At this early stage in the leadership campaign, notwithstanding the unexpected deluge of public and media curiosity, Trudeau played it straight—touring the country, meeting Liberal convention delegates, and laying out his policy ideas. What is striking about his proposals, seen in retrospect, is how true they were to the now-familiar Trudeau vision of Canada. Speaking to a crowd of six hundred in Port Hope, Ontario, on March 2, for example, Trudeau pitched pragmatism and openness to the world as the touchstones of a government led by him. “Once we have protected the basic rights of all Canadians—and I include in that linguistic rights—then we should decide the other matters on the question of efficiency—not on an ethnic basis, or the morals of one church. In a decade where we will soon be able to dial in any country in the world on TV, it is futile to try and cut off any sector, or country of our world. We have to accept the challenge of changing times and not try to protect ourselves behind artificial walls.”61 On March 3, speaking in Vineland in the Niagara region of Ontario, Trudeau told the crowd that a government headed by him would move immediately to recognize the People’s Republic of China (with the caveat, however, that Canada would continue to recognize Taiwan). He stated as well that he was prepared to appear in person at the United Nations to call for a halt to the American bombing of North Vietnam.
The U.S. war in Vietnam had by this time helped to inspire the student protest movement in North America and throughout the West. For many Canadian activists, restricting Canadian arms sales to the United States had become, like the trade and investment policies advocated by Walter Gordon and Mel Watkins, a matter of national sovereignty. Trudeau thus faced questions on Vietnam every time he stepped onto a university campus. His stated policy on the war was that the United States could not withdraw unilaterally from the conflict, but that bombing North Vietnam as a prelude to peace talks was wrong-headed. On the question of Canadian arms exports, however, Trudeau disagreed with the protesters, and he was blunt in saying so. Canadians had a huge economic stake in bilateral trade with the United States, Trudeau told a London, Ontario, crowd on March 8, and he was not prepared to undermine it. “We’re not doing it to help the United States war effort,” he said of this commerce, “but doing it to help ourselves.”62 When, during a campaign speech in Sudbury, Ontario, a Laurentian University student raised the matter of arms shipments to the United States, Trudeau asked the student whether he would risk the ruin of the Canadian economy by cutting off all exports that abetted the U.S. war effort. “Would you want to close down the nickel mines?” he demanded. 63
Trudeau was also unafraid to test the limits of domestic policies that many Canadians regarded as sacrosanct. On a March 3 French-language television broadcast, for example, he announced that under his leadership welfare measures would be directed to the neediest Canadians and cease to be universal. Ten days later, he told a Moncton, New Brunswick, crowd that he thought Canada should not only reduce its NATO commitments but also withdraw its armed forces from Europe entirely and focus on the defence of North America.64 Against the advice of his closest advisers, who appreciated that the division of powers within Canadian federalism might not be the stuff of great stump speeches, Trudeau continued to appeal to his old Cité libre idea of politique fonctionnelle. “We must view our constitution from the perspective of functionalism,” Trudeau told the Newfoundland House of Assembly on March 25. “What level of government will be best able to do the job of making Canada, and all its parts, a better place in which to live?”65
Canadians were listening—and reading. On March 9, Liberal senator and celebrated social reformer David Croll announced his support for Trudeau’s candidacy. “Pierre Elliott Trudeau is a new young face, a professional, who brings to the problems of today a trained mind, a clear grasp of principle, and a freedom from preconceived ideas,” said Croll. “He speaks with clarity, boldness and realism. Moreover, he tells it ‘like it is.’ With him as leader, it is not going to be more of the same.”66 The same day that Croll was extolling Trudeau’s potential as a reformer, Paul Fox of the Toronto Star announced after reading Trudeau’s Federalism and the French Canadians that Trudeau was not radical in the least. “The truth is that beneath his dashing image, Pierre Trudeau is conservative,” wrote Fox. “His attitude on many matters is cautious and conventional—on the constitution, for instance, as his book shows, and on medicare, the sale of war material to the United States, on NATO and other matters, as his public statements during the current campaign are now beginning to make clear.”67
Virtually all Canadians, in Quebec and elsewhere, agreed that the main issue in the Liberal leadership contest was national unity, and that Trudeau’s “rigidity” on the question made him both the bête noire of Quebec nationalists and the foil of his Liberal leadership rivals.68
