Jean-Pierre Goyer, (January 17, 1932 – May 24, 2011) was a lawyer and Canadian Cabinet minister.
Early life and education Goyer was born in Saint-Laurent, Quebec, the son of Gilbert and Marie-Ange Goyer. His wealthy family owned a coal distribution company in Montreal. He was educated at two collèges classiques, the College St. Laurent and the College Ste. Marie. Goyer received the standard education of the French-Canadian grande bourgeoisie at the collèges classiques with a strong emphasis on French, Catholic theology, the classics, and math. He graduated from the University of Montreal in 1953."Goyer, Hon. Jean-Pierre, C.P., C.R." Canadian Parliamentary Guide (8th edition) Gale His first wife was Michelle Gascon, by whom he had three daughters. In the 1970s he was linked to the economist Marie-Josée Drouin, whom he described as his "common-law wife", even through he was married to Gascon at the time.
MP
1965 - 1968 term Goyer was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Liberal Party of Canada Member of Parliament for Dollard in the 1965 election. In 1967, when the Liberal Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson announced his intention to resign, Goyer was part of the team that supported the bid of the Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau to win the leadership of the Liberal party. There had been rumors for some time that Pearson-widely considered to be a lackluster leader presiding over a chaotic minority government-would resign in the near-future and ever since 1967 the media had been speculating that Trudeau-who was regarded as a star minister in Pearson's cabinet-would be his successor. Pearson had been prime minister since 1963, but he was unable to win a majority in two successive general elections in 1963 and 1965. Pearson was widely viewed as an inept leader who blundered from disaster to disaster, and most Liberals had long wanted Pearson to retire, leading to internal pressure for the prime minister to step down. Pearson had wanted to stay on to preside over the events of the centennial year of 1967, and with 1967 almost over Pearson had no more reason to stay on. Marc Lalonde, one of Trudeau's closest advisers recalled: "He [Goyer] was the first MP to rally for Trudeau's candidacy and he was actively involved in Trudeau's leadership campaign". The journalist Catherine Fogarty described Goyer as an intelligent and a very ambitious MP who was the first Liberal MP to back Trudeau, a decision that she credited to Goyer's burning ambition to be promoted up to the cabinet instead of languishing as a backbencher. On 15 December 1967, the day after Pearson announced he would be resigning as prime minister in 1968, Goyer attended a secret meeting in Ottawa alongside Marc Lalonde, Michael Pitfield, Pierre Lavasseur, and André Ouellet to found a campaign organization for Trudeau.
On 26 January 1968, a Liberal policy convention was held at the Place Bonaventure in Montreal. The convention was regarded as a chance for Trudeau-who had still not declared himself a candidate-to advance his ideas and show how he would be a different prime minister from Pearson. Goyer as chairman of the Liberal policy committee scheduled a debate about changes to the British North America Act (the constitution of Canada), an issue that Trudeau favored. This was especially the case as the Quebec premier Daniel Johnson Sr. had just proposed for a dramatic devolution of power from the federal government to the provinces; Quebec separatism was becoming popular; and René Lévesque had just founded the Parti Québécois to champion separatism, making it imperative that Trudeau being seen as someone with ideas about how to address national unity. Goyer prepared a resolution calling for the British North America Act to be amended to declare Canada a bilingual nation with English and French to have equal status in all provinces; to declare that the federal government had the right to legislate for social policy; and for a bill of rights to be added to the BNA Act to protect the rights of minorities. The resolution passed, but the Liberal delegates then passed another resolution that called for the end of the monarchy as the resolution stated that Canada should become a republic by 1969, a resolution that Trudeau promptly disallowed. The resolution calling for a Canadian republic was widely mocked as a cheap and easy attempt to appeal to Quebec separatists by abolishing the monarchy, which separatists had attacked as a humiliating "colonial" symbol. Trudeau told the media that the monarchy was merely a "symbol" and he intended to advance policies that would improve the lives of ordinary French-Canadians, rather than being fixtured on a "symbol" that did not impact the lives of ordinary people. The convention was considered a triumph as Trudeau and his supporters such as Goyer who were widely viewed as presenting a plausible alternative to the visions of Johnson and Lévesque.
