments The most serious threat to internation- the growth rate was high, and unem- exploited their autonomy to permit user al peace came not from the Soviet ployment and inflation rates were low. fees and physician overbilling. The Union or from Communism, but from But when Trudeau became prime minis- Canada Health Act of 1984, passed in the relentless accumulation of weapons ter, this postwar economic growth and Trudeau’s last year in office, imposed of mass destruction, at that time by the prosperity had begun to decline, and by strict penalties on these violations. These two superpowers, and from the grow- the mid-1970s, it had produced double- stringent measures did help to preserve ing gap between the comfortable North digit unemployment and inflation. In a the universal health care system, which and the impoverished South. It was period of “stagflation,” Trudeau imposed has remained one of Canada’s proudest overwhelmingly in Canada’s interest to wage and price controls shortly after he had won re- A second major and lasting contribution was Trudeau’s election on a platform transformation of French-English relations into a more strongly opposing these representative and equal political partnership. At the time, measures. These policies had many opposed policies of official bilingualism as impractical only marginal success, and provoked strong criticism or even pernicious. Decades later, it is clear that at the senior and disaffection. At the same levels, these measures did transform the federal public service time, he had to wrestle with into a far more bilingual institution. high global market energy prices, which contributed to large wind- political accomplishments and its most promote arms control and nuclear fall profits for oil and gas companies and popular social program. arms reduction, and to enhance the the government of Alberta. Trudeau In other areas of social policy opportunities for the South to develop. introduced the National Energy Program Trudeau left no unique legacy. His Although the prime minister took spe- to maintain energy prices for the oil- health minister Marc Lalonde, a close cial delight in posing as a realist and in importing provinces of confidante, did try to develop a guar- using the tough language of national at a level below world prices. This anteed minimum income program, interest, he promoted the liberal values unpopular policy cost him whatever lit- but eventually abandoned the attempt of peace, justice and equity in foreign tle electoral support he retained in the because of insufficient federal govern- policy as he did in domestic policy. West, and soon after, it was abandoned ment financial resources. In striking If that were all he had done, we entirely. When he left office in 1984, contrast to the remarkable activity would remember him as one in a series of Canada had a cumulative debt of over during the Pearson era on post-second- Canadian leaders who pursued laudable $200 billion—a ten-fold increase from ary education, social assistance, the purposes with limited capacity and mod-

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The Gazette, Montreal In one of the last photos of Lester B. Pearson, the former prime minister greets Margaret and at the Team Canada-USSR hockey series at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on September 4, 1972. est effect. But there was nothing modest that an emerging great power in Asia, Union invaded Afghanistan, and about Trudeau’s foreign policy. He active- with the largest population in the President Reagan responded with dra- ly represented Canada abroad as a bilin- world, should be excluded from interna- matic increases in military spending. gual and multicultural society, open to tional institutions. The recognition of Trudeau began to worry deeply, not for the world, not only to Europe. Trudeau China helped to ease its admission to the first time, about an accidental understood that Canadians would see the United Nations shortly thereafter. nuclear catastrophe. Initially sceptical their own face in the image that they pre- The prime minister was also determined that he could make any difference what- sented to the world. As he did in his to review Canada’s commitments to soever, Trudeau decided to make a domestic policies, the prime minister NATO, an alliance forged at the begin- round-the-world trip in the fall of 1983 etched out a new identity for Canada ning of the Cold War that he regarded as to promote specific proposals on arms abroad. Indeed, long before the language Eurocentric and less central to the new control. Never optimistic that the pro- of globalization became a cliché, Trudeau Canada that was beginning to emerge. posals would gain acceptance, he never- connected the threads between foreign Here, the ambition was far grander than theless wanted to try to cool the rising and domestic policy in a seamless way. the result. After extensive consultations temperature and change the tone. None Trudeau found the rigid categories in Ottawa, Canada withdrew about half of the proposals were accepted and of the Cold War suffocating and he of its forces from their NATO bases in Trudeau had great difficulty in getting a worked to blur the boundaries of the Europe, and even that partial withdraw- serious hearing. Sceptics chortled, at Cold War divisions that were radiating al provoked real consternation in home as well as abroad. Yet, the time around the globe. One of his first acts as Europe and the United States. The cost line of history tells a somewhat different prime minister was to recognize the and pain seemed hardly worth the gain. story. Less than two years later, a new People’s Republic of China in 1970, The seemingly quixotic “peace ini- general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, even before Henry Kissinger’s “ping- tiative” of Trudeau’s last year in office is would come to power in Moscow and pong diplomacy” opened the door for another thread within this loosely put very similar kinds of proposals on Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China woven tapestry. Cold War tensions esca- the agenda. At the worst, Trudeau was in 1972. It made little sense to Trudeau lated dramatically after the Soviet ahead of his times, but not by much.