As Lewis Seale noted perceptively in the Globe and Mail, every leadership hopeful other than Trudeau used the terms flexibility and negotiation to describe his approach to Quebec.69 What these words appeared to mean in principle was openness to special status, but even this attitude was not always clear. Paul Hellyer’s position was typical. “I recognize that Quebec, because of its ethnic identity, is the home of French culture in America and in Canada,” he said on the campaign trail. “Thus it is obvious that the Province of Quebec is not a province like the others and it should be considered in this light. I submit to you my determination to discuss, negotiate and adopt a formula of continued research in constitutional matters in order to reach practical conclusions acceptable to the governments of the provinces and the federal Government.”70 Other candidates were similarly vague. “This Quebec society to which all French-speaking minorities in Canada turn imposes on its government responsibilities which are not necessarily imposed on other provinces and, in this sense, one is correct in proclaiming that Quebec is not a province like the others,” said Paul Martin.71 “I believe that without a strong Quebec there would be very little hope for the survival of the French fact in Canada,” added Mitchell Sharp. “I will never refuse discussion and I will try to influence federal policies so that they take into account local circumstances. The rest is negotiation and good will.”72
Given that Trudeau had for years been proposing a concrete program of constitutional reform based on a charter of human rights, his opponents’ promises of flexibility and negotiation appeared to many Canadians to be confused, if not evasive. The Globe and Mail, for example, praised Trudeau in the middle of the leadership campaign for having the “guts” to defend his federalist stance—and castigated his leadership rivals, John Turner especially, for their opportunistic and faint-hearted statements on Quebec.73 (Turner’s rejoinder: “We are not going to solve any of our problems by trying to put any province in its place.”)74 Liberal delegates had before them, in other words, a choice between Trudeau’s statement “This is what I will do” and his rivals’ promise “This is how I intend to proceed.”
Over the course of both the leadership contest and especially the subsequent election campaign, Trudeau’s emphasis on policy over process gave him at least four tactical advantages out on the campaign trail. First, it allowed him to represent his own ideas as the only blueprint for Canadian federalism that would prevent Quebec nationalists from taking advantage of accommodationist sentiment elsewhere in the country. Second, it reinforced his claim that Quebec nationalists did not speak for all Quebecers. Third, it allowed him to paint his opponents as vague, opportunistic, and sometimes even cowardly. Last, it enhanced Trudeau’s appeal among Canadian voters who preferred straight shooters. “This is my policy, take it or leave it,” he said repeatedly. “If someone has a better policy, do not vote for me.”
Canadians noticed something else. Trudeau said precisely the same things in Quebec as he said elsewhere in the country. On March 26, for example, he sparred with a group of nationalist students who had shown up to heckle his speech to the Liberal Reform Club in Quebec City. “Don’t you feel a bit isolated in Canadian politics due to the fact that all Quebec par
ties and all Canadian parties have accepted the concept of two nations?” asked one of the students. “No, I’m not isolated,” Trudeau replied. “I have support everywhere. I went West. I have just returned from Newfoundland.” Said another student, “Only Mr. Diefenbaker would admit a position like yours.” Trudeau hit back. “It’s just a small number of intellectuals who are locked up in their two-nation concept,” he said. “The population doesn’t believe in it. You can speak of equality of two nations such as Guatemala or France, or Germany and Italy. But you couldn’t speak of equality within France, for example, between the Bretons and the people of the Île de France or the Basques—that would be three nations in France—or four with the Alsatians or five with the Savoyards or six with the Provinciaux.”75 (Trudeau’s statement was bolstered by a national poll showing that most Quebecers wanted a French Canadian in the job of prime minister.)76
Daniel Johnson agreed with the hecklers. Ignoring Jean Marchand’s advice to stay out of the fray, he asserted that anyone espousing Trudeau’s “retrograde” ideas about Quebec was completely out of touch. Speaking at a Union Nationale dinner in late March, the Quebec premier compared Trudeau with Lord Durham, whose famous 1839 Durham Report recommended that British North Americans assimilate the French Canadians because they were “a people with no literature and no history.”77 Trudeau saw an opportunity. Instead of lashing out at Johnson, he played the statesman. “It’s obviously in Mr. Johnson’s interest to dissociate any Quebec MP from the Quebec scene,” said Trudeau. “And his comparison of me to Lord Durham shows how little he knows about history. Durham, while he was, I think, a brilliant political analyst, certainly didn’t reach the same conclusions we did about linguistic rights. We’re saying French Canadians should have them right across Canada. I think that he is playing a desperate game, which I have every reason to believe will backfire.”