Goyer had promised Trudeau that over 50 Liberal MPs and senators from Quebec would show up at a meeting on 15 February 1968 to show their support for Trudeau as Pearson's successor. Goyer had further told Trudeau that 80% of the Liberal MPs from Quebec would support him, a figure that was based on fantasy as in fact during the leadership race 50% of the Quebec Liberal MPs supported other candidates. Despite Goyer's promises, only 20 MPs and senators actually attended the meeting, which reflected resentment over Trudeau's rapid rise in politics at the expense of many longer-serving Liberals. Trudeau had been elected an MP in a 1965 by-election and many felt that it was a premature move to have someone with only 3 years' political experience serve as prime minister. Trudeau nearly abandoned his leadership bid as a result of the fiasco, but changed his mind when Goyer reassured him that he was popular with the Liberal rank-and-file. Goyer assured Trudeau that he would have the support of about 600-750 delegates at a leadership convention, which would put him within striking distance of winning the leadership as winning would require having the support of about 1, 200 delegates. The strongest factor in favor of Trudeau over his rivals such as Paul Martin Sr. and Mitchell Sharp was the belief that Trudeau was the best man to handle national unity at a time when there were widespread fears that Canada might break up. Goyer was tireless in arguing that Trudeau should be the next Liberal leader by claiming he was the only man who could save the country. On 16 February 1968, Trudeau called a press conference to formally announce his leadership bid. Goyer served as the floor manager for the Trudeau campaign at the leadership convention where Trudeau was elected the Liberal leader.
1968 re-election He was re-elected in the 1968 election. During the October crisis in 1970, Goyer was known as a "hawk" who advised Trudeau to invoke the War Measures Act, saying that the FLQ was on the brink of launching a revolutionary war in Canada. In December 1970, he was appointed to the Cabinet as Solicitor General of Canada by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In this position, he oversaw the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the aftermath of the FLQ Crisis.
The Solicitor General
FLQ Crisis The October crisis is regarded by historians as the effective end of the FLQ, but at the time it was widely believed to be just the beginning of an era of terrorism in Canada. The full extent that the murder of the Quebec Labor Minister Pierre Laporte had alienated Quebecois public opinion from the FLQ was not appreciated at the time, and the Trudeau government in late 1970-early 1971 saw itself under siege. The Trudeau cabinet had an ambivalent relationship with the RCMP. Traditionally, the Mounties tended to ascribe to a right-wing political views and saw the Liberal Party as being "soft on Communism" with Trudeau himself being investigated by the RCMP as a possible Communist and Soviet spy in the early 1950s. On the other hand, the Trudeau government saw the FLQ as and more broadly New Left movements in general as "the enemy" whom the RCMP needed to crush. The student uprisings at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby in 1968 and at Sir George Williams University in Montreal in 1969 were seen by the Trudeau government as possible beginning of a revolutionary movement. Goyer as Solicitor-General was mvery much on the side of the RCMP and in cabinet meetings constantly urged that the RCMP be given more power to combat the FLQ.
Both Goyer and Trudeau proved adapt at deflecting questions in the House of Commons about the RCMP's campaign against the "radicals" by claiming that the government had no control over the RCMP, and as such they were not responsible for anything the RCMP did. However, Goyer was unhappy that John Kennett Starnes, the director of the RCMP security service, had a "direct line" to Trudeau and by-passed him from time to time. Starnes had been outraged by the 1971 book Le crise d'octobre by the journalist Gérard Pelletier that claimed that the RCMP was unprepared for the October crisis and sent Goyer a lengthy memo arguing that the RCMP had been active in monitoring the FLQ in 1970. Starnes in particular noted that the RCMP foiled two FLQ kidnapping schemes in the spring of 1970, one to kidnap the U.S. consul in Montreal to protest the Vietnam war and another scheme to kidnap the Israeli consul in Montreal to express solidarity with the Palestinians. Starnes politely, but firmly pointed out to Goyer that the RCMP had warned it was likely that the FLQ would try again to kidnap foreign diplomats and argued the kidnapping of James Cross, the British Trade Commissioner in Montreal, had been caused by the failure of the government to act on its advice given in May 1970 to provide bodyguards to all diplomats in Montreal. Cross had been kidnapped at gunpoint by the FLQ when he went to answer his door when it was being rung by his kidnappers, and his kidnaping would have almost certainly been avoided had he had some bodyguards protecting him. Starnes's memo seemed to have influenced Goyer to believe that the RCMP knew what was best.
Fears over the 1976 Summer Olympics
Further increasing the fears of the Trudeau government was that in 1970 Montreal had won the right to host the 1976 Summer Olympics, which led to the fear that the FLQ would stage a terrorist attack during the Olympics. Trudeau and his cabinet were convinced with the eyes of the world focused on Montreal that the FLQ would stage a major terrorist incident at the scheduled time of the Olympics with the aim of disgracing Canada on the world stage, which increased the atmosphere of fear and paranoia. Lalonde recalled in 2011: "He [Goyer] had his own views. He might have been kind of stubborn. He often pursued what he thought was right without taking into consideration other points of view. He was young. Because he was young he was not a heavyweight in cabinet, but subject to close supervision by senior ministers...He was ambitious, but he never quite achieved his ambition...Certainly, the cabinet as a whole prodded the RCMP to concentrate on the FLQ, which was using violence in support of separatism". Lalonde stated that the RCMP had traditionally focused on spying upon the Canadian Communist Party, and the Trudeau cabinet was notably annoyed at what appeared to be a glaring lack of intelligence about the FLQ, leading to intense pressure being applied on Goyer to push the RCMP harder for more intelligence on the FLQ.