Just Watch Me

by John English

  1. Globe and Mail, Oct. 24, 1981; New York Times, Aug. 22, 1982.

  2. Davis is quoted in R. B. Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 1982 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 67. Trudeau, quoted in Montreal Gazette, Nov. 6, 1981. Trudeau interview with David Frost, Feb. 23, 1982, TP, MG 26 013, LAC.

  3. Keith Banting and Richard Simeon, And No One Cheered: Federalism, Democracy, and the Constitution Act (Toronto: Methuen, 1983); Eugene Forsey, Globe and Mail, Nov. 21, 1981.

  4. Judy Erola made her comment at my interview-meeting with former Trudeau ministers at Library and Archives Canada, Dec. 9, 2002, in response to my question about the success of the November meeting. Other ministers present did not contest her analysis. Trudeau’s embarrassing admission is found in Canada, House of Commons Debates (6 Dec. 1981). Chrétien’s comment is in his Straight from the Heart (1985; repr., Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2007), 189. See also Penney Kome, The Taking of Twenty-Eight: Women Challenge the Constitution (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1983), and F.L. Morton and Avril Allen, “Feminists and the Courts: Measuring Success in Interest Group Litigation in Canada,” Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 34 (2001): 55–84.

  5. Judy Steed, Ed Broadbent: The Pursuit of Power (1988; repr., Markham, Ont.: Penguin, 1989), 252.

  6. On the leak, see Toronto Star, Nov. 19, 1981. Lougheed’s family history is covered in Allan Hustak, Peter Lougheed: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 12. See also the biography of William Hardisty by Jennifer Brown in The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online: http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=5566&interval=25&&PHPSESSID=s1mgens3hav4bjusctlf220n02. The revision occurred in the Constitution, not the charter, and the implications have caused some debate.

  7. On Côté, see Pierre Godin, René Lévesque: L’Homme brisé (1980–1987) (Montréal: Boréal, 2005), 187–88. Chaps. 16 and 17 give a full account, based on extensive interviews. For a complementary account, which differs from Godin, particularly on Lévesque’s stability in this period, see the analysis by Lévesque’s aide Martine Tremblay: Derrière les portes closes: René Lévesque et l’exercice du pouvoir (1976–1985) (Montréal: Éditions Québec Amérique, 2006), 270–73. Constitutional adviser Claude Morin places the events in context in his Lendemains piégés: Du référendum à la nuit des longs couteaux (Montréal: Boréal, 1988), while Claude Charron describes his experiences in Désobéir (Montréal: VLB Éditeur, 1983). He describes the exchange between Trudeau and Lévesque. Trudeau speechwriter André Burelle was a strong critic of the course chosen by Trudeau, especially the acceptance of the notwithstanding clause. He nevertheless drafted the speeches to be given if the constitutional conference failed or if it succeeded. They are contained in his Pierre Elliott Trudeau: L’Intellectuel et la Politique (Montréal: Fides, 2005), 357–61. The reactions of Trudeau and Lévesque, as well as the celebratory air among non-Quebec premiers, are captured in a CBC archives clip: http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/constitution/topics/1092/.

  8. Journal des débats, Assemblée nationale, Nov. 9, 1981; Toronto Star, Dec. 3, 1981.

  9. The full text of the exchanges is found in Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 1981 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 79–85. It is also available, along with the Quebec National Assembly resolution, at http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/docs/patriate/index.htm.

  10. René Lévesque, Memoirs, trans. Philip Stratford (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1986), 24–25.

  11. Ibid., 325–26.

  12. Morin, Lendemains piégés, 301–2. The referendum options are discussed in Roy Romanow, Canada—Notwithstanding: The Making of the Constitution 1976–1982 (Toronto: Carswell/Methuen, 1984), 193–207.

  13. Montreal Gazette, Nov. 3, 1981; Globe and Mail, Nov. 3, 1981; Le Devoir, Nov. 6, 1981. Corinne Côté, Lévesque’s wife, would not greet Trudeau at the visitation. Trudeau at the visitation is described by Godin, Lévesque: L’Homme brisé, 532–33. Interview with Jacques Hébert, Aug. 2007.

  14. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Memoirs (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993); “Entrevue entre M. Trudeau et M. Lépine,” May 11, 1992, TP, MG 26 03, vol. 23, file 11, LAC; Cook to Trudeau, Nov. 8, 1981, and Trudeau to Cook, Nov. 30, 1981, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 3, file 20, LAC; Frank Scott to Trudeau, Dec. 11, 1981, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 11, file 23, LAC.

