Pierre Trudeau

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Between his non-consecutive terms as prime minister, he served as the leader of the Opposition from 1979 to 1980.

Trudeau was born and raised in Outremont, Quebec, and studied politics and law. In the 1950s, he rose to prominence as a labour activist in Quebec politics by opposing the conservative Union Nationale government. Trudeau was then an associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal. He was originally part of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), but then joined the Liberal Party in 1965, believing that the NDP could not achieve power. That year, he was elected to the House of Commons, quickly being appointed as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's parliamentary secretary. In 1967, he was appointed as minister of justice and attorney general. As minister, Trudeau liberalized divorce and abortion laws and decriminalized homosexuality. Trudeau's outgoing personality and charisma caused a sensation, termed "Trudeaumania", which helped him win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968. He then succeeded Pearson and became prime minister of Canada.

From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, Trudeau dominated the Canadian political scene. After his appointment as prime minister, he won the 1968, 1972, and 1974 elections, before narrowly losing in 1979. He won a fourth election victory shortly afterwards, in 1980, and eventually retired from politics shortly before the 1984 election. Trudeau is the most recent prime minister to win four elections (having won three majority governments and one minority government) and to serve two non-consecutive terms. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third-longest-serving prime minister, behind John A. Macdonald and William Lyon Mackenzie King.

In domestic policy, Trudeau's government responded to the 1970 Quebec terrorist crisis by invoking the '' War Measures Act'', facilitated Canada's conversion to the metric system, established Via Rail, and passed the '' Access to Information Act'' and the '' Canada Health Act''. In addition, Trudeau pioneered official bilingualism and multiculturalism, fostering a pan-Canadian identity, and successfully campaigned against Quebec's proposal to negotiate a sovereignty-association agreement with the federal government. In economic policy, Trudeau's government expanded social programs, introduced the capital gains tax, and oversaw major increases in deficit spending. In a bid to move the Liberal Party towards economic nationalism, Trudeau created Petro-Canada and launched the National Energy Program, both of which generated uproar in oil-rich Western Canada, leading to a rise in what many called " Western alienation". Trudeau's foreign policy included making Canada more independent. He presided over Canada's entry into the G7, and in 1982 he patriated the Canadian constitution and established the ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'', actions that achieved full Canadian sovereignty. He also distanced Canada from the United States, maintained cordial relations with the Soviet Union, and formed strong ties with China and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which put him at odds with other capitalist Western nations.

Despite his personal motto, "Reason before passion", Trudeau aroused polarizing reactions throughout Canada during his time in office. While critics accused him of arrogance, economic mismanagement, and unduly centralizing Canadian decision-making to the detriment of the culture of Quebec and the economy of the Prairies, admirers praised what they considered to be the force of his intellect and his political acumen that maintained national unity over the Quebec sovereignty movement. In his retirement, Trudeau practised law at the Montreal law firm of Heenan Blaikie. He also spoke out against the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords (which proposed granting Quebec certain concessions), arguing they would strengthen Quebec nationalism. Trudeau died in 2000. He is ranked highly among scholars in rankings of Canadian prime ministers, though he remains a divisive figure in Canadian politics and is viewed less favourably in Western Canada and Quebec. His eldest son, Justin Trudeau, served as the 23rd prime minister of Canada from 2015 to 2025, and was the first prime minister of Canada to be a descendant of a previous prime minister.

Early life

The Trudeau family can be traced to Marcillac-Lanville in France in the 16th century and to a Robert Truteau (1544–1589). In 1659, the first Trudeau to arrive in Canada was Étienne Trudeau or Truteau (1641–1712), a carpenter and home builder from La Rochelle.

Pierre Trudeau was born at home in Outremont, Quebec, on October 18, 1919, to Charles-Émile "Charley" Trudeau (1887–1935), a French-Canadian businessman and lawyer, and Grace Elliott, who was of mixed Scottish and French-Canadian descent. He had an older sister named Suzette and a younger brother named Charles Jr. Trudeau remained close to both siblings for his entire life. Trudeau's paternal grandparents were French-speaking Quebec farmers. His father had acquired the B&A gas station chain (now defunct), some "profitable mines, the Belmont amusement park in Montreal and the Montreal Royals, the city's minor-league baseball team", by the time Trudeau was fifteen. When his father died in Orlando, Florida, on April 10, 1935, Trudeau and each of his siblings inherited $5,000 (), a considerable sum at that time, which meant that he was financially secure and independent. His mother, Grace, "doted on Pierre" and he remained close to her throughout her long life. After her husband died, she left the management of her inheritance to others and spent a lot of her time working for the Roman Catholic Church and various charities, travelling frequently to New York City, Florida, Europe, and Maine, sometimes with her children. Already in his late teens, Trudeau was "directly involved in managing a large inheritance".

Early education

From the age of six until twelve, Trudeau attended the primary school Académie Querbes, in Outremont, where he became immersed in the Catholic religion. The school, which was for both English and French Catholics, was an exclusive school with very small classes and he excelled in mathematics and religion. From his earliest years, Trudeau was fluently bilingual, which would later prove to be a "big asset for a politician in bilingual Canada." As a teenager, he attended the Jesuit French-language Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, a prestigious secondary school known for educating elite francophone families in Quebec.

