Just Watch Me

by John English

  The October Crisis became the watershed for Trudeau’s supporters and opponents, and his words—“just watch me,” “bleeding hearts,” and “go on and bleed”—became texts for future debates. In 1971 political scientist Denis Smith published a polemic against the federal and Quebec governments’ policies during the crisis with the title Bleeding Hearts, Bleeding Country. But Trudeau never wavered from his belief that his decisiveness in the midst of the chaos of October 1970 had halted a freefall toward violent anarchy in Quebec. In a revealing interview later in the seventies, he said that René Lévesque and Claude Ryan’s demand that he free the “political prisoners,” “bargain with the FLQ and give in to them,” and their assertion that “democratic support for a democratically elected government was crumbling,” had worried him no end. “To my dying day,” he predicted, “I’ll think that’s where the turning point lay.” For Trudeau it was “the dying shame of very eminent people in Quebec to … [have signed] that manifesto.”4

  Despite this conviction, Trudeau and his advisers were concerned about the effect the October Crisis might have on his popularity. Even as British trade commissioner James Cross remained a hostage, they arranged for the prime minister to attend the great national sports event, the Grey Cup, to be held in Toronto in late November. They also worried that Trudeau’s exasperation with leading francophone intellectuals and journalists would spill over to their anglophone counterparts, who had been key to his political success. Inevitably, their affection had begun to wane, but now some of them were angry. At the prime minister’s request, PMO staffer Tim Porteous therefore asked historian Ramsay Cook to invite some Toronto intellectuals and opinion leaders to his home after the game so Trudeau could discuss the crisis.

  The arrangements carried through according to plan. When Trudeau arrived in the football stadium in the late afternoon on November 28, he startled the Toronto crowd and the millions watching on national television by wearing a sweeping black cape with an exquisitely stylish slouch black hat.* In the morning papers the next day, his carefully staged appearance had captured more headlines than the Grey Cup game itself. After the event, he proceeded on to Ramsay Cook’s house just before nine o’clock, accompanied by full security and determined to justify his actions. The twelve guests divided evenly on support or opposition to the government’s actions, but there was a peculiar tension in the air. The RCMP officers checked Ken McNaught’s parcel of Dinky Toys for Cook’s kids as though the eminent historian had brought a bomb. Trudeau stayed into the early morning, jousting with the others, clearly annoyed and disappointed with the conversation. Eli Mandel, the professor-bard from York University, later wrote a poem about the evening that captured some of its ambiguities:

  if the revolution was about to occur

  would the people of Quebec rise up

  the people of Quebec would rise up

  therefore the revolution was about to occur

  wrong again

  Cook, too, was ambivalent, trusting Trudeau but listening to his critics’ complaints. Yet A.R.M. Lower, a founder of the Canadian Civil Liberties Union who had supervised Cook’s M.A. thesis, firmly supported Trudeau’s actions. So did the McGill law professor Frank Scott, who had been the foremost advocate of civil liberties before the Supreme Court of Canada. Both men accepted Trudeau’s argument that a democratic government must govern, “which means never giving in to chaos or terror.” Lower deplored the condemnation flung Trudeau’s way by the Toronto branch of the Civil Liberties Union. “I think Trudeau acted rightly,” he wrote to a friend. “There is no use in being sentimental in such situations, as so many well-intentioned people are.”5 Trudeau strongly agreed.

  Robert Bourassa had also abhorred the Ryan-Lévesque petition, but Trudeau and his closest colleagues thought—perhaps erroneously—that Bourassa had been “weak.” Trudeau later wrote that the October Crisis taught him “that it is absolutely essential to have, at the helm of state, a very firm hand, one that sets a course that never alters, that does not attempt to do everything at once out of excitement or confusion, but that moves along slowly, step by step, putting solutions in place.”6 According to that standard, Bourassa earned a mediocre mark.* Cartoonists in Quebec and the rest of Canada increasingly shared these perceptions as they endowed the reed-like, bespectacled Bourassa with ever more mouse-like qualities. Trudeau, in contrast, acquired a strong masculinity. Although shorter in height than Bourassa, and older, Trudeau’s cartoon image bore the flavour of the young Marlon Brando and Jean-Paul Belmondo, the brilliant French New Wave actor who played the mec so memorably in sixties cinema. Like them, Trudeau was the tough guy, cool, laid back, savvy, surly, and hard. It was an image he cultivated expertly and deliberately.