  15. Chrétien, Straight from the Heart, 187–88. Cook to Trudeau, Sept. 28, 1983, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 3, file 20, LAC. Cook made Trudeau’s point in his essay “Has the Quiet Revolution Finally Ended,” Queen’s Quarterly 90, no. 2 (summer 1983): 336. He enclosed the article in the letter. Mulroney’s attack on Trudeau is found throughout his memoirs, but his specific criticisms of the November 1981 agreement and its reception in Quebec by its politicians are found in Brian Mulroney, Memoirs 1939–1993 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2007), 511–14.

  16. “Entrevue entre M. Trudeau et M. Lépine,” May 11, 1992, TP, MG 26 03, vol. 23, file 11, LAC.

  17. Godin, L’Homme brisé. He quotes Romanow making the comment upon the death of Lévesque. The same quotation appears in Globe and Mail, Nov. 3, 1987, and he made a similar comment on November 5, 1981 (Globe and Mail, Nov. 6, 1981). Godin’s statement about their mutual significance is in his biography of Lévesque in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which is soon to appear on the website of Library and Archives Canada.

  18. This account draws on Ottawa Citizen, April 19, 1982; Globe and Mail, April 19–20, 1982; and Robert Sheppard and Michael Valpy, The National Deal: The Fight for a Canadian Constitution (Toronto: Fleet, 1982), 320–21, which gives a most ambivalent appraisal of the work of the premiers and Trudeau.

  19. The full polling results are given in Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1981, 139. Patrick Gossage, Close to the Charisma: My Years between the Press and Pierre Trudeau (Halifax: Goodread Biographies, 1987), 237–38.

  20. Monica Gaylord to Trudeau, June 13, 1982, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 5, file 5-2, LAC.

  21. Interview with Justin Trudeau, Aug. 2007. Interview with Gale Zoë Garnett, April 2008. Justin’s young friend is Shauna Hardy—quoted in Nancy Southam, ed., Pierre: Colleagues and Friends Talk about the Trudeau They Knew (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2005), 301–2. Sociologist Annette Lareau has called this stage of development in a child’s life an atmosphere of “concerted cultivation”: see Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). I was drawn to this work by reading Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), chap. 4.

  22. Margaret Trudeau, Consequences (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982), 134, 175–76. Interviews with Margaret Trudeau, Jane Faulkner, Justin Trudeau, Alexandre Trudeau, and confidential interviews.

  23. Ibid.; and Trudeau, Consequences, 177.

  24. Boutros-Ghali’s story is also found in Southam, ed., Pierre, 303. The superb account of the visit to Saudi Arabia is written by Norman Webster and is in Globe and Mail, Nov. 20, 1980. On the special seats, see the comments by Justin’s friend Jeff Gillin in Southam, ed., Pierre, 312.

  25. Trudeau, Consequences, 78–79. Conversation with Marc Lalonde.

  26. Trudeau, Consequences, 80; Allan Gotlieb, The Washington Diaries: 1981–1989 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2006), 263–64; conversations with Jacques Roy and Paul Heinbecker. This general description of Trudeau’s many intimate women friends is drawn from the correspondence, which is found in many files in TP, MG 26 020, LAC.

  27. Kidder to Trudeau, March 30, 1983, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 6, file 7.3, LAC; Trudeau to Garnett, Christmas 1981, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 4, file 4.2, LAC; and Garnett to Trudeau, Feb. 3 and Feb. 9, 1981, ibid.

  28. Garnett to Trudeau, June 12, June 14, and Nov. 9, 1981, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 4, file 44, LAC.

  29. Trudeau to Garnett, Christmas 1982; Garnett to Trudeau, Sept. 23, 1982, and May 30 and July 9, 1983 (emphasis in original quotations). Inter
view with Gale Zoë Garnett, Sept. 2008.

  30. Embassy, Athens, to External Affairs, June 22, 1983, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 4, file 44, LAC; External Affairs to Embassy, Athens, June 22, 1983, ibid.; Garnett to Trudeau, May 30 and June 3, 1983, ibid. Interview with Garnett, ibid.