In his seventh and final academic year, 1939–1940, Trudeau focused on winning a Rhodes Scholarship. In his application, he wrote that he had prepared for public office by studying public speaking and publishing many articles in ''Brébeuf''. His letters of recommendations praised him highly. Father Boulin, who was the head of the college, said that during Trudeau's seven years at the college (1933–1940), he had won a "hundred prizes and honourable mentions" and "performed with distinction in all fields". Trudeau graduated from Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in 1940 at the age of twenty-one.

Trudeau did not win the Rhodes Scholarship. He consulted several people on his options, including Henri Bourassa, the economist Edmond Montpetit, and Father Robert Bernier, a Franco-Manitoban. Following their advice, he chose a career in politics and a degree in law at the Université de Montréal.

Second World War

In his obituary, ''The Economist'' described Trudeau as "parochial as a young man", who "dismissed the second world war as a squabble between the big powers, although he later regretted 'missing one of the major events of the century'." In his 1993 ''Memoir,'' Trudeau wrote that the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 and his father's death were the two "great bombshells" that marked his teenage years. In his first year at university, the prime topics of conversation were the Battle of France, the Battle of Britain, and the London blitz. He wrote that in the early 1940s, when he was in his early twenties, he thought, "So there was a war? Tough. It wouldn't stop me from concentrating on my studies so long as that was possible... you were a French Canadian in Montreal t that time you did not automatically believe that this was a just war. 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."

Young Trudeau opposed conscription for overseas service, and in 1942 he campaigned for the anti-conscription candidate Jean Drapeau (later the mayor of Montreal) in Outremont. Trudeau described a speech he heard in Montreal by Ernest Lapointe, minister of justice and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Quebec lieutenant. Lapointe had been a Liberal MP during the 1917 Conscription Crisis, in which the Canadian government had deployed up to 1,200 soldiers to suppress the anti-conscription Easter Riots in Quebec City in March and April 1918. In a final and bloody conflict, armed rioters fired on the troops, and the soldiers returned fire. At least five men were killed by gunfire and there were over 150 casualties and $300,000 in damage. In 1939, it was Lapointe who helped draft the Liberals' policy against conscription for service overseas. Lapointe was aware that a new conscription crisis would destroy the national unity that Mackenzie King had been trying to build since the end of the First World War. Trudeau believed Lapointe had lied and broken his promise. His criticisms of King's wartime policies, such as "suspension of habeas corpus", the "farce of bilingualism and French-Canadian advancement in the army," and the "forced 'voluntary' enrolment", were scathing.

As a university student, Trudeau joined the Canadian Officers' Training Corps (COTC), which trained at the local armoury in Montreal during the school term and undertook further training at Camp Farnham each summer. Although the '' National Resources Mobilization Act'', enacted in 1940, originally provided that conscripts could not be required to serve outside of Canada, Parliament amended the act and removed that restriction in 1942. The Conscription Crisis of 1944 arose in response to the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

Education

Trudeau continued his full-time studies in law at the Université de Montréal while in the COTC from 1940 until his graduation in 1943. Following his graduation, he articled for a year and, in late 1944, began his master's degree in political economy at Harvard University's Graduate School of Public Administration (now the John F. Kennedy School of Government). In his ''Memoir'', he admitted that it was at Harvard's "super-informed environment" that he realized the "historic importance" of the war and that he had "missed one of the major events of the century in which ewas living. Harvard had become a major intellectual centre, as fascism in Europe led to a great migration of intellectuals to the United States.

Trudeau's Harvard dissertation was on the topic of communism and Christianity. At Harvard, an American and predominantly Protestant university, Trudeau, a French Canadian Catholic living outside the province of Quebec for the first time, felt like an outsider. As his sense of isolation deepened, he decided in 1947 to continue his work on his Harvard dissertation in Paris, where he studied at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). The Harvard dissertation remained unfinished when Trudeau briefly entered a doctoral program to study under the socialist economist Harold Laski at the London School of Economics (LSE). This cemented Trudeau's belief that Keynesian economics and social sciences were essential to the creation of the "good life" in a democratic society. Over a five-week period he attended many lectures and became a follower of personalism after being influenced most notably by Emmanuel Mounier. He also was influenced by Nikolai Berdyaev, particularly his book ''Slavery and Freedom''. Max and Monique Nemni argue that Berdyaev's book influenced Trudeau's rejection of nationalism and separatism.

In mid 1948, Trudeau embarked on world travels to find a sense of purpose. At the age of twenty-eight, he travelled to Poland where he visited Auschwitz, then Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and the Middle East, including Turkey, Jordan and southern Iraq. Although he was wealthy, Trudeau travelled with a backpack in "self-imposed hardship". He used his British passport instead of his Canadian passport in his travels through Pakistan, India, China, and Japan, often wearing local clothing to blend in. According to ''The Economist'', when Trudeau returned to Canada in 1949 after an absence of five months, his mind was "seemingly broadened" from his studies at Harvard, Sciences Po, and the LSE, as well as his travels. He was "appalled at the narrow nationalism in his native French-speaking Quebec, and the authoritarianism of the province's government".

