Just Watch Me

by John English

  After Trudeau left Outremont, he voted in his riding of Mount Royal and returned to Ottawa to watch the results at 24 Sussex. Ryan remained in Montreal, preparing for his speech that night in his working-class Verdun constituency. Trudeau invited a small crowd to join him, including House speaker Jeanne Sauvé; Jim Coutts; Michael Pitfield; de Montigny Marchand, a member of the key referendum group in Trudeau’s office; and André Burelle, his principal speechwriter for the campaign.25

  As they milled about the two television sets, Trudeau was transfixed by the results. The “no” side triumphed immediately and ended the evening with 58.6 percent of the vote. An astonishing 85.61 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots, and the federalists had a majority in all parts of the province and, most important, among both anglophones and francophones. Just after 7:30 p.m., Lévesque entered the Paul Sauvé arena, where less than a week earlier Trudeau had electrified the federalist crowd. Now separatists filled its seats and aisles as a weary Lévesque prepared to speak, his wife, Corinne, at his side and, oddly, Lise Payette, the minister who had created the Yvette fury, nearby. Otherwise, he was alone in a grey spring suit with a few notes. The crowd chanted almost deferentially as he approached the microphone. When he finally stilled his supporters, he said that if he understood their cheers correctly, it meant “à la prochaine fois”—until next time. Lévesque conceded, but he reminded the crowd that Trudeau had said that a no victory would not mean staying with the status quo. And he told his listeners that federalists had “immorally and scandalously” abused the electoral process by flooding the province with advertisements, contracts, and other inducements, but nevertheless, he would respect this last expression of “old Quebec.” Make no mistake, however, he warned: he and his followers would rise again to fight another day. Many thought his comments bitter, but Trudeau, unlike others at 24 Sussex, was emotionally moved by Lévesque’s defeat and his words. He knew him better than the others did, and perhaps he cared more.

  Meanwhile, Ryan was preparing his remarks at the Verdun Auditorium, furious that an ebullient Chrétien had appeared earlier that day on television and was planning to introduce him that evening. Wearing a black suit with a dark tie, Ryan made remarks that were unexpectedly harsh toward the separatists, perhaps the result of his quarrel with Chrétien, but more likely the product of his decision to demand an election. He called for healing while telling Lévesque that this great defeat compelled an election in the fall. The mood in the cavernous auditorium was strangely lacking in celebration and festivity. Finally, late in the evening, Trudeau had his chance to speak. Perhaps the crowd’s mood, combined with the sudden surge of empathy for Lévesque in defeat, made Trudeau reflective: “I wish to say simply that we have lost a little in this referendum. If you take account of the broken friendships, the strained family relationships, the hurt pride, there is no one among us who has not suffered some wound which we must try to heal in the days and weeks to come.” He would keep his promise, he said, that “no” meant going forward to a renewed federalism and not a return to the status quo. It was not a night to gloat, he told his listeners, but still, there was a tremor of pride and satisfaction in his voice when he declared: “Never have I felt so proud to be a Quebecer and Canadian.” He slept soundly that night.26

  Trudeau’s aide Patrick Gossage stayed awake, however, thinking about what the day had meant. “That night,” he felt, “was really the end of Trudeau’s single-minded crusade for Canada. The constitutional battles to come, however much tenacity they required, could only ever be the legal ribbons on a package that had been delivered with all his mind and heart to waiting Quebecers in his remarkable referendum interventions.”

  Trudeau, however, was in no mood to look at the past. The next morning he called Chrétien into his office and told him: “Get on a plane and go sell our package to the provinces.” Another day had dawned.27

  * In his memoirs, Crosbie deplores the Conservative strategy: “I didn’t know it at the time, but the Conservative party had done no polling of its own since August. The responsibility for this omission lay with the leader and his political advisers—Lowell Murray, now a senator, and Bill Neville, then chief of staff in the PMO. Worse, we’d made no effort to snuggle up to the Créditistes, believing we could wipe them out in the next election and elect some Tories in Quebec. Looking back, if I’d been the leader of a minority government, I would have put a higher premium on survival. I would have counted carefully, cuddled up to the Créditistes and kept them very happy, but Joe mistakenly assumed that the Liberals wouldn’t risk another election. He insisted that we act as though we had a majority.” Crosbie admits that he never told Clark he was making a mistake. Moreover, Stephen Harper successfully employed Clark’s strategy in similar circumstances in 2007–8, although the Liberals were less willing to risk an election despite having a leader. John Crosbie with Geoffrey Stevens, No Holds Barred: My Life in Politics (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1997), 177.

