by John English
7. On Lavoie, see Le Devoir, June 14, 1977. On Horner’s wooing, see Davey, Rainmaker, 215ff. Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1977, 35–36. Globe and Mail, April 21, 1977.
8. Globe and Mail, May 25, 27, 1977.
9. Patrick Gossage, Close to the Charisma: My Years between the Press and Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Halifax: Goodread Biographies, 1987), 78, 82; Times (London), May 6, 1977. Paul Martin’s diary indicates that Trudeau was upset during the trip because of his marital difficulties; still, he wanted to meet British intellectuals and others who could help him with problems of the economy (Paul Martin, The London Diaries, 1975–1979 [Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988], 248ff.). The Times did not take note of Trudeau’s pirouette, although it appeared on the front pages of Canadian newspapers.
10. Judith Maxwell, Policy Review and Outlook, 1977: An Agenda for Change (Montreal: C.D. Howe Research Institute, 1977), 27. The comment on 1976 is in J.H. Perry, A Fiscal History of Canada—The Postwar Years (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1989), 82.
11. Martin, London Diaries, 253, 269; Colin Kenny in Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 88–89. On Pepin-Robarts, McDonald, and Atomic Energy of Canada, see Globe and Mail, July 5–9. Interview with Gerry Robinson, July 2008.
12. Martin, London Diaries, 281.
13. Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 89–90. Alain Stanké was given several interviews with Trudeau, which were telecast in 1977. He published a partial transcript, Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Portrait intime (St. Léonard: Alain Stanké, 1977).
14. Davey, Rainmaker, 220. Davey undermines his argument by telling a joke about caucus: “What do you call a group of geese? A flock. What do you call a group of cows? A herd. What do you call a group of doves? A caucus,” ibid. Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 89–90. Hugh Winsor gave a full analysis of the reasons and rumours surrounding the decision about an election in Globe and Mail, Aug. 31, 1977. Richard Gwyn makes the argument that Lévesque won the first engagement with Trudeau through the Charter of the French Language, which was popular in Quebec, and thereafter Trudeau feared an election where language issues would predominate. Although the Cabinet discussions reportedly reveal resentment of the charter and include comments about the danger of running an election on bilingualism alone, the language issue is but one of several factors the ministers considered. The sources of Gywn’s Cabinet conclusions are not available after 1976. Richard Gwyn, The Northern Magus: Pierre Trudeau and Canadians (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1980), 246ff.
15. Trudeau to McLuhan, July 25, 1977, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 9, file 9-8, LAC; D’Iberville Fortier to Trudeau, May 30, 1977; and Trudeau to Fortier, July 8, 1977, ibid., vol. 4.
16. Jim Coutts, “Trudeau in Power: A View from inside the Prime Minister’s Office,” in Trudeau’s Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, ed. Andrew Cohen and J.L. Granatstein (Toronto: Random House, 1998), 149.
17. Polls and discussion of the Cabinet shuffle are found in Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1977, 31–39. On Allmand, see Globe and Mail, Sept. 17, 1977.
18. When Trudeau spoke with Martin on June 16, he said that Macdonald, his best minister, would probably leave politics. Martin told him that he was not giving ministers the “fullest opportunity to become personalities in their own right.” Martin, London Diaries, 270. Bouey’s warning is reported in Globe and Mail, Sept. 17, 1977. For a discussion of the value of the Canadian dollar, see Financial Post, Oct. 14 and Oct. 24, 1977.
19. Bégin is quoted in Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1977, 26–27; Hugessen in Montreal Gazette, Dec. 10, 1977.
20. Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 93.
21. George Radwanski, Trudeau (Toronto: Macmillan, 1978), Author’s Note and chap. 1.
22. Ibid., 213–14.
23. Ibid., 345–55. Ramsay Cook, “‘I never thought I could be as proud … ’: The Trudeau-Lévesque Debate,” in Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, ed. Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Markham, Ont.: Viking, 1990), 343–44.
24. Trudeau, Memoirs, 250.
25. For a critical assessment of the change, see Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 382. See also Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1977, 110–11, and Canada, House of Commons Debates (15 Feb. 1977). Pickersgill made the comments many times to me personally in the late eighties and early nineties, when he broke strongly with Trudeau. Keith Banting points out that federal systems have a “conservative” influence on the expansion of welfare programs, although this influence was broken by the war years and by the development of a “bifurcated” welfare system in Canada, where health remained with the provinces and income security with the federal government. The Welfare State and Canadian Federalism (Kingston and Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1982), 173–74.
