by John English
He loved the highest office, though he was wary, even fearful, of its personal costs and the flamboyant manner he had used to achieve it. He cherished his privacy, shunned close emotional attachment, and often took moments where no one could pierce his silence. Those around him quickly learned to retreat at those times. The campaign, moreover, was a long one, and the constant repetition of airport greetings, motorcades, and rallies began to bore him. He worried whether his legitimacy as an intellectual who had helped to shape his province in the postwar years might not be undermined by the trivialities of the campaign. He was especially annoyed in parts of Quebec when his sexual orientation was questioned. The Créditiste strength in rural Quebec drew on profound doubts about the Quiet Revolution—doubts that had led to defeat for the Lesage government in 1966 and, in 1968, threatened the federal Liberal appeal in those areas. The rumours about Trudeau’s “Communism” and sexual tastes were so strong that he was forced to confront them directly in rallies in the Lac St-Jean region.
In English Canada and urban Quebec, the personal issues were ignored in the mainstream press. There was, as usual, a striking difference between the campaigns in French and English Canada, in terms of issues and reporting. A major cause of this situation dated back to the previous year, when the Johnson government in Quebec decided to build on France’s willingness to give the province international stature by accepting invitations to international conferences. This had struck Trudeau and others as a dramatic and dangerous threat to Canadian federalism. Then, in mid-1967 French president Charles de Gaulle proclaimed, “Vive le Québec libre!” before a cheering crowd at Montreal’s Hôtel de Ville, stunning Canadians who were joyously celebrating their Centennial and catalyzing the swelling forces of separatism in the province of Quebec. Paul Martin in External Affairs worried that a firm rebuke would accomplish little. There was, he reported to Cabinet, “no mistaking the enthusiasm for de Gaulle in Montreal and at Expo 67.” Trudeau, who had spoken seldom in Cabinet since his appointment in April, quickly dismissed these concerns. “The people in France,” he warned, “would think the Government was weak if it did not react; the General had not the support of the intellectuals in his country and the French press was opposed to him.”22 An angry Pearson backed Trudeau and rebuked de Gaulle, who immediately flew home to Paris. In this incident, Trudeau had made a strong impression on Pearson, the Cabinet, and even General de Gaulle—who concluded that Trudeau was “the enemy of the French fact in Canada.”23
Now, Trudeau deliberately made Quebec’s international ambitions a campaign issue—indeed, Cabinet records reveal that they were the principal reason he decided to call an early election. Moreover, the Quebec NDP and Conservative leaders, Robert Cliche and Marcel Faribault, respectively, both supported the idea of “deux nations” or “statut particulier” (two nations or special status) for Quebec—a position Trudeau had not only long opposed but regarded as the slippery slope heading directly to separatism. These various ambitions gave Trudeau his “issue.” His Quebec speeches were more formal, with much more content and less political fluff than his speeches in the rest of Canada. In response, the Quebec press took what he said more seriously and, except in the tabloids, completely ignored the “puckering.”
Trudeau also faced greater controversy and more strident and even vocal opposition in Quebec. The June 1 death of André Laurendeau, the co-chair of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, shocked Trudeau, and he wept openly at the June 4 funeral in Outremont. Laurendeau had been an early mentor, a frequent critic, and a shrewd observer of Trudeau’s career.* Together, Trudeau, Marchand, and Pelletier attended the funeral at Église Saint-Viateur, a church where Trudeau frequently prayed. As they left the church, a crowd confronted them, its leaders shouting, “Traitors! Goddamn traitors! Go back to Ottawa.” The event jarred Trudeau. He became less comfortable with the campaign’s demands on him and less willing to “pucker and run” during carefully staged events and scripted speeches. The following day, Trudeau was scheduled to give a speech in Sudbury on “Northern Problems and the Just Society,” which even its author, Ramsay Cook, regarded as uninspiring. He threw away the speech and “passionately improvised before a large attentive audience.” He spoke with feeling of Laurendeau and of his own commitment to tolerance and diversity. He angrily attacked those who had killed Bobby Kennedy earlier that day and linked them with the terrorists in Quebec. Pearson phoned Marc Lalonde, his former assistant, who had urged Trudeau to enter politics, to tell him it was the best political speech he had ever heard. When Cook offered his own praise, Trudeau responded by “smiling wickedly” and saying, “And you didn’t write it!”24
