The press response to Trudeau’s victory was surprisingly muted—undoubtedly because the saturation coverage of the convention had generated so much hype. “The Old Guard is being swept aside and a new generation is moving into the seats of power,” observed a Toronto Star editorial, “a cooler, more pragmatic, less partisan generation, unencumbered by old myths, more attuned to the social and economic needs of a new age.”50 Some editorialists worried that Trudeau might have trouble accommodating “the new and the old” within the party.51 Others, including the Calgary Herald, asserted that he was precisely the right person for the job. “At a time when revision of the constitution is under study and the status of the French-Canadian minority within Confederation is an issue coming to the time of decision, it may be most advantageous to have a French Canadian at the leadership helm in Ottawa,” said the Herald. “Mr. Trudeau is perfectly bilingual. He puts Canadianism above provincialism and racial nationalism. He is no demagogue. He presents himself as a cool, rational, intelligent man of modest demeanor but in no way lacking in assured self-confidence.”52
In Quebec, Premier Daniel Johnson and Liberal leader Jean Lesage responded to Trudeau’s triumph with prudent silence.53 René Lévesque, on the other hand, called the Liberal convention an “orgie” and Trudeau a “vierge de la politique” (political virgin) who was already beginning to spin his policies.54 Quebec editorialists were more generous. “The federal Liberals in Ottawa have turned over a new leaf,” said La Presse. “By his behaviour, by his style and ideas, Pierre Elliott Trudeau appears as the herald of a new political era, very different from the past. If the April 6 election holds the promises that are indicated, he will be able to accomplish great things for his party and for the country, providing that he knows how to surround himself with a team combining the ability to move ahead and experiment.”55 At Le Devoir, Claude Ryan also tried to be magnanimous and forward-looking. The decision of the Liberal delegates must be respected, he wrote. Theirs was not a choice “without risk, but the delegates, acting with great freedom, have judged what was required.” There remained, however, the reality of Quebec nationalism, which had over the last ten years taken “an affirmative and dynamic twist.” If Trudeau were to grant Quebec nationalism as much moral legitimacy as he appeared to grant Canadian nationalism, Ryan affirmed, “he would eliminate at once the main barrier preventing up to now a ‘civil dialogue’ between himself and important elements of the Quebec community.”56
In the United States, despite the national preoccupation with the King murder, Trudeau got a good deal of press. In a series of stories about Canada’s new prime minister, the New York Times emphasized his youthful appeal and his promise “to strive for a just society with all possible freedom for individuals and equal sharing of the country’s wealth.”57 Some American coverage proved ill-informed. The Los Angeles Times erroneously attributed to Trudeau a “resentment” of Canada’s economic dependence on the United States, admonishing him along with “the anti-U.S. sentiments which are fashionable among many pro-Trudeau intellectuals.”58 The predominant theme in the U.S. press, however, was that Trudeau was an enigma—an unsurprising response, perhaps, given that Americans were only too familiar with the pedestrian politics of the Diefenbaker/Pearson era. “Neither Canada nor any other nation in the world has had a leader quite like Pierre Elliott Trudeau,” said a Chicago Daily News editorial. “Skilled lawyer, blunt-talking political philosopher, playboy bachelor, blonde fancier—all this and much, much more make up the human paradox who has been named to succeed retiring Lester B. Pearson.”59
It was all too much for Keith Spicer, the broadcaster whom Trudeau would later appoint as Canada’s first commissioner of official languages. In a feature article for the Globe and Mail, Spicer took direct aim at the myth-making that had already attended to Trudeau—in the United States but also in Canada.