26. Gordon Robertson, Memoirs of a Very Civil Servant: Mackenzie King to Pierre Trudeau (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 292–93; Le Devoir, Nov. 25, 1977; Globe and Mail, Nov. 29, 1977. Trudeau was able to announce the Quebec members of the task force only in late August: journalist Solange Chaput-Rolland and constitutional lawyer Gérald Beaudoin, who later became a Conservative senator.
27. The description of the premiers’ conference and the letters between Trudeau and Lévesque are found in Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1977, 90–101. For a critical review of the letters, see Gwyn, Northern Magus, 248–49. Trudeau had worked with Dumont, a major figure in Quebec intellectual life, in the fifties.
28. Globe and Mail, Oct. 7, 1977.
29. Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 109–17.
30. Pierre Bouchard and Sylvie Beauchamp-Achim, Le Français: Langue des commerces et des services publics—Le point de vue de la clientèle, Dossier du Conseil de la langue française no. 5 (Québec: Conseil de la langue française, 1978); Pierre O’ Neill and Jacques Benjamin, Les Mandarins du pouvoir: L’Exercice du pouvoir au Québec de Jean Lesage à René Lévesque (Montréal: Éditions Québec Amérique, 1978), 193. By 1978 the provincial and federal Liberals had markedly different attitudes on the language issue. The Trudeau government’s decision not to refer Quebec’s Bill 101 to the Supreme Court was based on several studies that indicated the considerable sympathy among francophones in Quebec for the language legislation. The studies also reveal a split between anglophone Liberal politicians in Quebec and their counterparts in other provinces who were not as passionate in their opposition. See, for example, David Rayside, “Federalism and the Party System: Provincial and Federal Liberals in the Province of Quebec,” Canadian Journal of Political Science (Sept. 1978): 499–528.
31. The story is related in Gwyn, Northern Magus, 249. Gossage does not report it in his diary. Gossage notes only that he had “drinks” with journalists and others. Nor is the story mentioned in any press accounts of the time. However, the spirit is surely accurate even if the tale may be a bit tall.
32. Martin, London Diaries, 346–47.
33. Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 124–26, reports on the unexpected booing and the decision to hold off. For the picture of Justin and Sacha, see Globe and Mail, April 24, 1978. For the McLuhan portrait, see TP, MG 26 020, vol. 8, file 9-29, LAC.
34. Consul General, New York, to Ottawa, March 27, 1978, RG25, vol. 9246, file 20-CDA-9-Trudeau-USA (6), LAC; New York Times, March 23, 1978.
35. New York Times, March 23, 1978; Davey, Rainmaker, 233–34; and Trudeau to Schmidt, with comments, Archiv der soziale Demokratie, Dep. HS, Mappe 8807.
36. Robert Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits. Revised edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987). The rating and the description are found in Peter Hajnal, The G8 System and the G20: Evolution, Role and Documentation (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), 55.
37. “Notes for a Toast to be Proposed by the Prime Minister at Chancellor Schmidt’s Dinner in His Honour, July 18, 1978, Archiv der soz
iale Demokratie, Dep. HS, Mappe 8807. Fred Bergsten of the Institute of International Economics has also pointed to the Bonn Summit as a model for economic convergence: http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?ResearchID=275.
38. Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 144; Toronto Star, Aug. 2, 1978. Fotheringham, in Maclean’s, Sept. 18, 1978, 68. In his Memoirs, Trudeau claims that he called Chrétien before he announced the measures (199–200), but Edward Goldenberg denies this in The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2006), 118–19, as did Chrétien in a conversation with me. Goldenberg suggested to me that Chrétien may have been deliberately excluded because of PMO fear that he would oppose the actions. Keith Davey indicates that in addition to himself, Jim Coutts, Michael Pitfield, Marc Lalonde, and Allan MacEachen were part of the “exercise” (Rainmaker, 234).