  * Trudeau’s popularity in Quebec was remarkably high, according to the Canadian Institute of Public Opinion. In December 1979, Trudeau’s “approval” rating in Quebec stood at 87 percent, with only 10 percent disapproving when the question was asked: “Do you think Pierre Trudeau is or is not a good leader of the Liberal party?” The answers to the equivalent question for Clark were 20 percent yes and 59 percent no. Trudeau’s ratings on the questions were higher than Clark’s in all regions, even though the results in the Prairies were a dismal 22.2 percent of the vote. The Liberal Party also scored better than the Conservatives in January 1980 on the issues of unemployment, national unity, energy, and astonishingly, inflation. Polls also indicated that “inflation” was the major issue in the view of Canadians in January and February 1980. William Irvine, “Epilogue: The 1980 Election,” in Canada at the Polls, 1979 and 1980, ed. Howard Penniman (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1981), 374–76.

  * The question read:

  The government of Quebec has made public its proposal to negotiate a new agreement with the rest of Canada, based on the equality of nations.

  This agreement would enable Quebec to acquire the exclusive power to make its laws, administer its taxes and establish relations abroad—in other words, sovereignty—and at the same time, to maintain with Canada an economic association including a common currency.

  Any change in political status resulting from these negotiations will be submitted to the people through a referendum.

  On these terms, do you agree to give the government the mandate to negotiate the proposed agreement between Quebec and Canada?

  * Rae was correct; Dorothy Davey, a prominent Liberal organizer and wife of Keith Davey, later said that it had always been Keith’s ambition to “unite the left” by bringing in the NDP to a coalition. Conversation with Dorothy Davey, May 2009.

  * One bizarre nationalist commitment was made by Bernard Landry, a PQ minister and future leader, who, along with “son équipe,” swore off wines, which he normally drank, in favour of Quebec cider. The apparent result: “Some of them ended the campaign with stomach ulcers.” Michel Vastel, Landry: Le Grand Dérangeant (Montréal: Les Éditions de l’homme, 2001), 170.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CLOSING THE DEAL

  The pugnacious, colloquial Jean Chrétien and the austere, precise Claude Ryan, the leader of the “no” campaign in Quebec, had clashed often during the referendum campaign, but their partnership had been highly effective—until the campaign ended. It was Chrétien, not Ryan, with whom Trudeau consulted immediately about his plans to shatter the status quo in federal-provincial relations following a “no” vote. He told Chrétien that he was now determined about two goals: to patriate the Canadian Constitution and to create a Canadian charter of rights. But that was not what “reform” meant to Ryan and many others, including Trudeau’s major speechwriter for the referendum campaign, André Brunelle. They believed that another course—a radical redistribution of power by which many current federal power
s would devolve to the provinces—was the appealing notion that had won the soft nationalists over to the “no” side. In their view, the proposed charter, which would strengthen the authority of the federally appointed Supreme Court of Canada to determine political, economic, and cultural rights, would counter any movement toward decentralization or special status for Quebec. Chrétien realized that Trudeau’s plan meant a battle—and he was delighted.1