Quiet Revolution

Beginning while Trudeau was travelling overseas, several events took place in Quebec that were precursors to the Quiet Revolution. These included the 1948 release of the anti-establishment manifesto Refus global, the publication of '' Les insolences du Frère Untel'', the 1949 Asbestos Strike, and the 1955 Richard Riot. Artists and intellectuals in Quebec signed the ''Refus global'' on August 9, 1948, in opposition to the repressive rule of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis and the decadent "social establishment" in Quebec, including the Catholic Church. When he returned to Montreal in 1949, Trudeau quickly became a leading figure opposing Duplessis's rule. He actively supported the workers in the Asbestos strike which opposed Duplessis in 1949. Trudeau was the co-founder and editor of '' Cité Libre'', a dissident journal that helped provide the intellectual basis for the Quiet Revolution. In 1956, he edited an important book on the subject, ''La grève de l'amiante'', which argued that the asbestos miners' strike of 1949 was a seminal event in Quebec's history, marking the beginning of resistance to the conservative, Francophone clerical establishment and Anglophone business class that had long ruled the province.

Career

Because of Trudeau's labour union activities in Asbestos, Duplessis blacklisted him, and he was unable to teach law at the Université de Montréal. He surprised his closest friends in Quebec when he became a civil servant in Ottawa in 1949. Until 1951, he worked in the Privy Council Office of the Liberal Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent as an economic policy advisor. He wrote in his memoirs that he found this period very useful when he entered politics later on, and that senior civil servant Norman Robertson tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to stay on.

Trudeau's progressive values and his close ties with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) intellectuals (including F. R. Scott, Eugene Forsey, Michael Kelway Oliver and Charles Taylor) led to his support of and membership in the party throughout the 1950s.

An associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal from 1961 to 1965, Trudeau's views evolved towards a liberal position in favour of individual rights counter to the state and made him an opponent of Quebec nationalism. He admired labour unions, which were tied to the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), and tried to infuse his Liberal Party with some of their reformist zeal. By the late 1950s, Trudeau began to reject social democratic and labour parties, arguing that they should put their narrow goals aside and join forces with Liberals to fight for democracy first. In economic theory, he was influenced by professors Joseph Schumpeter and John Kenneth Galbraith while he was at Harvard. In 1963, Trudeau criticized the Liberal Party of Lester B. Pearson when it supported arming Bomarc missiles in Canada with nuclear warheads.

During his time as a professor at the Université de Montréal, he was featured in Denis Héroux's 1964 student film '' Over My Head (Jusqu'au cou)'', appearing as himself in a political debate.

Trudeau was offered a position at Queen's University teaching political science by James Corry, who later became Principal of Queen's, but turned it down because he preferred to teach in Quebec.

Early political career (1965–1967)

In 1965, Trudeau joined the Liberal Party, along with his friends Gérard Pelletier and Jean Marchand. Dubbed the "three wise men" by the media, they ran successfully for the Liberals in the 1965 election. Trudeau himself was elected in the safe Liberal riding of Mount Royal in Montreal. He would hold this seat until his retirement from politics in 1984, winning each election with large majorities. His decision to join the Liberals rather than the CCF's successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP), was partly based on his belief that the federal NDP could not achieve power. He also doubted the feasibility of the NDP's centralizing policies and felt that the party leadership tended toward a "''deux nations''" approach he could not support.

Upon arrival in Ottawa, Trudeau was appointed as parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and spent much of the next year travelling abroad, representing Canada at international meetings and bodies, including the United Nations. In 1967, he was appointed to Pearson's Cabinet as Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

Minister of Justice and Attorney General (1967–1968)

As Justice Minister 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. Trudeau famously defended the segment of the bill decriminalizing homosexual acts by telling reporters that "there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation", adding that "what's done in private between adults doesn't concern the Criminal Code". Trudeau paraphrased the term from Martin O'Malley's editorial piece in ''The Globe and Mail'' on December 12, 1967. Trudeau also liberalized divorce laws, and clashed with Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson, Sr. during constitutional negotiations.

Liberal leadership convention (1968)

At the end of Canada's centennial year in 1967, Pearson announced his intention to step down, and Trudeau entered the race to succeed him as party leader and Prime Minister. His energetic campaign attracted widespread media attention and mobilized many young people, who saw Trudeau as a symbol of generational change. However, many Liberals still had reservations, given that he had only joined the party in 1965. During the convention, prominent Cabinet Minister Judy LaMarsh was caught on television profanely stating that Trudeau was not a Liberal.

Nevertheless, at the April 1968 Liberal leadership convention, Trudeau was elected leader on the fourth ballot, with the support of 51 percent of the delegates. He defeated several prominent and long-serving Liberals, including Paul Martin Sr., Robert Winters and Paul Hellyer.

First premiership (1968–1979)

Swearing-in and subsequent election

As the new leader of the governing Liberals, Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister on April 20. Although the term of the Parliament was not due to expire until November 1970, Pearson's government had almost fallen before the leadership contest could even take place after a tax bill was voted down in Parliament, leading to much confusion over whether this counted as a matter of confidence in the government. Governor General Roland Michener ultimately ruled that it did not, and the government subsequently won an actual confidence motion, but the incident made it clear that the minority government Trudeau had inherited would not realistically last the full parliamentary term, and that he would soon need to call an early election in order to win a parliamentary majority. Trudeau eventually called this election for June 25, 1968.

