[100] Trudeau and Cadieux agreed to the compromise that Canada would stay in NATO, but drastically cut back its contributions, despite warnings from Ross Campbell, the Canadian member of the NATO Council, that the scale of the cuts envisioned would break Canada's treaty commitments. "University of Toronto Honorary Degree Recipients", "Mount Trudeau to be officially named in June", "What's in an eponym? For other uses, see, Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, Minister of justice and attorney general (19671968), Christo Aivalis, "In the Name of Liberalism: Pierre Trudeau, Organized Labour, and the Canadian Social Democratic Left, 19491959,", sfn error: no target: CITEREFBothwellGranatstein1991 (, Lily Gardner Feldman, "Canada and the United States in the 1970s: Rift and Reconciliation.". While Trudeau claimed to welcome the "clarity" provided by the PQ victory, the unexpected rise of the sovereignist movement became, in his view, his biggest challenge. [4] In response to a formal request from the Canadian Houses of Parliament, the British Parliament passed an act ceding to the governments of Canada the full responsibility for amending Canada's Constitution. [189][unreliable source? Trudeau remains well regarded by many Canadians. His casket lay in state on Parliament Hill from September 30 to October 1 and the following day at Montral City Hall.On October 3, a state funeral was held at . In fact, Trudeau's vision was to see Canada as a bilingual confederation in which all cultures would have a place. Trudeau's posthumous reputation in the western provinces is notably less favourable than in the rest of English-speaking Canada, and he is sometimes regarded as the "father of Western alienation". Pierre Trudeau had an estimated net worth of $10 million at death. Tough. Pierre Trudeau was born Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau on October 18, 1919 in Montreal, Quebec. On domestic matters, he championed the official implementation of bilingualism. Trudeaumania, as it was called, was the nickname given to the excitement brought on by throngs of teenagers who supported Trudeau. [117] Trudeau hoped would be the Framework Agreement would be the first step towards a Canadian-EEC free trade agreement, but the EEC proved to be uninterested in free trade with Canada. This monumental act brought about new and widespread civil rights for all Canadians. [146] A week prior to the referendum, Trudeau delivered one of his most well-known speeches, in which he extolled the virtues of federalism and questioned the ambiguous language of the referendum question. All three men won in the election that year; Trudeau became Minister of Justice. [139], After a series of defeats in by-elections in 1978, Trudeau waited as long as he could to call a statutory general election in 1979. [131] In November 1975, Cuba had intervened in the Angolan Civil War on the side of the Marxist MPLA government supported by the Soviet Union which was fighting against the UNITA and FNLA guerrilla movements supported by the United States, South Africa and Zaire (the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo). After chairing a series of increasingly acrimonious conferences with first ministers on the issue, Trudeau announced the intention of the federal government to proceed with a request to the British parliament to patriate the constitution, with additions to be approved by a referendum without input from provincial governments. "[15] As a teenager, he attended the Jesuit French-language Collge Jean-de-Brbeuf, a prestigious secondary school known for educating elite francophone families in Quebec. He described the origin of the name Canadian. [71], Although this response is still controversial and was opposed at the time as excessive by parliamentarians like Tommy Douglas and David Lewis, it was met with only limited objections from the public. As minister of justice and attorney general, Trudeau was responsible for introducing the landmark Criminal Law Amendment Act, an omnibus bill whose provisions included, among other things, the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults, new gun ownership restrictions and the legalization of contraception, abortion and lotteries, as well as the authorization of breathalyzer tests on suspected drunk drivers. In this way, his conception broadened beyond simply the relationship of Quebec to Canada. [61], Trudeau's Cabinet fulfilled Part IV of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism's report by announcing a "Multiculturalism Policy" on October 8, 1971. [21] In his first year at university, the prime topics of conversation were the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, and the London blitz. When British Prime Minister Edward Heath visited Ottawa in December 1970, his meetings with Trudeau went badly. During a visit to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on July 17, 1969, Trudeau met with a group of farmers who were protesting the Canadian Wheat Board. In Montreal in the early 1940s, we still knew nothing about the Holocaust and we tended to think of this war as a settling of scores among the superpowers. He earned most of his income from his political career. At the end of Canada's centennial year in 1967, Prime Minister Pearson announced his intention to step down, and Trudeau entered the race for the Liberal leadership. Bold indicates parties with members elected to the House of Commons. Prod & Dir: Susan Dando. As minister, Trudeau embraced social liberalism; his two most notable