Canadian Prime Ministers VI: Pierre Trudeau and Joe Clark

19.  Pierre Trudeau (1968-1979) Liberal Party.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau, or Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau was born in 1919 in Montreal, the son of a prosperous businessman and owner of a chain of gas stations in Quebec.  He attended a Jesuit secondary and college level school Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf and then went on to earn his law degree at the University of Montreal in 1943.   After being expelled from the Officers Training program, he studied political economy at Harvard, attended the Paris Institute of Political Studies and went for a doctoral degree at the London School of Economics, but did not complete his dissertation.  For a time he was blacklisted and denied admission to the US owing to his journal subscriptions to left wing publications and his visit to Moscow to attend a conference.  He tried to get a job teaching at the University of Montreal but was kept out by the premier of Quebec, Duplessis.   He was finally appointed an associate professor there in the 1960s.

He eventually became an opponent of Quebec nationalism.  He also opposed the BOMARC missile bases in Canada, but later joined the Liberal party and was elected to parliament.  He quickly became a special secretary to the prime minister and later Pearson made him Minister of Justice, which seems to be a frequent position of persons later becoming prime minister, as was the case with Trudeau.  

As minister of Justice, Trudeau created legislation decriminalizing homosexual behavior, legalized abortion, and liberalized divorce laws.  When Pearson stepped down he joined the campaign to become the party leader, and narrowly defeated several longer serving candidates.

As prime minister Trudeau enjoyed considerable celebrity as well as violent opposition from Quebec nationalists.  In 1970 when Quebec minister of Labour Pierre Laporte and British diplomat James Cross were kidnapped by a nationalist terrorist group, Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, which allowed mass arrests and detention without trial.  When later Pierre Laporte was discovered to have been murdered, the Canadian public overwhelmingly supported the use of the WMA for this purpose.    The perpetrators were arrested and sentenced to 7 to 11 years in prison, and some of them exchanged for Canadian nationals imprisoned in Cuba.  

As Liberal leader he promoted what he called a "just society" which consisted mainly of redistribution of wealth, universal health care, and in general expanding the role of the government in social welfare in Canada (12).  Trudeau also established French as well as English as "official languages" of Canada, requiring all government services to be provided in both languages.  

In foreign affairs, while Trudeau was a firm supporter of NATO, he also was friendly with communist nations and

Castro and Trudeau

leaders.  He was a personal friend of Fidel Castro, and also recognized and visited the People Republic of China.  
In 1972 the Liberals were returned to power but with a minority coalition with the NDP.   Afterwards Petro Canada was formed as a "crown corporation", assembled from government ownership stakes

in various oil companies. 

In 1974 new elections were called after a no confidence vote, and Trudeau's Liberals were returned to power with an absolute majority in parliament.  In the ensuing years Canada was admitted to what was now the G-7 economic summit.   The death penalty in Canada was abolished. 

In the 1979 general election the Liberals narrowly lost in the wake of a worsening economy and resentment of the high handed approach of Trudeau to government.  Joe Clark of the Progressive Conservatives formed a minority government that year.  


20.  Joe Clark (1979-1980) Progressive Conservative Party.

 Charles Joseph Clark was born in 1939 in High River, Alberta.  His father was a local newspaper publisher.  He attended the University of Alberta where he earned a BA and MA in political science.  While he attended Dalhousie University his interest in politics was greater than his interest in law.    After some false starts in local Alberta politics as a PC candidate, he was elected to parliament in Ottawa from Rocky Mountain, Alberta.

In 1976, previous PC party leader Robert Stansfield retired, and Clark won the leadership on the 4th ballot against contenders such as Claude Wagner and future PM Brian Mulroney.  Clark was the youngest PC party leader and later the youngest PM in Canadian history.

In 1979 he became Prime Minister, forming an unstable government in which the Progressive Conservatives were the largest minority.  In the nine months he was in office he wasn't able to do much and when elections were called, he and other PC's misjudged the mood of the electorate which promptly returned the Liberals and Trudeau to power.


21.  Pierre Trudeau (1980-1984) Liberal Party.

 Trudeau and the Liberals were able to continue for another four years.  The two major events of that time were (1) the defeat of the Quebec sovereignty referendum which pitted

Leveque and Trudeau

Trudeau (Non!) against Rene Leveque (Oui!) and (2) the "patriation" of the Canadian constitution by the Canada Act of 1982.  The latter relinquished any need to defer to Britain's wishes in making changes to the Canadian constitution.  In the negotiation among the provinces that led to the patriation agreement, Quebec premier Leveque tried and failed to hang on to Quebec's traditional special veto power over the decisions regarding the Canadian constitution.
In 1984, after a decline in the polls, Trudeau decided to retire from party leadership, officially leaving on June 30 of that year.  John Turner took over.