Trudeau's campaign benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania", which saw him mobbed by throngs of youths. His main national opponents were PC leader Robert Stanfield and NDP leader Tommy Douglas, both popular figures who had been premiers of Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan respectively (albeit in Trudeau's native Quebec, the main competition to the Liberals was from the Ralliement créditiste, led by Réal Caouette). As a candidate, Trudeau espoused participatory democracy as a means of making Canada a " Just Society". He vigorously defended the newly implemented universal health care and regional development programs, as well as the recent reforms found in the Omnibus bill.

On the eve of the election, during the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, rioting Quebec sovereigntists threw rocks and bottles at the grandstand where Trudeau was seated, chanting "Trudeau au poteau!" ("Trudeau to the stake!"). Rejecting the pleas of aides that he take cover, Trudeau stayed in his seat, facing the rioters, without any sign of fear. The image of the defiant Prime Minister impressed the public. The next day, Trudeau handily won the 1968 election with a strong majority government; this was the Liberals' first majority since 1953.

Social policy

Bilingualism and multiculturalism

Trudeau's first major legislative push was implementing the majority of recommendations from Pearson's Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism via the '' Official Languages Act'', which made French and English the co-equal official languages of the federal government. More controversial than the declaration (which was backed by the NDP and, with some opposition in caucus, the PCs) was the implementation of the Act's principles: between 1966 and 1976, the francophone proportion of the civil service and military doubled, causing alarm in some sections of anglophone Canada who felt they were being disadvantaged.

Trudeau's Cabinet fulfilled Part IV of the Royal Commission's report by announcing a "Multiculturalism Policy" on October 8, 1971. It was the first of its kind in the world, subsequently being emulated by several provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; even other countries, most notably Australia, which has had a similar history and immigration pattern, emulated the policy. Beyond the specifics of the policy itself, this action signalled an openness to the world and coincided with a more open immigration policy that Pearson had brought in. The policy recognized that while Canada was a country of two official languages, it recognized a plurality of cultures – "a multicultural policy within a bilingual framework". This annoyed public opinion in Quebec, which believed that it challenged Quebec's claim of Canada being a country of two nations.

Immigration

Following the Vietnam War, a refugee crisis was caused by the flight of the boat people from Vietnam, as thousands of people, mostly ethnic Chinese, fled the country in makeshift boats across the South China Sea, usually to the British colony of Hong Kong. The Trudeau government was generous in granting asylum to the refugees. By 1980, Canada had accepted about 44,000 boat people, making it one of the top destinations for them.

Indigenous issues

In 1969, Trudeau, along with his then- Minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chrétien, proposed the 1969 White Paper (officially entitled "Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian policy"). The Paper proposed the general assimilation of First Nations into the Canadian body politic through the elimination of the ''Indian Act'' and Indian status, the parcelling of reserve land to private owners, and the elimination of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. The White Paper was widely seen as racist and an attack on Canada's indigenous peoples, and prompted the first major national mobilization of indigenous activists against the federal government's proposal, leading Trudeau to set aside the legislation.

Death penalty

On July 14, 1976, after a long and emotional debate, Bill C-84 was passed by the House of Commons by a vote of 130 to 124, abolishing the death penalty for all criminal offences (other than military offences) and instituting a life sentence without parole for 25 years for first-degree murder.

Quebec

October Crisis

Trudeau's first serious test as Prime Minister came during the October Crisis of 1970, when a Marxist-influenced Quebec separatist group, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), kidnapped British Trade Consul James Cross at his residence on October 5. Five days later, the group also kidnapped Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte. Trudeau, with the acquiescence of Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa, responded by invoking the '' War Measures Act'', which gave the government sweeping powers of arrest and detention without trial. Trudeau presented a determined public stance during the crisis; when questioned by CBC Television journalist Tim Ralfe regarding how far he would go to stop the violence, Trudeau answered, " Just watch me". Laporte was found dead on October 17 in the trunk of a car. Five of the FLQ members were flown to Cuba in 1970 as part of a deal in exchange for James Cross' life, although they eventually returned to Canada years later, where they served time in prison.

Although Trudeau's 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.

Quebec provincial affairs

After consultations with the provincial premiers, Trudeau agreed to attend a conference called by British Columbia Premier W. A. C. Bennett to attempt to finally patriate the Canadian constitution. Negotiations between the provinces and Justice Minister John Turner created a draft agreement, known as the Victoria Charter, that entrenched a charter of rights, bilingualism, and a guarantee of a veto of constitutional amendments for Ontario and Quebec, as well as regional vetoes for Western Canada and Atlantic Canada, within the new constitution. The agreement was acceptable to the nine predominantly-English speaking provinces, but Quebec's premier Robert Bourassa requested two weeks to consult with his cabinet. After a strong backlash of popular opinion against the agreement in Quebec, Bourassa stated that Quebec would not accept it.

