The premierships of Pierre Trudeau occurred from April 20, 1968, to June 4, 1979, and from March 3, 1980, to June 30, 1984. Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as Prime Minister of Canada two weeks after he succeeded Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson as leader of the Liberal Party in the 1968 leadership election.
Trudeau led his Liberals to win a comfortable majority government in the subsequent 1968 federal election. In the 1972 federal election, Trudeau's Liberals were reduced to a minority government, though won a second majority in 1974. In the 1979 federal election, Trudeau's Liberals lost power to a Progressive Conservative led by Joe Clark, who formed a minority government. The PC government collapsed in a vote of non-confidence, triggering the 1980 federal election in which Trudeau's Liberals won a third majority. Trudeau is the most recent prime minister to win four elections 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 confronted the Quebec sovereignty movement; he suppressed the 1970 Quebec terrorist crisis by invoking the War Measures Act and in the 1980 Quebec referendum, successfully campaigned against Quebec's proposal to negotiate a sovereignty-association agreement with the federal government. In other domestic policy, Trudeau established a pan-Canadian identity by pioneering official bilingualism and multiculturalism.
Trudeau's government was heavily economically interventionist. He shifted the Liberals to an economic nationalist direction by creating Petro-Canada and the National Energy Program; the latter was heavily opposed by the oil-rich region of Western Canada, leading to the introduction of the term "Western alienation". To combat rising inflation, Trudeau's government enforced wage and price controls from 1975 to 1978 through the passing of the Anti-Inflation Act. After the 1969 budget, Trudeau ran deficits for the rest of his tenure as a result of major increases in public spending; by the time he left office in 1984, the deficit was at $37 billion.
Trudeau pursued an independent foreign policy, distancing Canada from the United States. He differed Canada from other capitalist Western nations by forming close ties with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In 1982, he patriated the Constitution and established the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, actions that achieved full Canadian sovereignty and ending Canada's 115-year usage of the United Kingdom's constitution.
On June 30, 1984, Trudeau resigned as prime minister, being succeeded by his former Cabinet minister, John Turner.
Background
A lawyer from Quebec, Pierre Trudeau was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament in the 1965 federal election. He quickly became Prime Minister Lester Pearson's parliamentary secretary, and in 1967, he was appointed as minister of justice and attorney general. In early 1968, Pearson announced his intention of resigning as a result of declining health and failing to win a majority government in two attempts. This triggered the April 6, 1968, leadership election. Trudeau entered the race, as did eight other candidates. Despite his relative inexperience in politics, Trudeau won on the fourth ballot. Trudeau was sworn in as prime minister on April 20.
First premiership (1968–1979)
Swearing-in, subsequent election
As the new leader of the governing Liberals, Trudeau was sworn in as Prime Minister on April 20.
Trudeau soon called an election, for June 25. His election campaign benefited from an unprecedented wave of personal popularity called "Trudeaumania", which saw Trudeau mobbed by throngs of youths. Trudeau's main national opponents were PC leader Robert Stanfield and NDP leader Tommy Douglas, both popular figures who had been premiers, respectively, of Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan (albeit in Trudeau's native Quebec, the main competition to the Liberals was from the Ralliement créditiste, led by Réal Caouette).
