Sunday, June 9, 2019

Trudeau, Pierre Elliott

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Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau PC CC CH QC FRSC (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000), also referred to by the initials PET, was a Canadian politician who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada (1968–1979, 1980–1984) and leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1968 to 1984, with a brief period instead as Leader of the Opposition in 1979 and 1980.

Trudeau rose to prominence as a lawyer, intellectual, and activist in Quebec politics. Although he aligned himself with the social democratic New Democratic Party, Trudeau felt that they could not achieve power and instead joined the Liberal Party. He was elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1965, quickly being appointed as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's Parliamentary Secretary. In 1967, he was appointed Minister of Justice and Attorney General. Trudeau's outgoing personality and charismatic nature caused a media sensation, inspiring "Trudeaumania", and helped him to win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968, when he was appointed Prime Minister of Canada. From the late 1960s until the early 1980s, Trudeau's personality dominated the political scene to an extent never before seen in Canadian political life. 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 won three majority governments and one minority government during his tenure, and he is the last Prime Minister of Canada to win more than three terms. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third longest-serving Prime Minister, behind William Lyon Mackenzie King and John A. Macdonald.

Despite his personal motto, "Reason before passion", his personality and policy decisions aroused polarizing reactions throughout Canada during his time in office. While critics accused him of arrogance, of economic mismanagement, and of 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 Trudeau's intellect and his political acumen that maintained national unity over the Quebec sovereignty movement and the 1980 Quebec referendum. Trudeau suppressed the 1970 Quebec terrorist crisis by controversially invoking the War Measures Act, the third and last time in Canadian history that the act was brought into force.

In a bid to move the Liberal Party towards economic nationalism, Trudeau's government oversaw the creation of Petro-Canada and launched the National Energy Program, a policy that was extremely unpopular in Western Canada and particularly in the oil-rich province of Alberta, leading to what many coined "Western alienation." In other domestic policy, Trudeau pioneered official bilingualism and multiculturalism, fostering a pan-Canadian identity. Trudeau's foreign policy included making Canada less dependent on the United States and the United Kingdom. He patriated the Constitution and established the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, actions that granted full Canadian sovereignty. He formed close ties with the Soviet Union, China, and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, putting him at odds with other capitalist Western nations.

Trudeau is ranked highly among contemporary scholars in retrospective rankings of Canadian prime ministers. His eldest son, Justin Trudeau, became the 23rd and current Prime Minister, following the 2015 election and 2019 election, and is the first prime minister of Canada to be the child or other descendant of a former prime minister.

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