The ‘enigmatic’ Trudeau is mainly a nostalgic fiction, deepened to an illusion of secrecy by the public’s own astonishment and shallowness. The significant Trudeau—the thinker, activist and leader—has fought among us openly, and in widening arenas, for a generation. The people of Canada know more about their new leader at the outset of his mandate than they knew about any predecessor after years in office. We know his policies on everything from federalism to foreign ownership to fiscal integrity. We know his style, his tastes, his pastimes and his schoolboy pranks. Since his youth, the combative extrovert who leads us has revealed himself, his hopes, ideas and ideals, with a compelling clarity.60
Spicer was dead right, of course. The only thing Canadians did not yet know about their unconventional leader was how he would handle the reins of power. Fortunately, as the Globe and Mail noted, there would be plenty of time to find out. “The ‘new boy,’ thank goodness, has no intention now of cashing in on his leadership popularity with an early election.”61
CHAPTER EIGHT
TELLING IT LIKE IT IS
It did not work out that way, of course. The new boy had his own ideas.
The morning of April 19, Pierre Trudeau called Lester Pearson at 24 Sussex Drive to say that he was likely to dissolve Parliament on its first day back in session. “He wished to use the excitement and momentum of the leadership convention to ask for a vote of confidence from the country while his image was still unsullied,” Pearson later noted. “He considered that this was the best time to get his majority.”1 Trudeau met with his new cabinet later the same day. Of the leadership hopefuls he had defeated two weeks earlier, only Robert Winters had declined Trudeau’s invitation to stay on. Mitchell Sharp took over external affairs from Paul Martin, who became minister without portfolio. John Turner was named minister of consumer and corporate affairs as well as solicitor general. Joe Greene became minister of agriculture, Eric Kierans took the communications portfolio, Paul Hellyer moved to transport, and Allan MacEachen to health and welfare. Trudeau acknowledged that his cabinet might not have a long shelf life. “This is a pretty stand-pat Cabinet,” he told the press. “It is a Cabinet I could go to dissolution with or to a short session with.”2
There were good reasons not to go to dissolution. Rank-and-file Liberals were not only recovering from the leadership race but still patching up the rivalries it had occasioned. Party leaders worried that it was too soon to tap their donors again. So-called election hawks in Trudeau’s inner circle, however—Marc Lalonde, Jean Marchand, Jean Chrétien, and Donald Macdonald among them—pressed the new prime minister to act quickly. Internal polling showed that 52 per cent of decided voters intended to vote Liberal, versus 28 per cent support for the Tories and 14 per cent NDP—a vote distribution that would give the “natural-governing party” upwards of 150 seats in the 264-seat House.3 Trudeau’s rapport with young people was also likely to give him a huge lift but perhaps not indefinitely. There were one million more Canadians eligible to vote in 1968 than there had been in 1965 (for a total of 11.2 million voters).
As Pearson had anticipated, Trudeau needed little convincing. At the morning caucus meeting of April 23, he told his MPs that he would dissolve the House that very afternoon and call an election for June 25. “Gasps,” Lester Pearson later remarked. “Then he very forcefully made his case for this action, and won over the doubters. It was a great performance. There was no doubt in my mind that he wanted to force a confrontation with Quebec on the national unity issue, to meet it head on.”4
Following the caucus meeting, Trudeau walked the short distance to Rideau Hall to request a dissolution order from Governor General Roland Michener. When the afternoon session of Parliament opened, Trudeau made quick work of it. “In view of the announcement I am about to make,” he told the House, “I feel any further comment by me on any other subjects would be improper. This afternoon I called on the Governor General to request him to dissolve parliament and to have writs issued for a general election on June 25. Mr. Speaker, by proclamation under the Great Seal of Canada, dated April 23, 1968, the present parliament is dissolved and members and senators a
re discharged from attendance. I thank you, Mr. Speaker.”5 MPs from all parties were nonplussed—none more so than Lester Pearson, who had fully expected parliamentarians to fete his “incomparable services to Canada, to the world, to the interplanetary system,” as he later joked.6 But Trudeau left no time for homage to Pearson or anything else. The House simply adjourned. Pearson’s one-word diary entry for his last day as a Canadian parliamentarian: “Tough.”7
Trudeau moved immediately to convene a press conference, which was televised. “Many changes have occurred in Canada since the last general election,” he told Canadians. “Many areas of our national life are in a period of rapid evolution and will require new direction.”8 Trudeau would later tell reporters that Lester Pearson’s accident-prone minority government had outlived its usefulness. “It has not been a happy Parliament,” he affirmed. “I’m not underestimating the importance of representative democracy. I’m just saying this particular session, this particular Parliament, this particular time of our representative democracy to me had worn itself out.”9
With Parliament dissolved and Canadians informed of the election call, Trudeau headed out onto the parliamentary lawns. There he was met by a crowd of “Trudeau-boppers,” teenaged girls who squealed in his presence and tried to touch him as he climbed into his waiting limo. One girl, sixteen-year-old Linda Cooper, leaned into the open window of the car, and Trudeau planted a kiss right on her mouth. “I’ll never wash my lips,” said Cooper dreamily as the car drove off.10
Not to be outdone, Tory leader Robert Stanfield, who had turned fifty-four the previous week, allowed himself to be photographed being kissed—on the cheek—by fifteen-year-old Kathleen Hopper. “Stanfield Starts Pecking Away,” ran the headlines the next day, cementing the contrast between the sexy Trudeau and the fatherly Stanfield.