A week later, on April 2, Trudeau delivered one of the most elegant speeches of his campaign—in Montreal, in French, using the pronoun nous to self-identify as a Quebecer. “You will not be astonished if I affirm my faith in a form of government called federalism,” he told the crowd.
I would like to state precisely that, as far as I am concerned, federalism is not an expedient, nor is it a compromise. On the contrary, it is an avant-garde political formula, to which I would subscribe even outside the Canadian context. Why? The great advantage of federalism is that it brings the state and the citizen closer, it allows for local legislation for local needs, regional for regional needs, and federal for confronting global problems. As French Canadians, we have not yet given the quarter of our true capacities. Some people assert that Quebec’s progress is incompatible with Canada’s. I propose that we start with a contrary hypothesis, namely that the safest token of progress for Canada is a strong and dynamic French Canada, sure of itself, freed from fear, and thoroughly involved in all aspects of Canadian life. Masters in our own house? I agree. But our own house is the whole of Canada, from Newfoundland to Victoria, with its immense resources which belong to all of us and of which we should not give up even a patch.78
Needless to say, for some Quebec nationalists and their English-Canadian sympathizers, such talk remained anathema, the more so with the anti-nationalist Trudeau edging closer to power. One Quebecer who had for years counted himself a supporter of Trudeau but abandoned him in 1968 was Laurier LaPierre, then best known as co-host with Patrick Watson of the CBC’s landmark public affairs show This Hour Has Seven Days. In an open letter postdated to the second day of the Liberal leadership convention, LaPierre lamented that he was “sadly disillusioned” by Trudeau’s policy on Vietnam, his conservative indifference to Canada’s domination by foreign capital, and especially his anti-nationalism. “The new nationalism is an instrument to propel change, to formulate it and to confront the stagnating forces within a society,” wrote LaPierre. “Mr. Trudeau has completely refused to grasp the profound need we have for a new constitution; one which entrenches our collective rights and states clearly our raison d’être, which frees us forever from the platitudes of the professional bon-ententistes, and which redistributes legislative and executive powers in such a way as to take into account the simple fact that Quebec is and will remain for quite some time the major instrument of the on-going life of the Canadian who speaks French.”79
LaPierre was not the only Canadian who had followed Trudeau closely and formed a contrary opinion of him. Over the weekend of March 23, for example, Trudeau spoke to large crowds in northern Ontario. After a Saturday night speech in Sudbury, several Liberal delegates who had originally intended to support Trudeau told his aides that they were no longer committed to him. One of these was Liberal MPP Elmer Sopha, who objected both to Trudeau’s protests against the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and to his willingness to recognize communist China. “I was going to support him earlier,” said Sopha at the conclusion of Trudeau’s Sudbury talk, “but I’ve changed my mind. He’s shallow.”80 Sopha announced that he would support Joe Greene on the first ballot instead. A week later, Sopha announced that he would be launching his own one-man “stop Trudeau” movement. “At one time I, like many others, was rather favorably impressed with Mr. Trudeau,” Sopha said at a March 28 press conference, “but since he became a serious contender and has been stating his position on some of the problems facing Canada, I have become completely disenchanted. On the vital question of national unity Mr. Trudeau has, to put it mildly, been grossly irresponsible.”81
Such withering criticisms did not seem to slow Trudeau’s momentum. By late March, polls showed that Trudeau had the “overwhelming” backing of Liberal MPs and that he had opened up a significant lead in first-ballot support, with Paul Martin trailing in second, and Turner, Hellyer, and Winters tied for third.82 Premier Alex Campbell and Walter Gordon remained strong supporters. Premier Joey Smallwood “stunned” his old friend Robert Winters by throwing his support behind Trudeau as well.83 Whispers of a “stop-Trudeau” coalition could be heard among some of the trailing candidates, but the party veterans remained confident. “The big threats are External Affairs Minister Paul Martin and Justice Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau,” mused Clyde Batten, Allan MacEachen’s top Ontario organizer. “Martin’s tough. He has pictures taken of him swimming. Looks like a frog. He has people’s IOUs all over the country. Trudeau will fade. He’s getting bored by it all now.”84