39. Observer, March 30, 1978; Sandra Gwyn, “Where Are You, Mike Pearson, Now That We Need You? Decline and Fall of Canada’s Foreign Policy,” Saturday Night, April 1978, 27–35; and Anne-Marie Mosey, “The Canadian Foreign Service in the 21st Century,” NPSIA Occasional Paper No. 45, Jan. 2005, http://www.carleton.ca/csds/occasional_papers/NPSIA-45.pdf. Enders’ comment is found in the briefing book for President Carter for the Trudeau visit in February 1977. Brzezinski Materials, NSA VIP file, Canada PM Trudeau Briefing Book, Feb. 1977, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
40. On Canada and India and the nuclear relationship, see Ryan Touhey, Dealing with the Peacock: India and Canadian Foreign Policy. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Waterloo, 2007. Carter conversation in Washington Embassy to Ottawa, Feb. 21, 1977, RG25, vol. 9246, file 20-CDA-9-Trudeau-USA, LAC. On India’s opinion on exploding the atomic device, see New Delhi to Ottawa, June 11, 1974, ibid., file 23-1-India.
41. The speech is found in Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Lifting the Shadow of War, ed. C. David Crenna (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1987), 25–38.
42. Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007), 283–84. The academic criticism is found in Trevor Findlay, “Canada and the Nuclear Club,” in Jean Daudelin and Daniel Schwanen, eds., Canada among Nations 2007: What Room for Manoeuvre? (Montreal and Kingston: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2008), 204–206. Toronto Star and Le Devoir, May 27, 1978; Geoffrey Stevens, “A Pretentious Speech,” Globe and Mail, May 30, 1978.
43. On the respect for Trudeau, see Ivan Head and Pierre Trudeau, The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada’s Foreign Policy, 1968–1984 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995), 303. Ivan Head to John O’Manique, Norman Paterson School, April 17 and June 4, 1979, and O’Manique to Head, May 7, 1979 (copies given to me by Head); Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion, 303.
44. “Transcript of the Prime Minister’s Press Conference-Ottawa-May 23, 1978,” PMO, RG2-19c, vol. 2736, LAC.
45. Davey, Rainmaker, 234–35; Gossage, Close to the Charisma, 151 (report on interpretations in the press); Toronto Star, Oct. 17, 1978; and Alastair Gillespie, “Made in Canada,” draft manuscript courtesy of the author.
46. Gillespie, “Made in Canada;” interview with Alastair Gillespie, May 2008; and interviews with Richard O’Hagan, Jim Coutts, Donald Macdonald, and Richard Stanbury. In an earlier article, I claimed that John Turner was responsible for the newsletters issued by his firm, McMillan Binch, but he responded that his partner William Macdonald was the author. However, simply because of his presence in the firm and the information conveyed in the newsletters, Turner was inevitably associated with these articles. Paul Litt, draft biography of John Turner, chap. 12. Don McGillivray, in Ottawa Citizen, Aug. 25, 1978. Marie Josée Drouin and B. Bruce-Briggs, Canada Has a Future (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978), 44. Mme Drouin had close ties with senior Liberals. She later became associated with neo-conservatives through her marriage to Wall Street businessman Henry Kravis.
47. For Latouche’s comment and the description of the success of the PQ government, see Martine Tremblay, Derrière les portes closes: René Lévesque et l’exercice du pouvoir (1976–1985) (Montréal: Québec Amérique, 2006), 199–200.
48. Lévesque is quoted in Globe and Mail, Jan. 26, 1979. Interview with Mary Pepin, Aug. 2007. Forsey’s comments are found in Toronto Star, July 21, 1978; Diefenbaker’s are in Toronto Star, July 12, 1978. I owe these references to Matthew Stubbings, “The Defeat of Bill C-60.” Paper for History 602, University of Waterloo (winter 2009).
49. The report on the Constitutional conference is in R.B. Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 1979 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 88ff.
50. Davey to “All Liberal Candidates,” March 29, 1979, Keith Davey Fonds, box 22, file 13, Victoria University Archives; Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1979; interviews with participants.
51. I was present at the Kitchener event, where I met Trudeau for the first time. B.W. Powe, Mystic Trudeau: The Fire and the Rose (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2007), 142.
52. Quotation in Trudeau Albums, Karen Alliston, Rick Archbold, Jennifer Glossop, Alison Maclean, Ivon Owen, eds. (Toronto: Penguin, 2000), 112. On election night, see Davey, Rainmaker, 242.
Election results 1979:
Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 1979, 43–45
Federal Seat Distribution
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE FALL OF PIERRE TRUDEAU
1. The remarks on election night are found in Globe and Mail, May 24, 1979; Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1979; and Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1979. The quotation about the picnic is from Margaret Trudeau, Beyond Reason (New York and London: Paddington Press, 1979), 201. Much of the following section derives from interviews with family members and friends. Margaret Trudeau also gave an extended interview about her reaction to the changed circumstances and the Studio 54 interview to Celeste Fremon, “Margaret Trudeau,” Playgirl, Sept. 1979, 116.