  Chrétien knew instinctively that he was facing the fight of his life. He and Ryan had parted on bad terms on referendum night, when Ryan, angered by an interview Chrétien had given earlier in the day, clung tightly to the microphone at the Verdun Auditorium and refused to let Chrétien speak to the crowd celebrating the victory. Their differences were not simply personal but also tactical, political, and intellectual. Neither Trudeau nor Chrétien accepted the argument that decentralization and the transfer of powers to the provinces and, especially, to Quebec were the essential promises made during the referendum campaign, and both had come to believe that Canada’s decentralization had gone much too far in the seventies. Trudeau had mocked Joe Clark’s claim that Canada was “a community of communities” and had begun to ask the key question, “Who speaks for Canada?” During the election campaign of 1980, Trudeau complained about Clark’s attitude and his “provincialism,” though he did not talk about constitutional change. He spoke often and passionately about the need for a more activist federal government to face the energy crisis, to deal with the economic challenges, and to realize, at last, a “just society.” These broader commitments profoundly affected the constitutional process, and they reflected Trudeau’s determination to act when he returned to office. He knew the bitter taste of losing power, and that knowledge made his victory in 1980 and his unexpected fourth term in government particularly sweet.

  Tom Axworthy, who became Trudeau’s senior policy adviser after the election and his principal secretary in 1981, recalls the different mood in Cabinet meetings that summer and fall: “We had a group of tigers. In field after field they wanted to get things done. The cautious and the naysayers were remarkably few. The sense of reborn liberalism affected virtually everyone.” For Trudeau the time in opposition had caused him to reflect on the things he had not done, as well as on how quickly the accomplishments he cherished had been reversed by the Clark government. And so he became “the raw demon of our government system.” The size of the PMO was reduced, as were the number of meetings and briefing books. On Trudeau’s orders his staff “pushed as much as possible out and kept as little as possible in.” The prime minister became even more disciplined, rigorously scheduling time for Justin, Sacha, and Michel and leaving most weekends free for his lively dating life with a variety of often talented and always attractive women. During the week his attention fastened with burning intensity on the issues that mattered most to him and, in particular, his legacy. He left to others the things that mattered less.2

  The areas where Trudeau concentrated his attention were the Constitution, the economy (in particular, the energy sector as part of an overall “industrial strategy”), and international affairs. His Cabinet reflected his personal commitments. As minister of justice, Chrétien held the constitutional file tightly to his chest, and his folksy candour and political common sense turned arid legalisms into matters of human concern. Chrétien’s political gifts were supplemented by the shrewd advice he received from his politically brilliant and perpetually ingenious young assistant Eddie Goldenberg, the son of Carl Goldenberg, who had advised Trudeau in 1968 on constitutional matters.

  In the aftermath of the second energy crisis, caused in 1979 by the seizure of American hostages in Iran, energy and economic policy were intimately linked. The Liberal platform for the 1980 election had trumpeted a new and fairer energy policy, and to lead on that file Trudeau turned to his most trusted colleague, Marc Lalonde, for Energy, Mines, and Resources. During the opposition period and the election campaign, Lalonde and the platform committee had created an ambitious energy policy. Lalonde drew on his long experience in Ottawa, beginning as an assistant to Conservative justice minister Davey Fulton in 1959 through service as Trudeau’s principal secretary in his first government to ministerial service in health, justice, and federal-provincial relations. A powerful presence who had delivered Trudeau’s smashing political victories in Quebec in 1979 and 1980, Lalonde, like Trudeau, had experienced too much equivocation in the past and was now eager for ambitious action.

  For the key role in Finance, Trudeau chose another political veteran, Allan MacEachen, who had first come to Ottawa in 1953 and had served in many ministries. His skills were mainly and exquisitely political, and in December 1979 they had saved Trudeau’s political life. MacEachen and Lalonde had developed a deep respect for each other’s abilities, and they, in turn, had Trudeau’s complete trust and considerable freedom to act independently.