Trudeau increasingly resisted his advisers as the campaign progressed, and the adoring crowds in parts of English Canada caused him to ease his normal discipline. At a meeting for a new “star candidate” in the constituency of North York, Trudeau introduced Barney Danson as Barney Dawson. Danson corrected him, but minutes later Trudeau called him “Barry Danson.” The errors did not matter: two days before the election, Danson’s Conservative opponent informed him that he had given up: “This Trudeau thing is just too big.” Trudeau’s national opponents were similarly frustrated. His debate performance on June 9 was flat, and he seems unfairly to have blamed those who prepared him. He had followed the script, while Tommy Douglas and Créditiste leader Réal Caouette were humorous and spontaneous. Former Liberal Party president John Nichol recalls how, as the campaign progressed, Trudeau increasingly refused to go beyond the prearranged schedule and argued with campaign manager Bill Lee about every new demand. As Edith Iglauer, the New Yorker journalist, observed while travelling with Trudeau, the new prime minister, unlike Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and most other politicians, insisted on at least eight hours’ sleep at night.25
This regimen made campaigning difficult in a country that covers several time zones. On June 15 Nichol and other advisers had a bitter exchange with Trudeau when he refused to make one last western trip. A furious Nichol hollered that “hundreds of Liberals—candidates and their workers—had been working for weeks preparing for him to come.” When he threatened to resign, Trudeau reluctantly gave in. With success and celebrity, the campaign had become bloated with assistants, advisers, and “hangers on.” Richard Stanbury, who had replaced Nichol as Liberal Party president, wrote in his diary that Trudeau’s popularity had attracted too many admirers eager to be near the coming Messiah. He even intervened himself to keep some Trudeau enthusiasts, including an exuberant Michael Ignatieff, at a greater distance from the leader.26
Whatever the campaign’s flaws, the roar of the crowds and the excitement around the leader smothered any doubters among Liberals. Unlike the Conservatives, where sparring between former leader John Diefenbaker and Robert Stanfield marred the campaign, the Liberals seemed united, and no more so than on June 19 in Toronto. Over fifty thousand gathered on Nathan Phillips Square at noon to cheer Trudeau. Later in the day, he went to the riding of York Centre, where Lester Pearson introduced him with glowing words: “A man prepared to speak out loud and clear in favour of unity … A man who doesn’t make idle promises … A man for today and a man for tomorrow … My friend, my former colleague, a man for all Canada—Pierre Elliott Trudeau.” As the Liberal leader came forward, Pearson beamed at his successor and tears welled up in Trudeau’s eyes.27
Perhaps because his welcome was so warm in English Canada, the increasingly hostile press coverage in Quebec angered Trudeau—and his combative instincts led him to respond more aggressively than his advisers thought wise. He would privately attack journalists as ignorant and boring, the news media as “the last tyranny” in free societies.28 He engaged in an unseemly quarrel over whether Conservative star candidate Marcel Faribault had been personally involved in banning him from teaching at the Université de Montréal in the early fifties on the grounds that he was a socialist. Claude Ryan became more caustic as the campaign neared its end, and even the Montreal Gazette waxed
critical. It was no surprise, then, when the Gazette, which had supported the Liberals in 1965, urged its readers to vote for “an enlightened Conservatism” that “does not attempt to dazzle without reason; or lead without explanation; act without steadiness; or discard without cause; or add without need.”29
Stanfield’s campaign had impressed many editorialists, especially in Quebec, where Le Devoir, L’Action, and the Sherbrooke Record all endorsed the Conservatives, and even the traditionally Liberal La Presse, Le Droit, and Le Soleil attached reservations to their support of Trudeau. In rural Quebec, Caouette campaigned relentlessly and successfully against Trudeau’s liberal social programs and “socialist” economics, while rumours about Trudeau’s sexual orientation continued to animate discussions at the rural boucheries and dépanneurs. In Montreal, Pierre Bourgault of the Rassemblement pour l’indépendance nationale (RIN) attacked Trudeau unrelentingly as a vendu and warned him not to attend the historic parade on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Not surprisingly, Trudeau announced he would be there. He argued with close advisers and Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, who told him that violence was certain if he went. When Richard Stanbury accompanied him to his house before the rally, a roughly dressed man who obviously knew Trudeau stopped him and warned him to stay at home. Trudeau told Stanbury that the man was a friend from his youth who was now close to violent separatists. Trudeau thanked his old chum but ignored his advice.30
