by John English
34. Stanbury Diary; Peacock, Journey to Power, 283ff. Interview with Tim Porteous, May 2006.
35. Conversation with Robert Bothwell, Feb. 2006.
36. The account follows Peacock, Journey to Power. However, slightly different wording is found in Newman, Distemper of Our Times, 638. The substance is the same.
NOTE ON SOURCES
The source for this volume is the remarkable collection of personal papers that has been transferred from the Trudeau home in Montreal to Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. These papers were assembled in minute detail by Grace Trudeau and by Trudeau himself.
The most interesting item in the preserved papers is the Gouin-Trudeau correspondence of the mid-1940s. When the relationship between Thérèse Gouin and Trudeau ended, she returned his letters. They later discussed the correspondence, and he promised it would not be released in her lifetime—although he mentioned to Madame Gouin Décarie that he had recently read the letters once again. Having now been privileged to read the correspondence myself, I can understand Trudeau’s wish that the letters be kept complete. They are remarkable and, eventually, when they are published, they will take their place among the most illuminating and important exchanges in Canadian letters.
Although Trudeau made little apparent use of his papers for his memoirs, there is considerable indication he read much of the collection later in his life. There are notations, question marks, and identification of individuals whose full names are not given in the originals. His papers also contain the excellent interviews conducted for the memoirs by Ron Graham and Jean Lépine, as well as some interviews with family members and others as diverse as Michael Ignatieff and Camille Laurin. Again, very little use was made of this material for the memoirs. We now know that Trudeau’s memoirs concealed much of his private thoughts and activities, but he did maintain the integrity of his papers, which fully disclose them all. We can only speculate on his reasons, but there is evidence in the Trudeau papers that, as early as 1939, he expected that he would, one day, have a biographer. Moreover, he admired confessional literature, from Saint Augustine through to Proust. Ultimately, he has allowed others to bare the soul that he so carefully concealed in his lifetime, and he apparently did so deliberately.
Some documents seem to be missing in his papers. For example, there are almost no letters from Father Marie d’Anjou or François Lessard, although we know that both corresponded frequently with Trudeau about nationalist and religious matters in the forties. There are also few letters from Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier, and none of substance from Trudeau in their papers—all of which suggests (especially in the case of Pelletier) that the correspondence relating to their political and literary work in the fifties and sixties is either lost or in some abandoned filing cabinet. Still, Trudeau’s private papers are an exceptionally rich lode for a biographer to mine, and valuable nuggets appear in virtually every box.
This book has full endnotes indicating primary sources and secondary works. The majority of the secondary works dealing with Trudeau will be relevant for the second volume of the biography, which will deal with his political career and its aftermath. It is impossible to separate the sources for the two volumes because interviews relating to his later life, for instance, can also be relevant in discussing his earlier years. A full bibliography, including manuscript sources and interviews, will be available on the web at www.theigloo.org after the publication of this volume, and it will grow as I write Volume Two. The site will also provide an opportunity for others—students, scholars, and all interested readers—to offer their own information that might be relevant for Trudeau’s later life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
—
In the Preface to this book, I thank the Trudeau family and the executors of the Trudeau Estate—Alexandre Trudeau, Jim Coutts, Marc Lalonde, Roy Heenan, and Jacques Hébert—for their invitation to write this biography. I also thank them for issuing the invitation without, for a moment, thinking to impose restrictions on me, and for entrusting me to write a full and objective account of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s life. I would also like to thank the Trudeau family for their encouragement, not only Alexandre and Justin, of course, but my friends Margaret Sinclair Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire, who is married to Justin Trudeau, for their invaluable feminine view on Trudeau’s family.
There are many others whom I must thank greatly for expanding my understanding of Pierre Trudeau. Three individuals in particular, who not only knew Trudeau well but also greatly affected his life in this period, offered me assistance in clarifying the story. The remarkable Thérèse Gouin Décarie, Trudeau’s close companion over many of these years, agreed to cooperate with this biographical project and gave me access to material that was essential. (Her husband, Vianney Décarie, also provided important information about Trudeau’s early years.) Roger Rolland, the friend in many of Trudeau’s early pranks (and later his speechwriter), corrected tales that had been told wrongly in the past and provided new ones. Madeleine Gobeil, who knew Trudeau intimately in the sixties, when his personal files are thinner, offered unique, intelligent insight into his habits, tastes, and friendships.
I met two of Pierre’s close friends when I attended Harvard University. Ramsay and Eleanor Cook came to Boston in the fall of 1968, just after Pierre became prime minister—in part because of their efforts. After Ramsay’s lecture on Canadian history to Harvard undergraduates, a few of us Canadian doctoral students ruminated with him about the fate of the Trudeau government, which had already begun to lose some of the aura that surrounded it during the summer months. The following year I met Albert Breton, Trudeau’s former colleague at the Université de Montréal, who followed Ramsay as the Mackenzie King Professor at Harvard. I was Albert’s teaching assistant, and, when my wife, Hilde, and I formed an enduring friendship with Albert and his wife, Margot, they gave me a view of Pierre that was marked by immense personal warmth and respect. Ramsay and Eleanor have read this manuscript, and both have saved me from many errors of fact and interpretation.