Batten could not have been more wrong. Although Trudeau found campaigning mentally exhausting, he was obviously enjoying himself—far more than he ever thought he would. The evening of March 28, he held a reception in his Mount Royal riding. Instead of a formal Q & A, Trudeau agreed to answer questions rap-session-style, leaning casually on a table and firing off some of the witticisms for which he is best remembered today. Asked about his still-controversial intention to decriminalize homosexuality, Trudeau quipped, “The law permits fornication between two consenting adults—but not more than two. It is the law. And there must be at least two.”85 How did this viewpoint square with the Catholic conception of sin? “Different provinces and different religions have different notions of sin. It is not the purpose of the Criminal Code to forbid sin but to preserve peace and order. If you commit a sin you should have a conscience about it and ask the forgiveness of God, not the minister of justice.”86
At least one person in the riding of Mount Royal was unimpressed with Trudeau’s impish one-liners. She was Huguette Marleau, the riding’s Progressive Conservative candidate. “The women of Canada are not marionettes,” said Marleau. “We are far from the day when men said to women ‘Beautiful but be still.’ We accept to be beautiful but we will not be still.”87
By the end of March, with the leadership convention just days away, the national press was covering Trudeaumania along with Trudeau himself. At this point in the campaign, Trudeau was tired, and so were the reporters who had been traipsing around the country with him. Trudeaumania made for great copy—and even better pictures. Stories about fainting teenyboppers, transf
ixed housewives, and awestruck businessmen multiplied. (“‘I met him, I met him,’ screamed Freda Chayka, a delegate to the Ottawa convention from Parkdale riding. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever wash that hand again.’”)88
A Laval University study revealed that Trudeau was attracting one-quarter of the nation’s newspaper coverage of the Liberal race even though there were nine candidates.89 Among even seasoned correspondents, the apparently mysterious sources of Trudeau’s appeal to Canadians inspired fevered speculation. “Such is the charm of Pierre Elliott Trudeau that he might well be able to enthrall an audience by reading the local telephone directory,” said a typical report. “This gift is all the more remarkable because he speaks quietly, unemotionally and without any evident appeal to the prejudices of his hearers.”90 Even Peter C. Newman filed columns bearing titles like “What IS It about Trudeau?” and “The Trudeau Magic.”91 In a mid-March swing through Vancouver and Victoria, reporters seemed baffled as to how Trudeau had managed to appeal to everyone from hippies to seniors with a talk about Canadian federalism. Yet the answer was obvious to those listening. “I came not to be impressed and I was most impressed,” said a Victoria woman identified as middle-aged. “He speaks his mind and he speaks it so clearly.”92
On the nation’s editorial pages, where politics was still a serious business, the tone just days before the Liberal convention remained one of sober-minded rectitude. On April 3, the editorial board at the Globe and Mail singled out Eric Kierans, Paul Hellyer, and Paul Martin as men of “special human and professional achievement,” without actually endorsing any of them.93 It did not even mention Trudeau. Le Devoir announced on the same day that it would be supporting Hellyer, even though Trudeau was his “superior” intellectually.94 Trudeau was named “the best of a strong field” by the Toronto Star, which praised his position on Canadian federalism and his ability to inspire young people’s interest in politics. But even the Star—a traditionally Liberal broadsheet that had done more than its fair share to fuel Trudeau’s ascent in Canadian politics—would not endorse him.95 Liberal delegates would have to decide for themselves.
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