The following day, Stanfield held his own televised press conference. “This campaign will be fought on the issues,” he said, reading from a prepared statement. “After seven months as leader of the party, I welcome the opportunity to put our case before the Canadian people. We have proven our dedication to national unity. In that spirit, we can confidently ask the people of Canada for the highest trust of all.”11 During the Q & A that followed, the normally serene Stanfield was uncharacteristically feisty. He was asked where he thought the Liberals were vulnerable. Everywhere, Stanfield replied. Pierre Trudeau had “no record, no policy, and no proof of his ability to govern the country,” while his cabinet represented the “stale leftovers of five years of incompetence and mismanagement.” Had the Tories been caught out by the election call? “We are ready for an election,” said Stanfield, “I suspect a good deal more ready than the Liberals are in some parts of the country.”
Asked about his own prospects, Stanfield was typically self-effacing. “I think I have one great advantage,” he joked. “I’m such a plain-looking guy, I think people will say, ‘He’s not trying to be charming, so maybe he’s telling the truth.’”12
Already Stanfield had a problem: special status for Quebec. And more than any other issue in the 1968 campaign, it would prove to be his party’s undoing.
In mid-summer 1967, during Charles de Gaulle’s visit to Quebec, then-premier Robert Stanfield had been campaigning to replace John Diefenbaker as the leader of the federal Tories. With the debate about special status raging all around him, Stanfield sought out a safe middle ground. “This is something that will have to be carefully explored and considered,” he said. “It depends on what special status means. It is essential that we live together and recognize the desire of each group to live their own lives in their own way. This is of great importance to both Quebec and Canada. In terms of working out specific positions, there should be a continuing dialogue on constitutional and fiscal questions.”13 What, exactly, such a dialogue might be expected to produce Stanfield left to the imagination. As a three-term premier of Nova Scotia, he acknowledged that Canadians outside Quebec were unlikely to give special powers to one province.
Stanfield endeavoured to maintain his wait-and-see position well into the election campaign. Desiring not to provoke Quebec nationalists, he argued that Trudeau’s stand on the Constitution was divisive and dangerous. “I hope the constitutional matter can be discussed without heat,” Stanfield said early in the campaign.
I don’t take quite as simple and uncomplicated a view of the problems of the constitution and the problems of the country as the new Prime Minister seems to take. I don’t feel, for example, that it would be particularly helpful in terms of national unity to have an entrenched bill of rights on other than the language question. On the other hand, I think we must recognize that Quebec consists of something like 80 percent of French-speaking Canadians. By virtue of it being a predominantly French-speaking society in the midst of 200-million English-speaking North Americans, its interest and its outlook are going to be somewhat different from other provinces.14
Such nuanced thinking was a gift to Trudeau, who would argue that Stanfield was not credible on national unity and was, moreover, too timid to challenge deux nations in Quebec even if he were. Canadians took note. “Stanfield’s style is Early Nova Scotia Fuzzy,” wrote one wag.15
Stanfield might have had the luxury of playing to his own policy strengths—regional development, for example, or a guaranteed annual income—had the Quebec question receded during the campaign. And for a while, it looked as though it might. Daniel Johnson, who at one point said that he would back Stanfield because he recognized the deux nations reality of Canada, announced on April 24 that he would be neutral. (Union Nationale insiders told journalist Dominique Clift that Johnson had changed his mind because the unilingual Stanfield would be a sitting duck for René Lévesque’s sovereignty movement.)16 The next day, Quebec Liberal leader Jean Lesage announced that he, too, would be officially neutral.
