Just Watch Me

by John English

  On the international stage, the jostling between Ottawa and Quebec City continued. Trudeau, like so many prime ministers, turned to the arena outside Canada for personal satisfaction and domestic political gain. In March 1978 he spoke to the prestigious Council of Foreign Relations in New York and also to the Economic Club, where only fourteen months previously Lévesque had done so poorly. Trudeau was impressive. At the Council, 300 of New York’s business and academic elite crowded into a room that normally seated only a third of that number. After an introduction by David Rockefeller, Trudeau spoke extemporaneously for ten minutes. As the consul general wrote, “Again and again” he emphasized that “things really were changing in [Canada] with respect to the place of French Cdns,” not only in government but also in the “upper and middle strata of public organizations and private corporations.” The audience at the Economic Club—some 2,100—was the largest since its creation in 1908. The consul general’s report claimed that the “audience saw in PM the embodiment of Cdn will to preserve unity of the country,” and, in that respect, it fully supported him. There were, it continued, some who grumbled about Canada’s third option (Trudeau’s proposal to shift trade away from the United States), the Foreign Investment Review Agency, and Trudeau’s questioning of the free market, but those critics were mainly Canadians living in New York or visiting to hear the speech. The New York Times was generous in both the space it allocated to the speech and the comments it made about Trudeau’s efforts, quoting his claim that there was “a growing realization among all Canadians that we would be a foolishly self-destructive society if we allowed our country to be fractured because of our inability to imagine with generosity a solution to the problem of a federal state composed of different regions and founded on the recognition of two languages.”34

  The Times noted that Canada was nervously floating a $750 million bond issue and that Trudeau “conceded” that the separatist challenge had “been a major factor depressing the Canadian economy.” The Canadian economy was indeed troubled, with the dollar reaching a postwar low a week after Trudeau’s speech. The Times warned that “the state of the Canadian economy, with the rate of inflation at nearly 9 percent and more than one million persons looking for work in record unemployment of 8.3 percent of the labor force of ten million, is certain to be the principal issue to be raised by the opposition parties in the federal elections that Mr. Trudeau is expected to call in June or in the fall at the latest.” For Trudeau and his close colleagues, however, any certainty about the primacy of the economy was increasingly difficult to accept, particularly when the break up of the country was the principal issue for them—though no longer for most Canadians. A divide developed among Trudeau’s advisers, with Keith Davey, who agreed with the Times’ analysis, on one side and Lalonde, his co–campaign manager, on the other. To make his point, Davey liked to quote Jean Marchand’s story of the shipyard labourer coming home from the yards and telling his wife, “I just couldn’t get anything done today because I worried so much about the Constitution.” Trudeau and Lalonde failed to see the humour, though they admitted that the Canadian economy was in increasingly bad shape.

  Trudeau shared his concerns with German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who continued to be a close friend, and just before he spoke in New York he wrote to Schmidt, saying that he believed “the economic difficulties” the West was facing should be the central concern of the upcoming G7 summit in Bonn. He also accepted an invitation to stay on in Germany for talks with Schmidt after the summit ended in mid-July.35 In their analysis of G7 summits, Robert Putnam and Sir Nicholas Bayne rank the Bonn Summit as one of the most significant. Trudeau, by his own admission, was preoccupied with national unity, but as he concentrated on the challenges facing the Western economies, his concern mounted. Although Carter and Trudeau joked about Schmidt’s and Giscard d’Estaing’s habits of opening the summits with long-winded discourses on the economy—a tendency shared by all former finance ministers, Carter later observed—Trudeau had developed a profound respect for the intelligent, self-confident Schmidt, who had fought the battle against Giscard d’Estaing for Canada’s inclusion in the elite summit. The Bonn meeting resulted in a remarkable degree of agreement on the need to reinvigorate the Tokyo Round of global trade negotiations, fiscal discipline, and a “comprehensive global growth package.”36

  After the meeting ended, Trudeau accepted an invitation to join Schmidt on his sailboat on the North Sea, but first he spoke warmly of him at a private dinner. He praised Schmidt’s economic leadership, which had “managed to keep popular expectations within the bounds of realism;” Germany’s “system of management and labour relations, [which] has maintained stability and productivity in your industry;” and Germany’s “constitutional practises [sic], [which] have avoided the pitfalls of unnecessary duplication while ensuring a strong voice for Germany in international affairs.” This success, Trudeau went on, had enabled Schmidt to place his “political imagination” at the disposal of the international community, particularly in the policy of détente and integration within the European Community. Schmidt had done what Trudeau dreamed he himself might do. When he left Schmidt, Trudeau determined to steel Canada for the economic and international challenges it had to face.37 Gossage, who accompanied Trudeau, was struck by the close friendship between the two leaders. He saw “the real Trudeau, relaxed in a way possible only when you are with a friend who stimulates and respects you, who wants nothing, and with whom you know you are accepted.”