2. Trudeau, Beyond Reason, 201–2. Interview with Jane and Hugh Faulkner, Aug. 2008. Margaret says that after the separation, her “relationship with the children and with Pierre was growing more healthy by the week. My independence and my attempts to work were giving me a far more balanced attitude to motherhood,” ibid., 195.
3. The comments occurred at a meeting with several Trudeau assistants and other aides at the National Archives of Canada, March 17, 2003, which I organized and recorded.
4. Heidi Bennet tells this story in Nancy Southam, ed., Pierre: Colleagues and Friends Talk about the Trudeau They Knew (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005), 158–59.
5. The wonderful account of their time as nannies is found in ibid., 151–58. The story of the swimming pool is Kimberley-Kemper’s account (153).
6. Interview with Alexandre Trudeau, June 2009.
7. Interview with Alastair Gillespie, July 2008.
8. Harrington Lake is described in Southam, Pierre, 151–52; Bennet’s words: ibid., 159–60. In their biography of Trudeau, Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall report one particular incident involving the staff and Margaret after the election defeat of May 22, 1979. Margaret was holding “an impromptu farewell” for staff and was urging two of the Mounties to throw Trudeau into the pool. He resisted and clung to the door, but their brute force won and Trudeau was thrown, clothes and all, into the drink. They cite a confidential source. Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, The Magnificent Obsession, vol. 1 of Trudeau and Our Times (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990), 146. Interview with Patrick Gossage, June 2009.
9. Montreal Star, June 5, 1979. I would like to thank the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin and Sheila Martin for permitting me to “walk through” 24 Sussex Drive and the Hon. Bill Graham and Kathy Graham for allowing me to do the same at Stornoway. The descriptions reflect my own personal preferences as well as some comments from former residents of both places. Interview with Justin Trudeau, Sept. 2007. Justin said the children loved 24 Sussex, even though their mother did not.
10. Liona Boyd, In My Own Key: My Life in Love and Music (Toronto: Stoddart, 1998), 137–39.
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br /> 11. Ibid., 138–40; Trudeau to Boyd, Nov. 17, 1976, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 2, file 40, LAC. Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Paul Martin, who accompanied Callaghan, complained bitterly in his diary about the poor press coverage for Callaghan. Boyd similarly wondered why the press did not notice her presence at so many events. Paul Martin, The London Diaries: 1975–1979 (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1988), 168–70.
12. Boyd, In My Own Key, 143–44, 214–15; interview with Arthur Erickson, Sept. 2007. Confidential interviews revealed that the Trudeau family and close friends were very angry with Boyd’s account, which they told me they regarded as unfair to both Margaret and Pierre, and at times inaccurate.
13. Boyd, In My Own Key, 138ff.; confidential interviews.
14. Keith Davey, The Rainmaker: A Passion for Politics (Toronto: Stoddart, 1986), 211. Davey says that Bennett was a friend of Margaret Trudeau. However, in a later comment, Bennett wrote that she and Trudeau had met in 1968 at the annual St. Mary’s Ball in Montreal, at which Trudeau was the guest of honour. He “charmed” Bennett “with his boyish smile and wouldn’t let me go, saying, ‘Don’t stop. Let’s keep dancing.’ We were so intent on each other’s sparkly eyes that no one dared cut in. I felt giddy and free as we danced and flirted.” They felt an “immediate connection.” Southam, Pierre, 252.
15. See Jane O’Hara, “Heady Day,” Maclean’s, April 6, 1998, 30, for Margaret’s comments on the separation agreement. See also Trudeau, Beyond Reason, 193, on the black eye and the “intolerable” description.
16. On the suits at Studio 267, see Albert Morton to Trudeau, bills dated June 1981, and letters of Nov. 26 and July 16, 1983, TP, MG2 6 020, vol. 9, file 9-3, LAC. The Margot Kidder interview and Kidder comments are in Southam, Pierre, 255. Trudeau’s papers reveal that he maintained warm relationships with many women while he was married to Margaret. He had a diverse list of female correspondents, and many continued to write. Although none of the letters indicate any impropriety, his salutations were often very warm.