On the eve of the election, during the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, rioting Quebec sovereignists threw rocks and bottles at the grandstand where Trudeau was seated, chanting "Trudeau au poteau!" (Trudeau – to the stake!). Rejecting the pleas of his 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
Social reforms: Criminal Law Amendment Act
In 1969, Trudeau's government passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which was originally introduced as Bill C-195 on December 21, 1967, when Trudeau was justice minister. When Trudeau became prime minister, he appointed John Turner as justice minister, who modified and re-introduced the bill as Bill C–150 on December 19, 1968. The bill legalized therapeutic abortion under certain conditions and made it legal for women to get an abortion if a therapeutic abortion committee of three doctors felt the pregnancy endangered the mental, emotional or physical well-being of the mother. The bill also decriminalized "buggery" and "gross indecency" between adults over age 21, and between husband and wife, provided each party consented. The bill also gave the provincial and federal governments the opportunity to use lotteries to fund worthwhile activities (e.g. 1976 Montreal Olympics). The bill made it illegal to provide firearms to persons of "unsound mind" or criminals under prohibition orders. The bill also expanded the definition of a 'firearm', which, prior to 1969, included only handguns and automatic firearms, and introduced non-restricted, restricted, and prohibited firearm categories. Lastly, the bill made it an offence to drive with a blood alcohol content (BAC) in excess of 80 mg/100 ml of blood. Refusal of a police officer's demand to provide a breath sample was made an offence at the same time and both began as summary conviction offences, with a mandatory minimum $50 fine.
As part of the package of reforms contained in the Criminal Law Amendment Act, Trudeau's government also introduced Bill S-15, which decriminalised contraceptives and brought them under the regulatory power of the Food and Drugs Act, which governs medicines and medicinal devices. Bill S-15 repealed the reference to contraceptives in the Criminal Code, but left abortifacients criminalised.An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and the Narcotic Control Act and to make a consequential amendment to the Criminal Code, SC 1968-69, c 41, ss 1-3, 13. Bill S-15 received royal assent on June 27, 1969, the same day as the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
Bilingualism and multiculturalism Trudeau's first major legislative push was implementing the majority of recommendations of 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 that they were being disadvantaged.
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. It was the first of its kind in the world, and was then emulated in several provinces, such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and other countries most notably Australia, which has had a similar history and immigration pattern. Beyond the specifics of the policy itself, this action signalled an openness to the world and coincided with a more open immigration policy that had been brought in by Trudeau's predecessor Lester B. Pearson. This 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 as a country of two nations.
1969 White Paper
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"). Under the legislation of the White Paper, Indian Status would be eliminated. First Nations Peoples would be incorporated fully into provincial government responsibilities as equal Canadian citizens, and reserve status would be removed imposing the laws of private property in indigenous communities. Any special programs or considerations that had been allowed to First Nations people under previous legislation would be terminated, as the special considerations were seen by the Government to act as a means to further separate Indian peoples from Canadian citizens. This proposal was seen by many as racist and an attack on Canada's aboriginal population. 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 prompted the first major national mobilization of Indian and Aboriginal activists against the federal government's proposal, leading to Trudeau setting aside the legislation.
Immigration and refugees
In 1969, Canada signed the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. Though Canada recognized refugees as a special humanitarian class of migrants, Trudeau's government continued the policy of admitting refugees on a case-by-case basis and did not establish formal measures for examining refugee claims.
Trudeau's government passed Immigration Act, 1976, which came into effect in 1978. It outlined the main objectives of Canada's immigration policy as it sought to promote Canada's demographic, economic, social, and cultural goals. The bill also sought to prioritize family reunion, diversity, and fighting discrimination. The Act allowed different levels of government and the volunteer sector to help new immigrants adapt to Canadian society. It also defined refugees as a distinct class of immigrants, requiring the government to fulfill its obligations to refugees under international agreements. Finally, the Act declared that the quasi-judicial Immigration Board should be fully independent and therefore its decisions regarding immigration claims and appeals can not be overruled by the federal government.
Death penalty
On January 26, 1973, Trudeau's Solicitor General, Warren Allmand, continued the partial ban on the death penalty (which was enacted in 1967 and had a five-year moratorium), which would eventually lead to the abolition of the death penalty.David B. Chandler, Capital Punishment in Canada (Ottawa: McCelland and Stewart Limited, 1976), 14. On July 14, 1976, Bill C-84 was passed in the House of Commons by a narrow margin of 130-124 in a free vote, resulting in the abolition of the death penalty for murder, treason, and piracy. It also instituted a life sentence without parole for 25 years for first-degree murder. It was given royal assent on July 16 and came into force on July 26.
Housing