Trudeau faced increasing challenges in Quebec, starting with bitter relations with Bourassa and his Quebec Liberal government. Following a rise in the polls after the rejection of the Victoria Charter, the Quebec Liberals had taken a more confrontational approach with the federal government on the constitution, French language laws, and the language of air traffic control in Quebec. Trudeau responded with increasing anger at what he saw as nationalist provocations against Ottawa's bilingualism and constitutional initiatives, at times expressing his personal contempt for Bourassa.

Partially in an attempt to shore up his support, Bourassa called a surprise election in 1976 that resulted in René Lévesque and the sovereigntist Parti Québécois (PQ) winning a majority government. The PQ had chiefly campaigned on a "good government" platform, but promised a referendum on independence to be held within their first mandate. Trudeau and Lévesque had been personal rivals, with Trudeau's intellectualism contrasting with Lévesque's more working-class image. While Trudeau claimed to welcome the "clarity" provided by the PQ victory, the unexpected rise of the Quebec sovereignty movement became, in his view, his biggest challenge.

As the PQ began to take power, Trudeau faced the prolonged breakdown of his marriage, which the English-language press covered in lurid detail on a day-by-day basis. Trudeau's reserve was seen as dignified by contemporaries, and his poll numbers actually rose during the height of coverage, but aides felt the personal tensions left him uncharacteristically emotional and prone to outbursts.

Economic policy

Trudeau's first government implemented many procedural reforms to make Parliament and the Liberal caucus meetings run more efficiently, significantly expanded the size and role of the Prime Minister's office, and substantially expanded social-welfare programs.

Deficit spending

Trudeau's government ran large budget deficits throughout its time in office. The government's first budget in 1968 produced a deficit of $667 million, while the 1969 budget produced a surplus of $140 million. However, the 1970 budget (which produced a deficit of over $1 billion) marked the start of consecutive budget deficits run by the Trudeau government; the budget would not be balanced until 1997. By the time Trudeau's first tenure ended in 1979, the deficit grew to $12 billion.

Social programs and spending

In 1971, Trudeau's government greatly expanded unemployment insurance, making coverage nearly universal as coverage for the Canadian labour force jumped to 96 percent from 75 percent. The system was sometimes called the 8/42, because one had to work for eight weeks (with at least 20 hours per week), and wait two weeks, to get benefits for the other 42 weeks of the year. This expansion also opened the UI program up to maternity, sickness, and retirement benefits, covered seasonal workers for the first time, and allowed mothers to receive up to 15 weeks of benefits if they had 20 or more insurable weeks. The reforms increased the maximum benefit period to 50 weeks, though the benefit duration was calculated using a complex formula depending on labour force participation and the regional and national unemployment rates. In 1977, the government simplified the benefit duration formula but introduced a variable entrance requirement dependent on the unemployment rate in the applicant's region; the changes also mandated that workers in areas with low unemployment regions work twice as long to be eligible for benefits as workers in high unemployment regions.

In 1973, Trudeau's government amended the '' National Housing Act'' to provide financial assistance for new home buying, loans for co-operative housing, and low interest loans for municipal and private non-profit housing. The amendments saw the introduction the Rental Rehabilitation Assistance Program, which established that homeowners and occupants in low-income neighbourhoods could qualify for small grants to be used for home repair. Also introduced was the Assisted Home Ownership Program which allowed the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to start providing grants and subsidized interest rates to low income families (though in 1978 an amendment discontinued the provision of grant money to these families, which led to a high incidence of defaults, and in turn, necessitated that the federal government provide financial assistance to the CMHC). The amendments saw the passage of the ''Rent Supplement Act'', which enabled the CMHC to partner with private landlords, cooperatives, and not-for-profit associations to provide affordable housing; in addition, the act saw the CMHC agree to fund the difference between market rental prices and rent prices geared to the specific occupant's income. Lastly, the Canada Rental Supply Program was introduced to provide interest-free loans for 15 years to developers who agreed to allocate a proportion of units toward social housing initiatives. In order to ensure that loans contributed to the provision of low income housing, the CMHC was restricted to giving loans amounting to $7,500 or less per unit.

Legislation passed in November 1968 widened eligibility for farm credit, and in 1970 legislation was introduced aimed at improving compensation for merchant seamen and also to establish a right to maternity leave. In 1972, an Act was passed providing for the indexation of various pensions and allowances to the consumer price index. Certain eligibility requirements for receiving training allowances were also removed. One-pensioner couples benefited from a new Spouse's Allowance, while various improvements in superannuation arrangements and in family allowances were also carried out.

The registered home ownership savings plan (RHOSP) was introduced in the government's November 1974 budget. Similar to RRSPs, proceeds from the RHOSP could be received tax-free for either. a down payment for the acquisition of an owner-occupied dwelling or to buy furnitures for the dwelling (or the spouse's dwelling). Individuals who already owned a home (either owner-occupied or rented to another person) could not deduct RHOSP contributions. In 1976, Trudeau's government allowed for transfers of funds between the RHOSP (for instance to select a plan with better returns). In 1977, the government tightened the rules of the RHOSP (the reforms removed the purchase of furnitures from the list of usage allowed for tax-free use of RHOSP proceeds starting in 1978; disallowed deductible contributions for a taxpayer whose spouse owned a home; suspended tax-free rollover of RHSOP funds to an RRSP; and capped the lifetime of the RHOSP at 20 years).