  31. Garnett to Trudeau, June 29, 1982, ibid.

  32. Volcker is quoted in Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy (New York: Touchstone Books, 2002), 348.

  33. Canada, House of Commons Debates (12 Nov. 1981). An excellent summary of the budget and, in particular, of the lobbying effort is found in Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1981, 255–65. In his study The Welfare State and Canadian Federalism (Kingston and Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1982), Keith Banting traces income security payments per capita and indicates how such payments became an increasingly important component of personal income. For example, in 1964 such payments made up 15.5 percent of total personal income in Newfoundland. By 1978 such payments were 29.4 percent. In MacEachen’s Nova Scotia, they had risen from 12.2 to 18.4 percent; in New Brunswick, from 13.3 to 20.9 percent; and in Quebec they grew from only 8.95 to 16.5 percent. Alberta grew only from 9.1 to 10.7 percent and Ontario from 6.9 to 10.8 percent. In these figures reside many political explanations (100–101).

  34. Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1981, 108–9; Ian Stewart, “Global Transformation and Economic Policy,” in Axworthy and Trudeau, eds., Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years (Markham, Ont.: Viking, 1990), 166. See also the essays by Marc Lalonde and Joel Bell in this collection.

  35. Comment made at Rideau Club luncheon on Trudeau, April 8, 2009. Several other Trudeau-era officials did not disagree with Mme Bégin’s statement.

  36. Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan attacked MacEachen in a public address. Trudeau, in Whelan’s words, “took me aside and said, ‘You can say anything you like about the banks, but leave MacEachen out of it. He’s one of us.” Eugene Whelan with Rick Archbold, Whelan: The Man in the Green Stetson (Toronto: Irwin, 1986), 228. Whelan takes many shots at his Cabinet colleagues whom he perceived as less progressive, notably Don Johnston.

  37. Interview with Marshall Crowe, Jan. 2008. Michael Bliss, Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Mulroney (Toronto: Harper Perennial 1995), 271. Bliss’s fuller comments on the problems of the NEP from the perspective of the Canadian business community are found in Northern Business: Five Centuries of Canadian Business (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987), 541.

  38. The Gallagher discussion is in a series of rough notes from the Dec. 1, 1980, meeting found in TP, MG 26, vol. 265, file 1, LAC. The Trudeau and Lalonde speeches are described in Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review 1981, 318.

  39. Alonzo Hamby, a historian of American liberalism, points out that in the seventies, “Nixon’s neo-conservatism had hardly gotten beyond resentment of the New Class [bureaucrats and technocrats] and the practice of social politics,” but “Reagan’s was much more comprehensive in its programmatic definition, highly developed in its ideological base, and determined in its objectives.” See Hamby, Liberalism and Its Challengers: F.D.R. to Reagan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 353.

  40. Marc Lalonde, “Riding the Storm: Energy Policy,” in Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years, ed. Thomas S. Axworthy and Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Markham, Ont.: Viking, 1990), 114–19. Figures on the sovereign wealth funds are from http://www.swfinstitute.org/fund/alberta.php. The figures for the Norwegian fund at the end of 2008 are US$301 billion, compared with US$14.9 billion for Alberta.

  41. G. Bruce Doern, “The Mega-Project Episode and the Formulation of Canadian Economic Development Policy,” Canadian Public Administration 26, no. 2 (summer 1993): 223. Doern’s major work was written with Glen Toner: The Politics of Energy: The Development and Implementation of the NEP (Toronto: Methuen, 1985). There is also much valuable commentary in Timothy Lewis, In the Long Run We’re All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), especially pages 75ff.

  42. According to Dr. Richard Bird, in the period from 1959 to 1977 the provinces accounted for most of the growth of expenditures on a National Account basis. Specifically, the provinces accounted for 41 percent of growth, while local government accounted for 26 percent and the federal government only 12 percent. However, much of the provincial growth came from provinces responding to shared-cost programs encouraged by the federal government, notably medicare. There was a reversal between 1977 and 1986, according to J.H. Perry, which saw the federal proportion stand at 53 percent, the provinces at 47 percent, and an actual decline at the local level. Richard Bird, Financing Canadian Government: A Quantitative Overview (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1979), 20–32; J.H. Perry, A Fiscal History of Canada: The Postwar Years (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 1989), 419.

  43. Kenneth Norrie and Douglas Owram, A History of the Canadian Economy (Toronto: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991), 606.