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n assessment of the impact of from its colonial past under Trudeau when Exxon announced, with the sup- A Trudeau’s policies on the struc- to focus some of its energies on others port of Washington, that it would send tures of the Cold War would not give who shared that past. Under Trudeau, the tanker Manhattan through the great weight to the substantive conse- we would argue, Canada finally chart- Northwest Passage. Designed initially as quences of Canada’s actions. Indeed, ed a post colonial policy. a counterweight to the United States, it was under Trudeau that Ottawa Trudeau worked not only to lessen Canada under Trudeau took the early agreed to permit the testing of the Cold War constraints but to reshape steps in the long process of developing Cruise missile over Canadian territory, Canada through the face it presented its “northern face” in foreign as well as an agreement that was, “in flagrante to the world. He had come to office domestic policy. contradictio” to the prime minister’s determined to develop Canada as a commitment to arms control. But bilingual country where francophones rudeau accomplished far less in his such an assessment would partly miss could feel at home with their govern- T efforts to reduce Canada’s econom- the point. Canada was, as the prime ment anywhere in the country. ic and cultural vulnerability to its minister put it, “the largest of the Indeed, when he announced the for- dynamic and powerful neghbour to the small powers rather than the smallest eign policy review in May 1968, he south. In 1972, Canada announced a of the large powers.” It could not by made clear its central purpose: “Our “third option” designed to reduce itself change the course of world poli- paramount interest is to ensure the Canada’s exposure to the United States: tics, but it could change the tone, help political survival of Canada as a feder- the strengthening of Canadian owner- to reshape the language, and create al and bilingual sovereign state.” The ship of the economy, the diversification small openings. “The role of the first priority was to neutralize the sup- of trade abroad, and the protection of superpowers cannot be denied,” he port of de Gaulle’s France for the Canadian culture. In retrospect, the told the House of Commons in 1981, indépendantiste movement in Quebec Trudeau era can be seen as a brief peri- “but it must not be exclusive.” A and the push by the government of od of intense economic and cultural decade before the Cold War ended, Quebec for representation abroad. nationalism. It is no small irony, that Trudeau was trying to shake up the Foreign policy became one of the are- Trudeau, the visceral opponent of ossified structures of the Cold War. nas in which domestic political battles nationalism in Quebec, the committed Closely linked was Trudeau’s were fought. Trudeau also moved vig- liberal, the promoter and defender of determination to do a much better job orously to increase development assis- individual rights, came to embody in helping the “third world,” the tance to French-speaking Africa. Canadian nationalism in economic and countries of the South. Here, issues of Attention to the French-speaking cultural policy. Three decades later, peace, justice, and equity converged; world now rivaled the historic pattern there are no traces left of economic the path to peace, the prime minister of attention to the Commonwealth. nationalism and few traces of cultural insisted, was through development. Both mirrored Canada’s past but pro- protection. Virtually all the restrictions Trudeau created the two specialized vided new opportunities for Canada to on foreign ownership have disappeared agencies, CIDA and the IDRC, that are express its diversity as it channeled and although trade expanded, the con- still responsible for development assis- assistance to the south. Foreign and centration of exports to the United tance in Canada today and increased domestic policy were inseparable. States increased. As world trade and for- Canada’s budget for development eign investment exploded globally, from .34 percent to .49 percent of he least successful dimension of Canada, under his successor, Brian GNP. In the Trudeau years, Canada T Trudeau’s foreign policy was the all- Mulroney, embraced free trade and became the fifth largest aid donor important relationship with the United began a process of continental econom- among OECD countries. Again, the States. The book-ends of his tenure as ic integration. Trudeau’s policies of record seems fairly modest and, prime minister were Presidents Nixon counterweight clearly failed. indeed, more, much more, could have and Reagan, and Trudeau had little Several decades later, however, the been done. Aid tied to the purchase of empathy with either. He always distin- issues Trudeau raised at home and Canadian products continued to dom- guished sharply between the United abroad remain very much with inate, as it still does today, and, more States, as a democracy which was Canadians. Indeed, in the wake of important, Canada protected its mar- respectful of the rights of its citizens, September 11 and a newly resurgent kets from the exports of third world and the Soviet Union, which denied and unilateralist United States, countries. Yet, the prime minister these fundamental rights, but Trudeau Canadians once again find themselves pushed this part of the world onto was fundamentally uneasy with the asking many of the same questions Canada’s radar screen. Traditionally Manichean tendencies of Washington. that Trudeau raised. Can Canada, at preoccupied with the “mother coun- Trudeau moved forcefully to assert best the largest of the small powers, tries” of Britain and France and later Canada’s responsibility as a custodian of retain a distinctive voice on global by the United States, Canada emerged the fragile environment of the North issues, especially on the security issues

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that are centrally important to Washington? And, can Canadians pre- serve their rights in the face of new kinds of threats? Can Canada afford to see the world differently than its embattled but overwhelmingly power- ful neighbour? Can Canada retain its distinct linguistic, cultural and politi- cal traditions in the face of the over- whelming pull to continental economic integration? Can Canada preserve its social policies as govern- ments worldwide deregulate? By the time Trudeau left office in 1984, the dazzle had disappeared and the magic seemed to have gone. But he had changed the face of Canada, its culture, and its political practice. In the Trudeau era, we Canadians briefly saw ourselves as sassy, irreverent and iconoclastic in a world that was fairly rigid, predictable, and straight-laced. And as we saw ourselves through our prime minister, others began to see us. A country that could repeatedly re- elect a prime minister like Pierre Elliott Trudeau must be more than nice, con- ventional, and polite. When Trudeau died after more than two decades in private life, in an outpouring of emo- tion, we reconnected to the man who had not only changed the country, but who had transformed the way we thought about ourselves and our potential. Trudeau’s most unusual gift may well have been to penetrate our typical reserve and energize, provoke, infuriate, and above all, touch the hearts of fellow Canadians.

Michael B. Stein is professor of political science at McMaster University. His most recent publication is Improving the Process of Constitutional Reform in Canada: Lessons from the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Constitutional Rounds in the Canadian Journal of Political Science. Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the director of the

The Gazette, Montreal Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. A fellow of the Pierre Trudeau, in the leather coat he made famous, taking off on his leadership tour of the provinces during the winter Royal Society of Canada, she has recently that led to the spring of Trudeaumania in 1968. been appointed a Trudeau Fellow.

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