But time was not on Stanfield’s side. Quebec’s nationalist elites had their own agenda and their own timetable. They would not break stride for federal politicians looking for an easy rapprochement.
The issue that pushed special status into the election spotlight was Quebec’s prerogative to manage its own international affairs. In February 1968, Quebec City had sent representatives to an educational conference in Gabon, a French-speaking nation in central Africa, without clearing the invitation through External Affairs.17 Ottawa responded forcefully, suspending diplomatic relations with Gabon. Then, on April 15, Quebec education minister Jean-Guy Cardinal announced that he would personally lead a Quebec delegation to an educational conference in Paris the following week. Both Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau had urged Cardinal to clear his plans with External beforehand, but he refused. On April 16, under orders from Pierre Trudeau, the government of Canada recalled its ambassador to France, threatening to sever diplomatic relations altogether.
Pierre Trudeau had long been on record as saying that special status for Quebec led inexorably towards separatism and the destruction of Canada. There was no better concrete example of this principle at work than in the fight over diplomatic representation, since, as every Quebec separatist from René Lévesque to Jacques Parizeau has understood, the achievement of a sovereign Quebec would be contingent on international recognition. As far as Trudeau was concerned, Quebec’s assertion of an independent foreign policy was a direct threat to Canadian sovereignty. “There is one way to keep Canada united as a federal form of government and this way is to make sure that in international matters, Canada speaks with one voice,” Trudeau stated in early May. “If it were just a matter of a province slipping into some occasional attitude which would bring it on the international scene, it wouldn’t perhaps be too serious. But if a province is doing this with the express purpose in mind to determine a constitutional orientation which in our view would be destructive of Canadian unity, we feel the Canadian people have a right to hear the explanation.”18 To drive home the point, the feds brought out a seventy-five-page white paper, Federalism and International Conferences on Educatio
n, describing Ottawa’s “fruitless efforts to reach agreement with Quebec on representation at international conferences.”19
Trudeau’s tough talk on Quebec’s international role made the nation’s front pages, giving Robert Stanfield very little room to manoeuvre.20 Editorialists asked, “Where Do the Tories Stand?”21 Stanfield tried to turn this criticism on Trudeau, claiming that the new prime minister had escalated Ottawa’s feud with Quebec City unnecessarily and ought to be acting in a statesmanlike manner, consulting the provinces on the Constitution.22 NDP leader Tommy Douglas agreed. “Mr. Trudeau’s attempt to make election capital of this problem does nothing to promote Canadian unity,” Douglas said of the diplomatic row between Ottawa and Quebec City. “The answer lies in negotiations rather than confrontation.”23
Complicating Stanfield’s position at every turn was Marcel Faribault, the Quebec businessman who had persuaded the federal Tory policy committee to endorse the phrase deux nations the previous autumn. Faribault, who was still serving as an economic adviser to Premier Daniel Johnson, was an avowed federalist but also a steadfast Quebec nationalist. Like Johnson, he believed that the existing Constitution should be scrapped and replaced by one that decentralized Confederation and allocated broad new powers to the provinces. But every once in a while, Faribault seemed to lapse into the old Québec aux Québécois talk that Trudeau and other Quebec federalists found so loathsome. “Quebec can only proceed in constitutional talks from its own nature, and thus from its twin nationalism,” Faribault told the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Sherbrooke in early May 1968. “One aspect of this nationalism, almost biological and at the same time spiritual, is the historical and sociological existence of Quebec, its language, its feelings, its aspirations and its drive.”24
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