  Trudeau returned home intent on fulfilling the commitments he had made in Bonn. He called in his aides, quickly drafted a speech in both French and English, booked television time for 8 p.m., August 1, and sternly lectured his listeners. He told Canadians he was “fed up” with events in this country and was determined to turn the post office into a Crown corporation, cut government spending by over $2 billion, and freeze the size of the public service. He was also considering moving some government services to the private sector. He acted so quickly that neither he nor his principal secretary, Jim Coutts, informed Finance Minister Jean Chrétien, who was holidaying at his Shawinigan home, about the speech or its message. Chrétien’s able assistant Eddie Goldenberg had spoken to his chief several times that day, but no forthcoming speech had been mentioned. He was astonished to hear on his car radio at 7:45 p.m. that Trudeau was addressing the nation on the economy. He called Chrétien but could not reach him for two hours, long after the speech had ended. When he finally spoke to the finance minister, he learned that Chrétien knew nothing about Trudeau’s comments or actions. He had been, in Goldenberg’s words, “publicly humiliated by the prime minister and the PMO.” Chrétien thought of resignation, considered its potential impact on the impending election, and decided to be a “good soldier.” His answers when the press quizzed him about Trudeau’s actions revealed him to be, in journalist Allan Fotheringham’s words, “fumbling and naked.” Again, the election was postponed.38

  As Bill 60 proceeded through the inevitable consultations on patriation of the Constitution and a new charter of rights, and as election planning moved forward by fits and starts, Trudeau increasingly turned to the international arena, partly because domestic politics frustrated him and partly because his status as an “international statesman” contrasted sharply with Conservative leader Joe Clark’s inexperience. Clark’s foreign ventures brought forth ribald jokes about how his luggage was always one country behind him and how foreign leaders found him wanting. Trudeau had come to enjoy international gatherings and, as David Rockefeller said in his introduction at the Economic Club, he had become the “senior statesman” of the Western world. He had survived the fall of Charles de Gaulle, the impeachment of Richard Nixon, and the disappearance of Edward Heath, Harold Wilson, and many other national leaders. He was also the sole Western leader who had emerged from the tumult of 1968. On the tenth anniversary of his becoming prime minister, the prestigious British newspaper the Observer gave Trudeau poor marks on the economy but ad
ded that “the one achievement no one can deny him is in foreign affairs.”

  In truth, many people were critical of his role in international relations, especially in the Department of External Affairs, where Trudeau’s disdain for the department was blamed for its low morale. The astute journalist Sandra Gwyn reflected this view in an April 1978 article entitled “Where Are You, Mike Pearson, Now That We Need You?” She lamented that Canadians simply did not care about foreign policy. This ambivalence, along with Trudeau’s indifference to the department and the very personal nature of his international interventions, contributed to the malaise. And yet, Gwyn wrote, “the whole of all of this is smaller than the sum of its parts…. When you shatter a nation’s myths, something Trudeau should have realized, you weaken its will to endure. More than ever, these bleak days, we’re in need of a new externalized myth to keep us going.”

  Trudeau seems to have realized the need for such a myth after 1976, and the impact of his address to Congress and of the Carter administration’s opposition to separatism provided evidence of the important influence of Canada’s external relationships on domestic politics. As Gwyn recognized, the appointment of Don Jamieson, a popular and highly influential Newfoundlander, as minister of external affairs and the return of the influential Allan Gotlieb to the position of under-secretary of state significantly strengthened the department’s voice within government circles. Ivan Head, who had been the dominant force in Canada’s foreign policy, moved on to become the president of the International Development Research Centre, although his critical attitude toward the department endured and deeply influenced the book that he and Trudeau later wrote about Canadian foreign policy.* Nevertheless, Canadian membership in the G7, the activity of first Quebec and then Alberta in the international arena, and the need for an “externalized myth” all caused Trudeau to turn to professional diplomats to guide his way as he ventured more often into their world.39

  One particularly treacherous path was Canada’s relationship with India, the largest recipient of Canadian aid in the mid-1970s. This aid included the development of nuclear power, and Canada insistently tried to secure a commitment from India that it would not produce an atomic bomb. In 1973 Trudeau and Indira Gandhi, whom the Canadian prime minister disliked, met in Ottawa, but no commitment was forthcoming. The following year when, during the Canadian election campaign, India exploded its atomic device, which it claimed was for “peaceful purposes,” Trudeau was furious: he immediately cut off nuclear assistance and induced a general chill in Canadian-Indian relations. However, Commonwealth meetings meant that Trudeau had to meet annually with the Indian leaders, and on the margins of those occasions they quarrelled about nuclear questions. When Trudeau met Carter in February 1977, he found a sympathetic ear. Carter, according to the Canadian government report, “directed discussion toward non-proliferation by saying that he was grateful to Cda ‘for your almost lonely stand’ which had been developed after the Indian explosion ‘which was not your fault.’” Carter said he was “really worried about non-proliferation” and encouraged Trudeau to advance those purposes. Trudeau confided that Schmidt had told him he did not want to increase safeguards because “he felt that there was no way of controlling Americans.” However, Trudeau added, Schmidt was “a very intelligent man” who was resigned to the view that “everybody would have explosive capability” within a decade. His sense of “hopelessness” came from a belief that the “USA and France would never accept controls.” Trudeau, an antinuclear activist from the sixties who was committed to ending Canada’s nuclear role, did not share this pessimism.40

