Trudeau Pierre Elliott - Just watch me: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000

The New Regime: 196872

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Renaissance: 197274

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Things Fall Apart: 197479

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Legacy: 198084

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T he champagne sparkled, the boyish smile lingered as Pierre Elliott Trudeau waved to the cheering crowd at the Liberal convention in 1968. On April 6, a Saturday afternoon, the forty-eight-year-old Montrealer and Canadas reformist minister of justice was elected on the fourth ballot as the seventh Liberal leader since Confederation. His victory meant that he would become the sixth Liberal prime minister of Canada. Donning the mantle of Laurier and King, St. Laurent and Pearson, Trudeau prepared to address not only the delegates at Ottawas Civic Centre but also the curious nation beyond, which, gathered around mostly black-and-white television sets, was about to witness the birth of Trudeaumania. Whatever the meaning of the phenomenon, the evening seemed historic, for Trudeau would be the first Canadian prime minister born in the twentieth century, the youngest prime minister since the 1920s, and with fewer than three years in the House of Commons, the least experienced prime minister in Canadas history.

The Trudeau crowd was young but so were the times. Trudeau had begun his victorious campaign to capture the Prime Ministers Office just as the Beatles launched their Magical Mystery Tour and the musical Hair declared its discovery of sex, drugs, and rock and roll and headed for Broadway. The year blended magic and political shock as the fringe and the alternative merged with the mainstream. At the end of January, the Viet Cong had stunned American forces in Vietnam with its Tet offensive, and the American presidency of Lyndon Johnson suddenly began to crumble. Richard Nixon, the old Cold Warrior, returned from the political wilderness to become a serious Republican contender for the presidency as Democrats jostled to succeed Johnson. And the American dream had become a nightmare. That vision of promise, embodied in the young and eloquent John F. Kennedy, had entranced Canadians at the beginning of the decade, but Kennedy was gone, and on Thursday, April 4, the day before the Liberal leadership convention began, James Earl Ray had gunned down the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., as the civil rights leader stood on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. The eruption of violence in Americas largest cities following Kings assassination shared front-page headlines in Canadas newspapers with the convention triumph of Pierre Trudeau.

The contrast was striking. Canada suddenly seemed different (cool in the argot of the day), a peaceable kingdom as some now called it. In this setting the candidacy of the parliamentarian of only three years became politically intriguing. His style and stance were unique in the history of Canada: an erstwhile socialist who cared what French intellectuals wrote, wore shoes without socks and jackets without ties and still looked elegant, drove the perfect Mercedes 300SL convertible, and flirted boldly with women a generation younger. That April weekend the American counterparts of the youth at the Ottawa Civic Centre were angrily demonstrating in the streets or on campuses. Bob Rae, then a hairy, rumpled student radical at the University of Toronto, later recalled how he went off to that convention, drawn to Trudeaus incisiveness, wit, belief that ideas mattered in politics, and most of all, his style. His roommate and fellow student activist, Michael Ignatieff, joined the Trudeau team and claimed, forty years later, that politics were never again as exciting for him as during those heady days in the spring of 1968. John Turner supporter Bruce Allen Powe took his thirteen-year-old son to the convention, where Bruce Jr. defied his fathers allegiance, hid his Trudeau buttons beneath his jacket, and began a lifelong infatuation.

The infatuation was infectious. After the convention formally ended, Trudeaus supporters and thousands of others crammed into the new Skyline Hotel in downtown Ottawa, where the curvaceous Diamond Lil performed one of her livelier dances between two Trudeau campaign posters. Throngs of miniskirted teenagers screamed a welcome to the new leader, and older followers sang For Hes a Jolly Good Fellow. Lets party tonight, a beaming Trudeau told the crowd, but remember that Monday the party is over.

Before long, Trudeau spotted Bob Raes striking young sister, Jennifer, across the room, and fastening his penetrating blue eyes on her, he came close and whispered, Will you go out with me sometime? She later did, but he also remembered the fetching teenager who had spurned him in Tahiti the previous December but had willingly accepted his eager kiss that afternoon as he left the convention floor. When reporters asked Margaret Sinclair, the daughter of a former Liberal Cabinet minister, Have you eyes for Trudeau? Are you a girlfriend? she replied, No, I have eyes for him only as prime minister. The office had already brought Trudeau unanticipated benefits, and for the first time since Laurier, a Canadian prime minister was sexy.

Trudeau knew that public expectations were too high, and he moved quickly to dampen them in his acceptance speech at the convention and at his next appearance. The acceptance speech reads poorly, but content mattered little, as Trudeaus words were submerged in the froth of victory. On April 7, the day after he became leader, Trudeau held a nationally televised press conference. Sporting the fresh red rose that had already become his trademark, he praised his opponentsparticularly Robert Winters, who had finished secondand said he was considering how they would fit into his Cabinet. To the surprise of some commentators, he indicated there was no need for an immediate election. Then, unexpectedly, he denied that he was a radical or a man of the left. I am, he declared, essentially a pragmatist. The comment confused many observers.

Not long before, Trudeau had proudly declared himself a leftist. Evidence of his radicalism and left-wing views abounded in old newspaper clippings; in the memories of many who knew him; and in Cit libre, the journal he had edited in the 1950s. New Democratic Party leader Tommy Douglas recalled trying to recruit Trudeau as a socialist candidate only a few years earlier. Trudeau knew that his future success rested on reassurance, which paradoxically required ambiguity, rather than strong assertions of principle. At the convention hed talked about the Just Society he intended to construct, but its contours were thinly sketched and its foundations, apart from a commitment to the rights of individuals to make their own decisions, were barely visible.