In 1977, Trudeau's government established the financial program Established Programs Financing to help finance the provincially-run healthcare and post-secondary education system, through transfer payments, by cash and tax points. This system lasted until 1995.

In 1979, Trudeau's government restructured family allowances by increasing the role of the tax system in child support and decreasing the role of family allowances. The government established an annual Refundable Child Tax Credit of $200 for families with incomes of $18,000 or less. As incomes increased above this level, benefits would be taxed away to disappear completely at $26,000. Since the median income for families during this time was $19,500, the majority of families received some benefit from the new program.

Taxation

In 1969, Trudeau's first finance minister, Edgar Benson, introduced a white paper on tax reform which included tax deductions for child care and advocated shifting the tax burden from the poor to the wealthy. Measures to fulfill the latter proposal included a capital gains tax, which was severely criticized by corporate Canada and the business community (notably Israel Asper). The bill was debated in Parliament for over a year, with its more radical proposals being removed in parliamentary committee. The reforms managed to be passed through the use of closure, with the capital gains tax (that had an inclusion rate of 50 percent) coming into effect on January 1, 1972, as prescribed by the 1971 budget. Also implemented in 1972 was the child care expense deduction which allowed for a deduction of up to $500 per child. As Benson had now become a political liability, Trudeau replaced him with John Turner (who was seen as a " Business Liberal") in 1972.

In 1973, Trudeau's government fully indexed the person income tax system (both the exemptions and the brackets) to match inflation. The indexation was made effective in 1974; during that year, inflation had jumped from six percent to double digits. The government also implemented three personal income tax cuts from 1973 to 1975.

Inflation

While popular with the electorate, Trudeau's promised minor reforms had little effect on the growing rate of inflation, and he struggled with conflicting advice on the crisis. In September 1975, finance minister John Turner resigned over refusing to implement wage and price controls. In December 1975, in an embarrassing about-face, Trudeau and new Finance Minister Donald Macdonald introduced wage and price controls by passing the '' Anti-Inflation Act'', despite campaigning against them in the 1974 election. Amongst its many controls, it limited pay increases for federal government employees and employees in companies with over 500 workers to 10 percent in 1976, 8 percent in 1977, and 6 percent in 1978. The Act also established the anti-inflation board which oversaw the implementation of wage and price controls and had the ability to recommend decreases in prices of goods, wage cuts, and rebates to customers of various services. The breadth of the legislation, which touched on many powers traditionally considered the purview of the provinces, prompted a Supreme Court reference that only upheld the legislation as an emergency requiring Federal intervention under the ''British North America Act''. During the annual 1975 Christmas interview with CTV, Trudeau discussed the economy, citing market failures and stating that more state intervention would be necessary. However, the academic wording and hypothetical solutions posed during the complex discussion led much of the public to believe he had declared capitalism itself a failure, creating a lasting distrust among increasingly neoliberal business leaders. The controls lasted until 1978 and the anti-inflation board was dissolved in 1979.

Energy policy

On September 4, 1973, Trudeau requested that the Western Canadian provinces agree to a voluntary freeze on oil prices during the ongoing Arab oil embargo. Nine days later, 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. The tax was equivalent to the difference between domestic and international oil prices, and the revenues were used to subsidize oil imports for Eastern refiners. The Premier of oil-rich Alberta, Peter Lougheed, called the decision "the most discriminatory action taken by a federal government against a particular province in the entire history of Confederation." While revenues decreased for Western provinces (particularly Alberta) and for the petroleum industry, Trudeau's government subsidized Eastern consumers, angering Alberta, who successfully fought for control of its natural resources in 1930.

In the early 1970s, the petroleum industry was largely under foreign (mainly American) control, the recent discovery of oil in Alaska put corporate pressure on the Canadian Arctic, and Canada's energy sector increasingly focused on North American rather than domestic needs. Trudeau's government initially rejected the idea of creating a nationalized oil company (which was perceived to secure supplies, improve revenue collection, and give governments better information on the global energy market), arguing it would be costly and inefficient. However, after the late 1973 oil crisis saw global oil prices quadruple, questions arose about whether Canada should continue importing oil. Though Canada also exported oil at times, the provinces of Quebec and Atlantic Canada were at risk of a cut-off of imports; as a result, Canada was in need of knowing more about its potential to produce energy. In late October 1973, Trudeau's government adopted a motion from the New Democratic Party (which the Trudeau minority government relied on for support) to establish a nationalized oil company. The ''Petro-Canada Act'' was passed in 1975 (under a Trudeau majority government), resulting in the creation of a new crown corporation, Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada was mandated to acquire imported oil supplies, take part in energy research and development, and engage in downstream activities such as refining and marketing. The corporation started with an initial $1.5 billion in capital and had preferential access to debt capital as "an agent of Her Majesty". Trudeau's government gave itself authority over Petro-Canada's capital budget and its corporate strategy, making the company its policy arm; the government also wanted the company to be mainly active on the frontiers (the oil sands, the Arctic, and the East Coast offshore areas) rather than Western Canada, where most Canadian oil is extracted. In 1976, Trudeau appointed his friend, Maurice Strong, to become the first chair of the company.