  The same was not true of Mark MacGuigan, Trudeau’s surprising choice as minister of external affairs. A former dean of law, the earnest MacGuigan had known Trudeau since the sixties but had never held a Cabinet post since first being elected in 1968. A conservative in foreign relations with deep suspicions of Soviet communism, MacGuigan was, however, a liberal Catholic who shared Trudeau’s growing interest in international development issues—or what was then termed the Third World. Still, MacGuigan’s memoir of his tenure in foreign affairs makes clear the main reason for his appointment: Trudeau wanted to become deeply involved in foreign affairs himself. Whenever things got interesting, MacGuigan later recalled, “Trudeau pushed me out of his way.”3

  Few other ministers had that problem, as Trudeau focused intensely on the issues of deepest interest to him. John Roberts, the minister of the environment, for example, could not recall a single instance when Trudeau intervened or even spoke to him in any detail about his ministerial work. Roberts was one of several ministers in the new Cabinet who had considerable Ottawa experience—in his case as an MP between 1968 and 1972, a Trudeau aide between 1972 and 1974, and then as a minister in Trudeau’s third government. Others in the 1980 Cabinet who had worked closely with Trudeau in the past included Roméo Leblanc, the minister of fisheries, and Don Johnston, the secretary of the Treasury, who had been Trudeau’s personal lawyer. Showing his disregard for personal foibles, Trudeau appointed John Munro, who had resigned from the Cabinet because of an inappropriate call to a judge in 1978, as minister of Indian affairs and northern development; and Quebec MP Francis Fox, who had resigned after admitting that he had forged another man’s signature on an abortion permission document, as secretary of state and minister of communications. If Trudeau regarded such sins as venial, he made it very clear that disloyalty had become a cardinal infraction. John Reid and Judd Buchanan, two talented young former Ontario ministers who had opposed Trudeau’s return as leader, were not reappointed to the Cabinet table. The articulate and engaging Jean-Luc Pepin, who had annoyed Trudeau with his report on the Canadian federation, was too useful and popular to omit, however, and he was appointed as minister of transport—far away from the vital negotiations on the Constitution but close at hand for the important negotiations to end the archaic 1897 Crow’s Nest Pass Agreement, which had guaranteed lower prices for grain shipments and thereby caused the railways to spend less on equipment.

  Two able women, Monique Bégin and Judy Erola, became, respectively, minister of health and welfare and minister of state (mines). The West once again was weakly represented, with British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan each having a senator in Cabinet. Manitoba had stronger representation, with the highly promising newcomer Lloyd Axworthy, who became minister of employment and immigration. Although Axworthy had strong ties with John Turner, he was perceived, correctly, as a powerful voice on the Liberal left. He and his brother, Tom, were articulate western voices supporting the centralist and interventionist approaches of the new government. For most people, however, Axworthy was still an unknown. Those troubled about the leftward drift of the new govern
ment fastened on Herb Gray, the new minister of industry, trade and commerce, who had been dropped from Cabinet in 1974 but who was identified with such nationalist policies as the Foreign Investment Review Agency and the earlier “Gray Report,” which encouraged restrictions on foreign investment. His appointment upset the increasingly conservative Globe and Mail. Gray was, its editors declared, a politician of “admirable perseverance and tunnel vision,” who saw only economic nationalist nostrums. Gray would, as before, do his “discouraging best.”4

  The comment was unfair, and the Cabinet’s membership much stronger than the Globe and Mail would admit, as the future stellar careers of many of its members, including Herb Gray, confirm. The Globe, however, reflected the increasingly conservative mood of Bay Street, which was highly uncomfortable with Trudeau’s tilt toward the left. Although some informed commentators and Liberals, such as Don Johnston and Trudeau confidant journalist Ron Graham, minimize the “leftist” direction of the government, Trudeau’s private papers strongly argue the contrary case.5 Moreover, Johnston recalls how Gray, Axworthy, Bégin, Munro, and others fought regularly in Cabinet with the more conservative and business-oriented ministers such as himself, Judy Erola, Ed Lumley, and surprisingly and only occasionally, Allan MacEachen—and that the conservatives lost most of the fights.6 As Margaret Thatcher’s Tories began their assault on British trade unionism, entrenched state bureaucracies, and market regulation, and as Ronald Reagan’s Republicans stoked the embers of the Cold War and began an aggressive rebuilding of the American military, Canada under Trudeau stubbornly resisted this new Anglo-American consensus.