Ron Graham - The Last Act

THE LAST ACT

ALSO IN THE

History of Canada Series

Death or Victory: The Battle of Quebec and the Birth of an Empire by Dan Snow

The Destiny of Canada: Macdonald, Laurier, and the Election of 1891 by Christopher Pennington

War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canadas Shores by Roger Sarty

Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada by Peter Vronsky

Canadas Warlords: Sir Robert Borden and William Lyon Mackenzie King by Tim Cook

The Best Place to Be: Expo 67 and Its Time by John Lownsbrough

Two Weeks in Quebec City: The Meeting That Made Canada by Christopher Moore

Ice and Water: The Future of the Arctic by John English

Trouble on Main Street: The 1907 Vancouver Race Riots by Julie Gilmour

Death on Two Fronts: Newfoundland by Sean Cadigan

THE LAST ACT

Pierre Trudeau,

the Gang of Eight,

and the Fight

for Canada

RON GRAHAM

ALLEN LANE CANADA

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Copyright 2011 Ron Graham

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

All photos in the book are Government of Canada. Reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada (2010). Photographs by Robert Cooper/Canada

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Graham, Ron, 1948

The last act : Pierre Trudeau, the gang of eight, and the fight for Canada / Ron Graham.

(The history of Canada)

ISBN 978-0-670-06662-9

1. Constitutional historyCanada. 2. CanadaPolitics and

government19801984. 3. Federal-provincial relationsCanada.

I. Title. II. Series: History of Canada (Toronto, Ont.)

KE4199.G73 2011 342.71029 C2010-907116-6

KF4482.G73 2011

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see www.penguin.ca/corporatesales or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 2477 or 2474

To Philippe

on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda

and

to his parents and grandparents

for their love of Canada and enduring friendship

When Donald Smith drove that famous Last Spike one chilly November day in 1885, it was more than a symbol.

For the railroad built the reality of Canadathe nation proclaimed by our Constitution of 1867.

What a change Donald Smith would see today.

In factabout the only thing in Canada that hasnt changed muchis the Constitution.

Nows our chance to make it right. Make it work. Make it ours.

Brought to you by the Government of Canada.

SCRIPT FOR A PROPOSED SOFT SELL TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENT, PRESENTED TO THE FEDERAL CABINET BY MACLAREN ADVERTISING, AUGUST 30, 1980

INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF CANADA SERIES

Canada, the world agrees, is a success story. We should never make the mistake, though, of thinking that it was easy or foreordained. At crucial moments during Canadas history, challenges had to be faced and choices made. Certain roads were taken and others were not. Imagine a Canada, indeed imagine a North America, where the French and not the British had won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Or imagine a world in which Canadians had decided to throw in their lot with the revolutionaries in the thirteen colonies.

This series looks at the making of Canada as an independent, selfgoverning nation. It includes works on key stages in the laying of the foundations as well as the crucial turning points between 1867 and the present that made the Canada we know today. It is about those defining moments when the course of Canadian history and the nature of Canada itself were oscillating. And it is about the human beingsheroic, flawed, wise, foolish, complexwho had to make decisions without knowing what the consequences might be.

We begin the series with the European presence in the eighteenth centurya presence that continues to shape our society todayand conclude it with an exploration of the strategic importance of the Canadian Arctic. We look at how the mass movements of peoples, whether Loyalists in the eighteenth century or Asians at the start of the twentieth, have profoundly influenced the nature of Canada. We also look at battles and their aftermaths: the Plains of Abraham, the 1866 Fenian raids, the German submarines in the St. Lawrence River during World War II. Political crisesthe 1891 election that saw Sir John A. Macdonald battling Wilfrid Laurier; Pierre Trudeaus triumphant patriation of the Canadian Constitutionprovide rich moments of storytelling. So, too, do the Expo 67 celebrations, which marked a time of soaring optimism and gave Canadians new confidence in themselves.

We have chosen these critical turning points partly because they are good stories in themselves but also because they show what Canada was like at particularly important junctures in its history. And to tell them we have chosen Canadas best historians. Our authors are great storytellers who shine a spotlight on a different Canada, a Canada of the past, and illustrate links from then to now. We need to remember the roads that were takenand the ones that were not. Our goal is to help our readers understand how we got from that past to this present.

Margaret MacMillan

Warden at St. Antonys College, Oxford

Robert Bothwell

May Gluskin Chair of Canadian History

University of Toronto

PROLOGUE

ONE The Plot

For nearly 115 years, from July 1867 to April 1982, the constitution of Canada remained an act of the British Parliament, a remnant of the countrys colonial past. Successive efforts over fifty years by five Canadian prime ministers failed to correct this humiliating anomaly, simply because no one could agree on how to amend the fundamental contract by which Canadians govern themselves once it was finally patriated. When the national government began to press the issue in the 1960s, all but a few of the premiers of Canadas ten provinces withheld their consent unless Ottawa agreed to give them more power within the federation.