Foreign affairs

In foreign affairs, Trudeau kept Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but often pursued an independent path in international relations.

Trudeau was the first world leader to meet John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono on their 1969 "tour for world peace". Lennon said, after talking with Trudeau for 50 minutes, that Trudeau was "a beautiful person" and that "if all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau, there would be world peace". 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. Halstead stated that Trudeau viewed foreign policy as "only for dabbing", saying he much preferred domestic affairs.

NATO

In August 1968, the Trudeau government expressed disapproval of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, having the Canadian delegation at the United Nations vote for a resolution condemning the invasion, which failed to pass owing to a Soviet veto. However, Trudeau made it clear that he did not want an intensified Cold War as a result of the invasion, and worked to avoid a rupture with Moscow. In a speech in December 1968, Trudeau asked: "Can we assume Russia wants war because it invaded Czechoslovakia?".

In 1968–1969, Trudeau wanted to pull Canada out of NATO, arguing that the principle of mutual assured destruction (MAD) caused by a Soviet-American nuclear exchange made it highly unlikely that the Soviet Union would ever invade West Germany, thereby making NATO into an expensive irrelevance in his view. In March 1969, Trudeau visited Washington to meet President Richard Nixon. Although the meeting was very civil, Nixon came to intensely dislike Trudeau over time, referring to the Prime Minister in 1971 as "that asshole Trudeau". Nixon made it clear to Trudeau that a Canada that remained in NATO would be taken more seriously in Washington than a Canada that left NATO. Trudeau himself noted during a speech given before the National Press Club during the same visit that the United States was by far Canada's largest trading partner, saying: "Living next to you is in some way like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt".

The NATO question sharply divided the Cabinet. Diplomat Marcel Cadieux accused Trudeau of "not seeming to believe in the Soviet danger". As a diplomat, the devout Catholic Cadieux had served on the International Control Commission in 1954–55, where his experiences of witnessing the exodus of two million Vietnamese Catholics from North Vietnam to South Vietnam made him into a very firm anti-Communist. In late March 1969, Trudeau's cabinet was torn by debate as ministers divided into pro-NATO and anti-NATO camps, and Trudeau's own feelings were with the latter. Defence Minister Léo Cadieux threatened to resign in protest if Canada left NATO, leading Trudeau, who wanted to keep a French-Canadian in a high-profile portfolio such as the Department of National Defence, to meet Cadieux on April 2 to discuss a possible compromise. Trudeau and Cadieux agreed 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. Ultimately, the fact the United States would be more favourably disposed to a Canada in NATO and the need to maintain Cabinet unity led Trudeau to decide, despite his own inclinations, to stay in NATO. After much discussion within the cabinet, Trudeau finally declared that Canada would stay within NATO after all on April 3, but he would cut back Canada's forces within Europe by 50%. The way that Canada cut its NATO contributions by 50% caused tensions with other NATO allies, with the British government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson publicly protesting the cuts.

United States

Relations with the United States deteriorated on many points during the Nixon presidency (1969–74), including trade disputes, defence agreements, energy, fishing, the environment, cultural imperialism, and foreign policy. On January 4, 1973, Trudeau voted for a resolution in the House of Commons that condemned the American Christmas bombings against North Vietnam between December 18 and 29, 1972. As a consequence, Canadian-American relations, already under stress because of the mutual contempt between Nixon and Trudeau, reached a post-war nadir. Nixon was infuriated by the resolution and refused to see Marcel Cadieux, now the Canadian ambassador in Washington, in protest for the rest of 1973. Nixon was only prevented from lashing out more by his desire to have Canada continue as the pro-Western member on the International Control Commission for Vietnam. Prompted by Halstead, who was known as a proponent of economic "rebalancing" by seeking closer economic ties with the EEC, Trudeau made a visit to Brussels in October 1973 to see François-Xavier Ortoli, the president of the European Commission, to ask for a Canadian-EEC free trade agreement. Halstead used Nixon's displeasure with Canada as an argument that it was finally time for "economic rebalancing" by seeking closer ties with the EEC, a thesis that Halstead had been advocating ever since the early 1960s. Ortoli refused Trudeau's request for a free trade agreement with the EEC, saying that was out of the question, but did agree to open talks on lowering tariffs between Canada and the EEC.

Trudeau continued his attempts at increasing Canada's international profile, including joining the G7 group of major economic powers in 1976 at the behest of U.S. President Gerald Ford. American-Canadian relations changed for the better when Trudeau found a better rapport with Ford's successor, Jimmy Carter. The late 1970s saw a more sympathetic American attitude toward Canadian political and economic needs, the pardoning of draft evaders who had moved to Canada, and the passing of old sore points such as Watergate and the Vietnam War. Canada more than ever welcomed American investments during the " stagflation" (high inflation and high unemployment at the same time) that hurt both nations in the 1970s.