achievements were decriminalizing homosexual acts and legalizing abortion. Nine days after, the Trudeau government imposed a 40-cent tax on every barrel of Canadian oil exported to the United States to combat rising inflation and oil prices. However, Trudeau's ambitions in this arena have been overstated: Trudeau once said that he regretted the use of the term "bilingualism", because it appeared to demand that all Canadians speak two languages. By 1984, the Progressive Conservatives held a substantial lead in opinion polls under their new leader Brian Mulroney, and polls indicated that the Liberals faced all-but-certain defeat if Trudeau led them into the next election. Inflation and unemployment marred much of Trudeau's tenure as prime minister. [170], Michael W. Higgins, a former President of Catholic St. Thomas University, researched Trudeau's spirituality and finds that it incorporated elements of three Catholic traditions. [126], In 197071, the Commonwealth was threatened with a split as a number of African Commonwealth nations supported by India denounced Britain's policy of selling arms to South Africa, which the British government argued was necessary because South Africa was one of the world's largest gold producers while the South African government was anti-Communist and pro-Western. The next day, Trudeau handily won the 1968 election with a strong majority government; this was the Liberals' first majority since 1953. [193] However, the passage of time has only slightly softened the strong antipathy he inspired among his opponents. [16][17], In his seventh and final academic year, 19391940, Trudeau focused on winning a Rhodes Scholarship. He also doubted the feasibility of the centralizing policies of the party. Pierre is one of the wealthiest and most popular politicians. Despite the criticism of the Nigerian strategy of victory via starvation, Trudeau declared his support for a united Nigeria and indicated his disapproval of Ibo separatism while expressing regret about the way that the Nigerian government had chosen to fight the war. First Nations communities raised particular concerns with the proposed 1969 White Paper, developed under Trudeau by Jean Chrtien. [110] Schmidt was sympathetic towards Trudeau's "rebalancing" concept, telling Trudeau that he wanted West Germany to have two North American partners instead of one, and promised at a 1975 meeting to use West German influence within the EEC to grant Canada better trade terms in exchange for Canada spending more on its NATO commitments. While he shot down a suggestion by one of his ministers to turn Canada into a republic in 1968, he treated the monarchy with a certain bemused contempt. [104] As a consequence, Canadian-American relations which were already under stress because of the mutual contempt between Nixon and Trudeau, reached a post-war nadir. "At 80, Pierre Trudeau had been diagnosed with metastasized prostate cancer. however, he had asked the question rhetorically and then proceeded to answer it himself. [169], Trudeau was a Roman Catholic and attended Mass throughout his life. [90] The diplomat John G. H. Halstead who worked as a close adviser to Trudeau for a time described him as a man who never read any of the policy papers submitted by the External Affairs department, instead preferring short briefings on the issues before meeting other leaders and that Trudeau usually tried to "wing" his way through international meetings by being witty. He also briefly served as the leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1980. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. He met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and other leaders in 1985; shortly afterwards Gorbachev met President Ronald Reagan to discuss easing world tensions. [118] The delay was largely because the Chinese insisted that Canada have no relations whatsoever with "the Chiang Kai-shek gang" as they called the Kuomintang regime in Taiwan and agree to support the Chinese position that Taiwan was a part of the People's Republic, a position that caused problems on the Canadian side as it implied Canadian support for China's viewpoint that it had the right to take Taiwan by force into the People's Republic. Yes. Sept. 29, 2000 12 AM PT. She is the mother of Justin Trudeau; the 23rd and current prime minister of Canada, the journalist and author Alexandre . His role in this effort, and his related battles with Quebec on behalf of Canadian unity, cemented his political position when in office despite the controversies he facedand remain the most remembered aspect of his tenure afterwards. The budget would not be balanced again until fiscal year 19971998. Shortly after graduating, he landed a position as a desk officer for the Privy Council. [141], However, before a leadership convention could be held, with Trudeau's blessing and Allan MacEachen's manoeuvring in the house, the Liberals supported an NDP subamendment to Clark's budget stating that the House had no confidence in the budget. The NEP was fiercely protested by the Western provinces and was seen as unfairly depriving western provinces of the full economic benefit from their oil and gas resources, in order to pay for nationwide social programs, and make regional transfer payments to poorer parts of the country. [202] Years later, on a train trip through Salmon Arm, British Columbia, he "gave the finger" to a group of protesters through the carriage window less widely remembered is that the protesters were shouting anti-French slogans at the train.[203].