  In the spring of 1978, Trudeau asked members of the Canadian foreign service to help him with a major speech at the United Nations on the nuclear issue. Klaus Goldschlag, an outstanding diplomat and student of international affairs, assisted Trudeau in drafting a speech that called for nuclear “suffocation.” The strategy “consisted of a coherent set of measures, including the elusive comprehensive test-ban treaty, an agreement to stop the flight testing of all new strategic delivery vehicles, an agreement to prohibit all production of fissionable material for weapons purposes, and an agreement to limit and reduce military spending on new strategic nuclear weapons systems.”41 Later academic critics wrongly dismissed Trudeau’s May 26 speech as a typical “solitary international mission,” one that could offend allies for minimal effect. In fact, Trudeau’s speech accurately reflected not only the views of Carter, the leader of Canada’s most important ally, but also the spirit of 1970s détente. That spirit died when Soviet tanks crossed the Afghan border the next year. Nevertheless, the speech won support from Canadian antinuclear voters, who tended to stray easily to the NDP. The strongly antinuclear Toronto Star and Le Devoir liked the speech, although the Globe and Mail deemed it “pretentious,” self-congratulatory, and not particularly “original.” Globe columnist Geoffrey Stevens agreed that, though the issue was important, the real problem was that Trudeau, Parliament, and Canadians had no “sustained interest in foreign affairs.”42

  Attacks such as the Globe’s infuriated Trudeau and Head, and their 1995 book, The Canadian Way, is an exhaustive attack on the charge that Trudeau paid only intermittent attention to foreign policy and, more particularly, chose lofty thoughts over concerted action. Interestingly, Trudeau’s contemporaries in the seventies also disagreed with the Globe. Jimmy Carter and his vice-president, Walter Mondale; Helmut Schmidt; and numerous others testify to Trudeau’s effectiveness in certain international areas, although Mondale’s suggestion that he was an “indispensable force” there is excessive. In G7 meetings, Trudeau did take the lead many times on North-South issues, and he also played a creditable role in sorting out the divisions between rich and poor—as we shall later see. When a Carleton University academic attacked the broken promises of Canadian aid policy and the sporadic attention Trudeau gave to foreign affairs, Head replied with ferocity, pointing to the fact that Canadian development assistance quintupled between 1968 and 1975, that Canadian media did not report on Trudeau’s foreign activities fully, and that the “officials” who criticized Trudeau were unfair. Yet even he had to admit that Canadian development assistance, which had risen to 0.54 percent of GDP in 1975, had begun to fall as the Canadian economy weakened. Indeed, by 1981 it stood at only 0.37 percent, far below the 0.7 percent advocated in the historic Pearson Commission on International Development in 1969 and by subsequent Liberal Party conventions.43

  Many critics of Trudeau’s foreign policy were unfair, partly because they had expected too much from the multilingual, cosmopolitan, and articulate prime minister, but even more because Canada’s domestic problems had to be the major priority in the late seventies. Although Coutts and Davey accepted that Trudeau’s international celebrity was a political asset, they privately lamented his taste for the bright lights of Broadway and the Rive gauche of Paris over the Calgary Stampede or the South Shore of Nova Scotia. Yet because of the fundamental challenge of Quebec separation, he travelled far less than his successors or most of his G7 counterparts did. He even missed a large part of his first G7 summit meeting as a result of domestic affairs. The ongoing process of remaking Canada’s Constitution occupied much of his time during his early years in office and, again, after the PQ’s election. Trudeau’s passionate opposition to nuclear weapons had preceded his political involvement, but even the speech on nuclear suffocation bore too much of the weight of Canadian domestic politics and the interests of Atomic Energy of Canada. His speeches to the United Nations and to Congress also had too much cheerleading about Canada, which surely detracted from the universality of his arguments. However, the insistent demand that he keep his focus firmly on domestic troubles frustrated Trudeau, especially once he realized that Canada’s problems were largely the product of a troubled international economy.

  Trudeau himself was challenged at a Quebec City press conference a few days before he spoke at the United Nations, by a reporter who complained: “This is the first time in some time tha
t you have expressed any interest in the United Nations and spoken there, and, secondly, it is the first time I’ve heard in a long time that you are planning to speak on disarmament, and it appears, and especially now since you don’t want to scoop yourself, that there is a certain amount of cynical stage managing with regard to your speech in New York—that in fact you are doing this to try to get both national and international attention, to the detriment of the Canadian public, who would like to find out what your policy is.” A furious Trudeau replied: “If I were looking for publicity abroad, I take it I would have made the speech at some other occasion—one of the ten General Assemblies in the past years. It so happens that I feel that on this particular occasion I do have something to say, and I want to say it there and not here to you.” When he faced the opposition in Question Period on his return from New York, he heard the same complaint from its leaders.44