I have also benefited from interviews about Trudeau that I conducted when I wrote a biography of Lester Pearson and, with Robert Bothwell, a book on postwar Canadian history. The bulk of these interviews with leading political and bureaucratic figures of the sixties and seventies are in the Bothwell Papers at the University of Toronto Archives and at Library and Archives Canada, and in my own papers at the University of Waterloo Archives. Bob has shared research notes from his work on Canadian foreign policy and Quebec and, in the United States, in the Nixon and Ford Papers. I owe an enormous debt to him for his generosity. I also owe a debt to many who have written perceptive articles, books, and essays about Trudeau. A full critical bibliography will accompany Volume Two of this biography and, in the meantime, the titles will be listed on the website for this book.
Library and Archives Canada has provided extraordinary assistance for this work. Under the expert guidance of Christian Rioux, a team organized the Trudeau Papers quickly and wisely. Peter de Lottinville, Michel Wyczynski, and George Bolarenko were also helpful, and I would particularly like to thank Michel for responding at short notice to my requests for visits. Paul Marsden, now at the NATO archives in Brussels, pointed me towards some important documents on Trudeau’s work at the Privy Council in the 1950s. At every stage, Ian Wilson, the national archivist, has assisted me in my work with his exceptional attentiveness to the record of Canadian political history. Through his auspices, I was able to interview in small groups during 2002 and 2003 the following individuals (all with Honourable in their titles) who served Trudeau well: Jack Austin, Jean-Jacques Blais, Charles Caccia, Judy Erola, Herb Gray, Otto Lang, Ed Lumley, Allan MacEachen, André Ouellet, John Reid, Mitchell Sharp, and David Smith. Other Trudeau assistants and colleagues who participated in these interviews were Gordon Ashworth, Jean-Marc Carisse, Denise Chong, Ralph Coleman, Marie-Hélène Fox, Bea Hertz, Ted Johnson, Michael Langille, Mary MacDonald, Bob Murdoch, Nicole Sénécal, Larry Smith, Jacques
Shore, Courtney Tower, and George Wilson. These interviews will be made available on my website when permissions are given.
I received many letters from both opposition and government members of the Trudeau years after the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians placed a notice in its newsletter asking former parliamentary colleagues of Trudeau to contact me about their experiences. Edward McWhinney, the distinguished constitutional authority, had not been a parliamentary colleague of Trudeau, but he, too, sent me a very helpful and long letter.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council has supported this project through its research grant program, principally through funding for graduate research assistants. Several of these assistants were my doctoral students at the University of Waterloo, and they have simultaneously worked on dissertations examining various public policy issues of the Trudeau years. Their efforts will make regular appearances in the notes to the second volume of this biography. They also assisted in research in the important collections at Library and Archives Canada relevant to Canadian public life in the 1950s and 1960s. For this invaluable help I would like to thank Stephen Azzi, Matthew Bunch, Jason Churchill, Andrew Thompson, and Ryan Touhey. My former student Greg Donaghy, now in the Department of Foreign Affairs, helped with many inquiries. Marc Nadeau carried out research in Quebec archives, at Brébeuf College, and the Université de Montréal. Esther Delisle shared with Marc and me the evidence of the young Trudeau’s involvement in a nationalist cell. Her exceptional research skills first found the trail that pointed to the proof presented in the early chapters of this book. The Hon. Alistair Gillespie and his biographer, Irene Sage, have shared their research in British and American archives, and Mr. Gillespie allowed me to read his own notes, which begin with the leadership convention. I would also like to thank the Hon. Richard Stanbury for giving me copies of his diary, which I have used extensively in the final chapter.
The University of Waterloo and its Department of History have provided a highly supportive atmosphere for scholarship and collegial activity. The department’s chair, my friend Pat Harrigan, was the first reader of many of the chapters of this book (and the first to report victories of the Detroit Tigers, a passion we share). There are too many colleagues to mention who have contributed in some way to the book, but I would like to thank Dean Bob Kerton and President David Johnston at the University of Waterloo for their assistance during the past few years. In particular, they negotiated an agreement whereby I became executive director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a Waterloo-based think tank studying international affairs, which resulted from the imagination and financial generosity of my friend and former neighbour Jim Balsillie.