United Kingdom and France

Trudeau attached little importance to Canada–United Kingdom relations. While he rebuffed a suggestion by one of his ministers to turn Canada into a republic in 1968, he treated the Canadian monarchy with a certain bemused contempt. Britain's decision to join the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 and Japan's replacement of the UK as Canada's second-largest trading partner confirmed Trudeau's view that Britain was a declining power which had little to offer Canada. However, Trudeau was attached to the Commonwealth, believing it was an international body that allowed Canada to project influence on the Third World as it was one of the few bodies that allowed leaders from the First and Third Worlds to meet on a regular basis. Although France was no longer as supportive of Quebec separatism as it had been under President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s, repeated expressions of the idea of a special Franco-Quebecois bond as opposed to a Franco-Canadian bond by French politicians throughout the 1970s led to tensions between the two nations.

In 1970, the Commonwealth was threatened with a split as a number of African members, supported by India, attempted to block planned British arms sales to South Africa, then under the system of apartheid. The Zambian government submitted a draft of principles which would have bound Commonwealth member states to give no assistance to nations practising racial discrimination. The first Wilson ministry had imposed an arms embargo on South Africa in 1964, which the Heath ministry ended in 1970 on the grounds that the South African government was pro-Western and anti-communist. A number of African Commonwealth nations led by Zambia and Tanzania threatened to leave the organization if the arms sales went through. When British Prime Minister Edward Heath visited Ottawa in December 1970, his meetings with Trudeau went poorly. In what was described as a "no holds-barred" style, Trudeau told Heath that the planned arms sales were threatening the Commonwealth's unity.

At a Commonwealth summit in Singapore in January 1971, Trudeau argued that apartheid was not sustainable in the long run given that Black South Africans vastly outnumbered white South Africans, and any external support for the apartheid government was myopic given that majority rule was inevitable. However, Trudeau worked for a compromise to avoid a split in the Commonwealth, arguing that it needed to do more to pressure South Africa to end apartheid peacefully, and saying that a race war in South Africa would be the worse possible way to end apartheid. The conference ended with a compromise agreement in which Britain would fulfil its existing arms contracts to South Africa but henceforth sell no more weapons to them; ultimately, the British only sold South Africa five attack helicopters. Singaporean Prime Minister and conference host Lee Kuan Yew later praised Trudeau for his efforts at the summit to hold the Commonwealth together, despite the passions aroused by the South African issue.

Germany

Trudeau had an especially close friendship with the Social Democratic West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, whom he greatly liked both for his left-wing politics and as a practical politician who was more concerned about getting things done rather than with ideological questions. 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. After meeting Schmidt, Trudeau performed a ''volte-face'' on NATO, speaking at a press conference of how much he valued NATO as an alliance that was established for collective security in Europe. To show his approval of Schmidt, Trudeau not only agreed to spend more on NATO, but insisted that the Canadian Army buy the German-built Leopard tank, which thereby boosted the West German arms industry, over the opposition of the Finance department, which felt that buying the Leopard tanks was wasteful. Schmidt's support was especially welcome as Wilson, once again back as the British prime minister, proved unwilling to lobby for the EEC lowering tariffs on Canadian goods, merely saying that he was willing "to interpret Canadian policy" to the other EEC leaders. By contrast, the West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher gave Trudeau a firm promise of West German support for an EEC-Canadian economic agreement. The major hold-out was France, which was stoutly opposed to an EEC-Canadian agreement, believing that giving EEC market access to Canadian agriculture as a threat to French agriculture. In July 1976 a Canadian-EEC Framework Economic Agreement was signed, which came into effect on October 1, 1976. 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.

China

Trudeau established Canadian diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1970 and became the first Canadian prime minister to make an official visit to Beijing. On February 10, 1969, the government announced its wish to establish diplomatic relations with the People's Republic, and Trudeau was mortified when the Chinese refused to respond at first, which made him look foolish. Unknown to Trudeau, the Chinese diplomatic corps had been so thoroughly purged during the Cultural Revolution that the Chinese Foreign Ministry barely functioned by early 1969. On February 19, 1969, the Chinese finally responded and agreed to open talks in Stockholm on establishing diplomatic relations, which began on April 3, 1969. Trudeau expected the negotiations to be a mere formality, but relations were not finally established until October 1970. 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. On October 10, 1970, a statement was issued by the External Affairs department in Ottawa saying: "The Chinese government reaffirms that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People's Republic of China. The Canadian government takes note of the Chinese position". After the statement was issued, China and Canada established diplomatic relations on the same day. The so-called "Canadian formula" under which a nation "takes note" of the Chinese viewpoint that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic has been often copied by other nations that have established diplomatic relations with Beijing, most notably the United States in 1979. In October 1973, Trudeau visited Beijing to meet Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and premier Zhou Enlai, where Trudeau was hailed as "old friend", a term of high approval in China.

In 1976, Trudeau, succumbing to pressure from the Chinese government, issued an order barring Taiwan from participating as China in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, although technically it was a matter for the IOC. His action strained relations with the United States – from President Ford, future President Carter and the press – and subjected Canada to international condemnation and shame.

Cuba

Trudeau was known as a friend of Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba. In January 1976, Trudeau visited Cuba to meet Castro and shouted to a crowd in Havana

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