As darkness fell on June 24, election eve, Trudeau arrived at the reviewing stand on Sherbrooke Street for the parade. He took his place between Archbishop of Montreal Paul Grégoire and Premier Daniel Johnson, two seats away from Mayor Drapeau. Despite the hundreds of police milling about, the crowd broke into chants of “Tru-deau au pot-eau” (Trudeau to the gallows), and suddenly, the hostile throng erupted into a violent riot, throwing bottles and stones. Sirens blared, ambulances and police cars sped in and out. Defiant, Trudeau stood up and waved, but the chants intensified. One police car was overturned; another was aflame. Demonstrators poured out of Lafontaine Park onto the streets, which by this time were sprinkled with shattered glass. Suddenly, a bottle came through the air toward the reviewing stand. Seeing its arc, Drapeau fled with his wife, Johnson escaped, and two RCMP officers moved quickly to shield the prime minister. One threw his raincoat over him, but Trudeau flung it aside, put his elbows on the railing, and stared defiantly at the melee below. He stood there alone, his visage stony.* The crowd, initially stunned, began slowly to applaud Trudeau’s courage. The Mounties, realizing that he would not be moved, sat down beside him as he stayed to the parade’s end at 11:20 p.m. The startling images of Trudeau confronting the rioters dominated the late television news throughout Canada. The following morning, the front pages of the newspapers featured photographs of Trudeau’s icy defiance on the reviewing stand, while editorialists paid tribute to his character and strength. The whole performance embellished Trudeau’s steely image and confirmed the impression that here was a leader.† And, in truth, it was election day.
Trudeau voted in an overcast Montreal that morning and then flew to Ottawa. There he visited Liberal headquarters and thanked the party workers before having dinner at his new home on Sussex Drive. After the polls closed, his driver took him to the historic Château Laurier hotel, where police held back the crowd as he made his way to the Liberal suites on the fifth floor. Campaign workers gathered below. Trudeau watched the returns and worked on his speech in a small bedroom at one end of the floor. He emerged briefly to greet Lester and Maryon Pearson, whom he had invited to join him. The night began badly with the loss of 6 Liberal seats in Newfoundland, followed by a Conservative sweep of Prince Edward Island’s 4 seats and 10 of the 11 Nova Scotia seats—a testimony to the personal appeal of Bob Stanfield. Then the Conservative tide slowed dramatically as it reached the francophone constituencies of New Brunswick and collapsed in Quebec, where the Liberals took 53.3 percent of the vote and 56 of its 74 seats. Trudeaumania held in Ontario, where the Liberals took 64 of its 88 seats. When the night ended, the victory was decisive. Even Alberta, which had rejected the Liberal Party for over a generation, gave 4 seats to Trudeau. In British Columbia, Tommy Douglas lost his own seat as the Liberals won 16 in all—9 more than in 1965.
A later academic study of the election is especially revealing. The Liberals took 45.2 percent of the popular vote but 63.9 percent of “professionals,” 72.2 percent of immigrants after 1946, 67.1 percent of francophones, and 59.2 percent of Canadians under the age of thirty. Large metropolitan areas gave 67.7 percent of their votes to the Liberals. The Conservatives led slightly among rural Canadians, and the populist and rural Ralliement des Créditistes raised their party standing from 8 at dissolution to 14. However, bad economic conditions probably mattered more to Créditiste voters than the rumours about Trudeau’s radical ways and sexual habits.31 As Claude Ryan grudgingly admitted, most francophones reached the same conclusion they had earlier with Wilfrid Laurier and Louis St. Laurent: “After all, here’s a French Canadian who has become prime minister. Why not give him a fair chance?”32
Given the chance, Trudeau was exultant. He waited for Stanfield to concede, which he did with his usual grace. Unfortunately, John Diefenbaker chose to make a national address as well, where he declared the result a “calamitous disaster for the Conservative Party” and seemed to relish the deluge that had come after him. Trudeau ignored Diefenbaker’s remarks and praised both Stanfield and Douglas. Then he declared: “For me it was a great discovery…. We now know more about this country, which we did not know two months ago…. The election has been fought in a mood of optimism and confidence in our future…. We must intensify the opportunities for learning about each other.”33 He was unexpectedly solemn but clearly pleased. He knew his time had come.
