Canada in the "Trudeau years"

Résumé du document

What is the Canada today? What are its values? What is its identity? What is political culture? What are its gaps? What is a Canadian? It is impossible to answer these questions without referring to the man who has deeply permeated the brand Canada: Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Born in Montréal in 1919 to a Quebec father and a mother of Scottish descent, it was a Professor of law at the University de Montréal, before entering politics alongside the Liberal Party of Canada. Elected, Member of Parliament in 1965, succeeding Lester Pearson at the posts of Prime Minister and head of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1968, positions he held until 1984 (with a brief interlude of six months between 1979 and 1980). When he retired from political life, he leaves a strong legacy, based on a long-term vision of what he desired for his country. A strong legacy, of course, but a legacy that is not consistent... The young federal Liberals proclaim in a communication campaign that "we are all children of the Charter" while, for many, he is the lead of the national agony faced by the Canada and Quebec.

What is the balance to be drawn, that we must take, "Trudeau years"? We are not going to judge his action under the partisan gaze of an ideology, when federalist and separatist, nor to present all aspects of its mandate comprehensive or chronological, but rather to draw objective conclusions on the legacy of Trudeau in Canada in general, and in Quebec in particular. Hence in this paper, we conducted Trudeau's political and social balance in the Canada (I), then we look at the transformation of the institutional and national issues (II), to ask ourselves what is the inheritance, in 2006, "Trudeau years" (III).

Extraits

[...] Tax policy of Trudeau in the 1970s recognizes the tax jurisdiction of the provinces and recognizes their own financial needs while trying to implement a balanced and responsible tax system at the federal level in the long term. He will also say that its goal "was to arrive at a share more functional skills, ceding certain powers to the provinces but demanding in return become essential powers to make the Canada a national entity without internal borders” (Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1990). [...]

[...] ] What a quaint our Canadian dream, and made impossible duality, it is desire, in the logic of the Canadian federal system, to crush the collective dimension of Quebecers. (Laforest, 1992,) The adoption of the Constitution Act the federal legislation on citizenship, official languages and multiculturalism are legacy sensible policies homogenize the Canada and put an end to the duality of the "two founding nations”. Gold, for Guy Laforest, it is putting an end to this constituent duality of the Canada that may not be considered as Trudeau being the gravedigger of a certain Canadian dream that will lead to an exacerbation of the sense of collective identity of Quebecers in a nonresident set. [...]

[...] Bilingualism and multiculturalism are the answers he wants to bring to these issues; they will be the instrument of a new Canadian nationalism. Canada at a deadlock? On October the Liberation Front of Québec (LFQ) cell proceeds to the kidnapping of British diplomat J. Cross. Trudeau refuses to negotiate. On 10 October, the mass grave cell removes the Quebec vice- Premier Pierre Laporte. Robert Bourassa, Prime Minister of Quebec, started against the advice of Trudeau's negotiations with the LFQ. The latter use of the war measures Act on 16 October: soldiers were deployed in the greater Montreal area. [...]

[...] The Constitution was repatriated in 1982. Pierre Elliot Trudeau, in the Constitution Act of 1982, proclaimed the equal opportunities, equalization, the freedom to establish themselves in any province, bilingualism, or even the primacy of the person on the State, offered the means of building a new Canadian unit which would be based on the Charter of rights and freedoms, protected in the Constitution: . the Canadian Charter was a new departure for the Canadian nation and sought to strengthen its unity on the basis of the sovereignty of the Canadian people on a set of values common to all, and especially on the notion of equality of all Canadians. [...]

[...] Finally, it considers the Quebec and Canadian nationalism obsolete and harmful to society. To avoid social confrontation, he sets up a 'constraint ideology', and liberal optimism followed by a cold realism: it is liberalism doctrinaire, "more articulate, more systematic and however more fragile and colder than ever before" that is taking place. Trudeau has therefore initiated a transition of liberal ideology, in order to adapt to it on the one hand to the vision that he had of a multicultural Canada where separatism has no place, and other vision contingent of a world where it would be unreasonable to disconnect social policies economic realities. [...]