At the centre, Lena Yost has been my superb assistant, with support from Jenn Beckermann in the summer months. Research director Daniel Schwanen has not only taken on many tasks I should have done but has put his flawless bilingualism to the task of translation. Kerry Lappin-Fortin translated many of the quotations in French, and Alison de Muy helped with translation and some other questions. Trudeau’s friend and close collaborator on his memoirs, Ron Graham, also translated some of Trudeau’s letters. I would like to thank several colleagues at the centre, especially Andy Cooper, who did the bulk of the work on some books we co-edited; Dan Latendre and his staff, who helped with technical questions; and Paul Heinbecker, whose affection for Brian Mulroney provided the countervailing influence that Trudeau always deemed essential. Balsillie fellow Victor Sautry has helped with many tasks, and several excellent undergraduate students also provided research assistance. Alex Lund and Eleni Crespi worked for me during the summer months; and Jonathan Minnes has been the major organizer of the papers, the assistant “on call” throughout the year, and a reliable sleuth when endnotes were missing. Joan Euler gave me some useful articles I would not otherwise have found. Nicolas Rouleau, a brilliant young lawyer, volunteered to help me with the project. He brought a lawyer’s mind to the manuscript, a historian’s skill to research, and his bilingual facility to the project.
Once again Gena Gorrell, a proofreader who has an excellent eye for detail, has saved me from many errors and omissions. At Knopf Canada, Michelle MacAleese has assisted with the illustrations, and, with constant cheerfulness, Deirdre Molina has sorted out the various drafts of the manuscript, maintained the bulging files, and brought the scattered parts together. However, my greatest debt is owed to two exceptional women in Canadian publishing: my publisher Louise Dennys and my editor Rosemary Shipton. Louise received the Order of Canada this year because of her extraordinary contribution to Canadian publishing. She has brought to this biography boundless enthusiasm, stylistic elegance, a keen wit, and a devotion to understanding Canada. Her award is richly deserved. Next spring Trinity College at the University of Toronto will bestow an honorary doctorate on Rosemary Shipton, a recognition of her outstanding work as an editor. Trudeau took over Rosemary’s life this winter, and, through the spring and early summer, she has shaped this book with remarkable skill and care. Like all prose she so expertly and graciously touches, mine has become clearer and better. My faults remain, but they are fewer because of Louise and Rosemary.
On a late September afternoon in 2000, my fifteen-year-old son, Jonathan, came home from school and said, “Adam and I are going to Montreal tonight.” Two French-immersion students who were born the year after Pierre Trudeau left office, they had decided they must go to Trudeau’s funeral. As the coffin travelled by train from Ottawa to Montreal, they left the old Kitchener station for the long ride that ended, fortunately, with seats in a remote corner of Notre Dame Cathedral, where they were present for one of Canada’s greatest state occasions. Jonathan and his mother, Hilde, have endured too many absences from me while I wrote this book. I thank them both for their generosity and support, especially Hilde, who wanted so much to fight off her cancer until this book was published. She could not. I now mourn her deeply and dedicate this life story to her.
PERMISSIONS
The author has made every effort to locate and contact all the holders of copy written material reproduced in this book, and expresses grateful acknowledgment for permission to reproduce from the following previously published material:
Lévesque, René. Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart), 1986.
Pelletier, Gérard. Years of Impatience, 1950–1960, trans. Alan Brown
(Toronto: Methuen), 1984.
Pelletier, Gérard. Years of Choice, 1960–1968, trans. Alan Brown (Toronto:
Methuen), 1987.
Saywell, John and Donald Foster, eds. Canadian Annual Review for 1968
(University of Toronto Press, Toronto), 1969.
Scott, F.R. The Collected Poems of F.R. Scott (Toronto: McClelland &
Stewart), 1981.
Trudeau, Pierre Elliott. Against the Current: Selected Writings, 1939–1996,
trans. G. Tombs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart), 1996.
Trudeau, Pierre Elliott and Jacques Hébert. Two Innocents in Red China
(Toronto: Oxford University Press), 1968.
JOHN ENGLISH is the General Editor of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, a professor of history at the University of Waterloo, and executive director of the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He is the author of the acclaimed two-volume biography of Lester Pearson, Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume 1: 1897–1948, and The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume 2: 1949–1972, along with several other books on Canadian politics. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2007
Copyright © 2006 John English
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Published in Canada by Vintage Cana
da, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2007. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2006, and simultaneously in Quebec by Les Éditions de l’Homme, Montreal. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
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Pages 545 to 546 constitute a continuation of the copyright page.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
English, John, 1945–
Citizen of the world: the life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau / John English.
Contents: v. 1. 1919-1968.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37358-8
1. Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 1919-2000. 2. Canada—Politics and
government—1968-1979. 3. Canada—Politics and government—1980-1984.
4. Prime ministers—Canada—Biography. I. Title.
FC626.T7E53 2007 971.064′4092 C2007-900752-X
v3.0