  Trudeau is the only politician included in Mondo Canuck, a history of Canadian “pop culture.” The authors introduce the chapter on the Trudeau phenomenon, “Pierre Trudeau’s Rule of Cool,” with his defining words, “Just watch me.” The “effortlessly charismatic” Trudeau, for whom “sexuality was as important as policy,” was celebrated in this tome for the manner in which he “turned the country into spectacle itself, the glamorous movie it had only ever dreamed of becoming, with Pierre elite Trudeau both its director and star.” He was, unlike Bourassa, always in control.7

  In the manifesto read over the airwaves in the early days of the October Crisis, the FLQ had mocked Trudeau’s authority and masculinity and called on various forces to overthrow his tottering and feckless rule. The terrorists’ aim was to weaken political authority, particularly Trudeau’s, but the tactic didn’t work. After the crisis radical separatists hurled jeremiads at Trudeau, deeming him a fascist, an authoritarian with a profoundly malignant strength. Bourassa, in contrast, retained the image of timidity that had gathered around him. Quebec Cabinet minister William Tetley, who admired Bourassa for his role in the crisis, wrote in December 1970 that Bourassa was “worrying about being called weak.” Tetley believed the premier had been a wise pragmatist, but he was not Trudeau, who was “flexible and strong when necessary” and “can take decisions.”8

  Pierre Vallières, the FLQ’s most prominent ideologue, reflected the image of Trudeau as a strong and decisive leader in L’Urgence de choisir, which he published in 1971.9 In this book Vallières did not reject the violence of the FLQ past but, in an interesting twist, declared that Trudeau’s ruthless state terrorist tactics meant that he and his FLQ colleagues should abandon violence and, instead, support the democratic ambitions of René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois. Vallières’ comments probably reflected and influenced the thoughts of others—and, indeed, the bombs did give way to ballots. Although Trudeau’s actions during the October Crisis lost him support not only among intellectuals but also among the young, the image of the strong, decisive leader became a political asset of lasting value.*

  Trudeau’s popularity in public opinion polls, if not with opinion leaders in general, had soared in the aftermath of Laporte’s brutal death. An Ottawa Citizen cartoon captured the paradox of Trudeau’s political persona: on one side, a jaunty, beret-wearing Trudeau with a red rose in his teeth and a large “flower power” button; on the other, a military-helmet-wearing Trudeau with a bayonet between his teeth and a medal stating “War Measure Power.” Trudeau had created this duality himself in the 1968 election campaign, when “puckering” and jackknife dives existed alongside his steely determination before the violent separatists on election eve in Montreal.10

  The paradox persisted for the rest of Trudeau’s life. Although the “hard edge” won him respect, his distinctive style was sometimes careless and politically damaging. Indeed, his popularity began to wane soon after Cross’s release as other issues emerged in late 1970, and Trudeau’s “tough guy” demeanour increasingly frustrated the press and troubled his own supporters. With young people, personal staff, and Commons visitors from MPs’ constituencies, his personal charm won him enduring affection, but more and more, these excellent human qualities were largely concealed from th
e general public. And in the House of Commons and with the press, Trudeau could be downright contemptuous and dismissive. In his first term, his combative side often gave his critics considerable ammunition—and justifiably so in several cases. On the genocide in Biafra—the first such tragedy to be widely and painfully televised—he was too quickly dismissive of the emotions of those who demanded direct aid. With western farmers, he was simply unable to show empathy. And after meeting with their leaders, he famously told “les gars de Lapalme” (450 striking truck drivers who had lost a Canada Post contract) to “eat shit.” Accompanying “les gars” was Pierre Vadeboncoeur, his closest friend throughout his schooldays. Trudeau never even looked at him, Vadeboncoeur told a reporter: “It was as if, for him, I no longer existed.”11

  Trudeau’s anger could explode irresponsibly in the House of Commons, as it did on February 16, 1971, when he sneeringly brushed off Conservative MP John Lundrigan’s demand for expanded unemployment insurance. Lundrigan rushed from the House to waiting television cameras. “The prime minister interrupted me by mouthing a four-letter obscenity,” he complained earnestly. “I didn’t expect this kind of behaviour from my prime minister of Canada.” Lundrigan had a reputation as a hothead himself, but Hamilton MP Lincoln Alexander, the first African Canadian elected to Parliament and a man of innate dignity, confirmed Lundrigan’s tale. In fact, he said, Trudeau had “mouthed” the “same thing” (two words) to him: “the first started with the letter F, the second with the letter O.” Trudeau’s behaviour, he solemnly declared, was “unacceptable.” When accosted by reporters, Trudeau denied he’d said anything, although he admitted that “he moved his lips and waved his hands in a gesture of derision.” He accused Lundrigan and Alexander of “crying to mama and to television.” As the reporters persisted and asked what he was thinking when he “moved his lips,” he curtly responded: “What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say fuddle duddle or something like that. God …”