But what exactly did “we” know? What had Canadians learned about themselves and their new prime minister? Trudeau’s personal appeal to the young and the francophones was obvious. Interestingly, he increased Liberal support among men (from 39 percent in 1965 to 45 percent in 1968) more than among women (from 43 percent to 48 percent). As with John Kennedy, men apparently admired both Trudeau’s manly courage and his sex appeal to women.34 Whatever the psychological causes, both opponents and supporters gave Trudeau credit for the victory; Stanfield and Douglas later said that the die was cast against them when Pearson resigned and Winters’ campaign failed. Nevertheless, John Duffy, in his history of Canada’s decisive elections, omits 1968 because, he argues, the election confirmed existing trends and created no dramatic rupture from the past.35
Trudeau himself minimized the extent of change that his government represented. His outline of the Just Society was faint in detail yet familiar in its references. He was, in his own words, a “pragmatist” among Canadians, who were “accustomed to deal with their problems in a pragmatic way.” The erstwhile socialist and adolescent revolutionary bluntly rebuked an Ontario crowd: “You know that no government is a Santa Claus, and I thought as I came down the street and saw all the waves and the handshakes that I’d remind you that Ottawa is not a Santa Claus.” There would be no great programs, his government would not raise taxes, and he would make no rash promises.36
Duffy is correct to suggest continuity and to point out how the foundations of Canadian electoral behaviour persisted in 1968. The Liberals were becoming ever more the urban, immigrant, and francophone party throughout the 1960s, while the Conservatives became more rural and anglophone. Unlike the historic elections of 1896, 1925–26, and 1957–58, no fundamental realignment and no great dividing issues characterized the election of 1968. Indeed, journalists struggled to find issues that separated the parties, especially in English Canada. In another sense, however, both Duffy and Trudeau misled by minimizing the change that Trudeau represented. Stanfield, Winters, or Hellyer would have been very different prime ministers, and if elected, any of them would have produced a very different Canada.
The significance of the 1968 election derives partly from Trudeau�
�s unique personality, but the major distinction comes from the particular moment when the election occurred and the manner in which Trudeau reflected it: the spring of 1968.37 The images endure: Paris aflame; the Tet offensive in Vietnam; Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King gunned down; police clubbing Harvard students; the Beatles and the Stones; and the liberation of the Prague Spring. Into this collage, Trudeau, defiant on the platform and elegant on the diving board, fits perfectly. Pierre Trudeau’s style mimicked the times—and forecast a new Canada.
* There was considerable mystery, for instance, about Trudeau’s age. The biography in the official 1968 Canadian Parliamentary Guide, which Trudeau’s own office had drafted, indicated that his year of birth was 1921. “Is he 46, 47, or 48?” a journalist asked. “Only his barber knows—and perhaps Mr. Trudeau himself.” With a wry reference to Trudeau’s true age, Conservative leader Robert Stanfield said the error suggested that Trudeau would never get numbers right. Trudeau himself teased the press about the discrepancy. When a radio interviewer in Wingham, Ontario, suggested gingerly that Trudeau was forty-eight, Trudeau replied, “Well, some say that. Some say other figures. I will have to ask my sister again. I am not too sure.” Canadian Parliamentary Guide 1968 (Ottawa: Pierre Normandin, 1968), 264; and Le Devoir, April 8, 1968. The Wingham interview is found in Brian Shaw, The Gospel according to Saint Pierre (Richmond Hill, Ont.: Pocket Books, 1969), 172; and Le Devoir, April 8, 1968.
* Over three decades later, Peter Gzowski, who had become fascinated with Trudeau in Montreal in the early years of the Quiet Revolution, recalled that “to those of us who had been swept up in the American promise of John F. Kennedy and still mourned his death, Trudeau was especially inspiring. He was glamorous, he was sexy, and he was ours—the perfect symbol of the newly invigorated Canada that had emerged from Expo and the centennial celebrations.” “Watch Me,” in Trudeau Albums (Toronto: Otherwise Editions, 2000), 67.