  44. Clarence Barber and John McCallum, Controlling Inflation: Learning from Experience in Canada, Europe, and Japan (Ottawa: Canadian Institute for Economic Policy, 1982), 109.

  45. Monica Gaylord to Trudeau, Sept. 11, 1982, TP, MG 26 020, vol. 5, file 5.2, LAC; Lewis, In the Long Run, 78–80.

  46. “Prime Minister’s Address to the Nation on the Economy,” June 28, 1983, MG 32, Family Papers of Maurice Sauvé fonds B-4, vol. 132, LAC.

  47. The quotation about policy is found in the best account of the fall of Clark and the rise of Mulroney: Patrick Martin, Allan Gregg, and George Perlin, Contenders: The Tory Quest for Power (Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), 92. This well-informed account draws on the polling data of Allan Gregg, who was a leading Conservative pollster. Mulroney published a campaign policy statement where he spoke about special status and other policy positions: Where I Stand (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1983).

  48. The figures on Gross Health Expenditures are from Perry, Fiscal History of Canada, 648. On the background of the Canada Health Act, see ibid., 655–58, and R.B. Byers, ed., Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs 1983 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), 23–24.

  49. Globe and Mail, Dec. 15, 1983.

  50. The best account of the party during this period is found in Stephen Clarkson, The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005), which illustrates how the conservative and young Grindstone Group, created by a group of Liberal dissidents, played an increasingly important role in the eighties.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: PEACE AT LAST

  1. Robert Bothwell, Alliance and Illusion: Canada and the World, 1945–1984 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007), 277.

  2. The best accounts of Trudeau’s early approaches to foreign policy can be found in Bothwell, ibid., and a contemporary book by Peter Dobell, a former External Affairs officer. Dobell wrote the aptly titled Canada’s Search for New Roles: Foreign Policy in the Trudeau Era (London: Published for the Royal Institute of International Affairs by Oxford University Press, 1972). He undertook to write the book when he believed that Trudeau was fundamentally altering the directions of Canadian foreign policy. He was particularly disturbed by a statement concerning Trudeau’s approach that he believed rejected too decisively the Pearsonian tradition—and was startled to learn that amongst its authors were two friends and young foreign affairs officers, Max Yalden and Allan Gotlieb. Conversation with Peter Dobell, April 2008.

  3. Granatstein, quoted in John Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review for 1968 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 249. In his essay “All Things to All Men: Triservice Unification,” in An Independent Foreign Policy for Canada?, ed. Stephen Clarkson (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1968), Granatstein writes, “To this observer, unification [of the armed forces] regrettably does not seem to imply Canadian withdrawal from NATO” (137).

  4. Cabinet Conclu
sions, RG2, PCO, Series A-5-a, vol. 6340, March 29, 1969, LAC; Canada, House of Commons Debates (24 Oct. 1969); interview with Marshall Crowe, Jan. 2009.

  5. Trudeau, quoted in John Saywell, ed., Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs 1971 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972), 258. See a slightly different version in Leigh Sarty, “A Handshake across the Pole: Canadian Soviet Relations during the Era of Détente,” in Canada and the Soviet Experiment: Essays on Canadian Encounters with Russia and the Soviet Union, 1900–1991, ed. David Davies (Waterloo: Centre on Foreign Policy and Federalism, 1991), 124–26.

  6. Ivan Head and Pierre Trudeau, The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada’s Foreign Policy, 1968–1984 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995).

  7. Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), 378. Harald Von Riekhoff, “The Impact of Prime Minister Trudeau on Foreign Policy,” International Journal 33 (spring 1978): 267–86.

  8. For the argument for Canadian successes in specific areas, see David Dewitt and John Kirton, Canada as a Principal Power: A Study in Foreign Policy and International Relations (Toronto: Wiley, 1983). The standard study of Trudeau’s foreign policy, J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell, Pirouette: Pierre Trudeau and Canadian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), is more critical but does acknowledge Canada’s successful promotion of its interests in the seventies.

  9. Brzezinski’s advice is in Brzezinski file, NSA, Canada 2.21-23-77, box 5, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. The toasts are found in Staff Offices, box 1, file 2.21.77, Visit Prime Minister Trudeau, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. Carter writes in his memoirs: “Shortly after arriving [at the 1980 summit] I had an unbelievable meeting with Helmut Schmidt … ranting and raving about a letter that I had written him which was a well-advised message. He claimed that he was insulted.” Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam, 1981), 536–37.