  “Fuddle duddle” eventually took its place in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and became part of the lore surrounding the clever Trudeau, but editorials at the time almost unanimously condemned his behaviour. The whole incident played poorly in Flin Flon and other spots where the cultural revolution of the sixties caused more irritation than amusement. The context of each of Trudeau’s offhand remarks provides some explanation but not justification for the remarks.* He knew that television, with its immediacy and hand-held cameras, along with the more aggressive journalism of the sixties, had tightened the space for political expression—and eventually began to act accordingly in most situations.12

  Five issues in particular bedevilled Trudeau’s first term in office. In addition to the foreign and defence policy reviews described in chapter 2, four areas are of particular importance: the reform of the Criminal Code of Canada and associated areas of individual rights, the constitutional process, bilingualism and multiculturalism, and the direction of the Canadian economy. It was also during his first three years in office that Trudeau embarked on a completely new route in his personal life. Altogether, this period was more than usually challenging and action-packed for the new prime minister.

  The reform of the Criminal Code was, of course, the political issue that first brought Trudeau wide-ranging attention, especially when he declared in December 1967 that the state had no business in the nation’s bedrooms. After he became prime minister, he left the task of implementing the reform to his erstwhile leadership opponent John Turner. The justice minister was a brilliant choice. A superb communicator with a fine legal mind, he was also a prominent Catholic, with close ties to leading bishops and lay people—and his youth fitted neatly with the progressive, “sixties” character of the reforms. Turner was therefore able to serve Trudeau admirably as a lawyer with close links to the business community and the Catholic Church. His effectiveness was only enhanced by the fact that he was a young man with Kennedylike glamour himself—not least because, one May evening in 1959 at Victoria’s Government House, Princess Margaret appeared to be clearly enthralled with him as they danced.

  The reform of the Criminal Code was part of a broader “rights revolution” at the time, and Canadian support of individual choice became a significant part of a movement that fundamentally transformed Western society and politics. The principal impulse for the transformation was the Western world’s reaction to the horrors of collectivism and racism. Trudeau, who had flirted with collectivist and racist theories in his youth—notably, anti-Semitism and francophone nativism—reflected the broader societal change as he abandoned his corporatist and illiberal views during the mid-1940s at Harvard, Paris, and the London School of Economics. The tide turned as the Second World War came to an end, and then support of individual rights swept like a wave through the West after the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948. The Canadian government initially responded to this change with surprising reluctance. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent was wary of treading on the provincial responsibility for “civil rights” set out in the British North America Act. In the previous two decades, notable abuses of these rights had occurred in Canada, most famously through the Quebec “Padlock Law” passed by the government of Maurice Duplessis in 1937 to combat “communist propaganda.” Its broad range allowed the government not only to seize “communist” literature but also to “padlock” meeting rooms of groups it found objectionable. Although the law clearly placed limits on the freedoms of speech and association, it was still on the books in 1948.13

  Ultimately, the St. Laurent government accepted the Universal Declaration. In the aftermath of fascism and the Holocaust, the tide was too strong to resist, and in the 1950s, Canadian judges made tentative attempts at tearing down the fences around Canadian institutions that had practised discrimination. Jews, the principal victims of savage racism, won the first victories in Canadian courts that same decade—particularly in Ontario, where the initial success came as private clubs, public positions, and housing were opened up to Jews. The 1973 appointment of Bora Laskin as chief justice of the Supreme Court reflected the “revolution” that had taken place after the war. In the thirties, the brilliant Laskin had returned from Harvard Law School to find no good positions open to him. “Unfortunately, he is a Jew,” the eminent Toronto law professor Cecil Wright wrote to his close friend Sidney Smith, president of the University of Manitoba, on the eve of the war. “This may be fatal regarding his chances with you. I do not know. His race is, of course, proving a difficulty … in Toronto,” he continued, even though “Laskin is not one of those flashy Jews.” Wright said he would have hired Laskin if he could have and he hoped that Smith would oblige. Smith did not. Tolerance still had high limits.14

  In his magisterial study of race and the law in Canada, James Walker illustrates how the “judicial assault on American segregation laws” and the international move toward decolonization came into conflict with Canada’s traditional immigration ideals. In a debate on immigration reform in 1954, the year of the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision on racial segregation, the Toronto Star Weekly, the most liberal and Liberal major daily in Canada, still declared that racial discrimination “is an established (and most would say sensible) feature of our immigration policy.”15 Despite the strong international pressure embodied in the Universal Declaration and the activism of the U.S. Supreme Court in ending segregation, the Liberal government remained reluctant to act on the initiatives that a few Canadian courts had taken. It was not until the election in 1957 of Progressive Conservative John Diefenbaker, a trial lawyer and civil libertarian, that federal government opinion shifted away from its conservative approach to rights. Then, within a decade, the tremendous force of civil rights swept away most of the foundations of racial privilege.16

  Trudeau had entered the fight against the Duplessis government in the late 1940s. He and Jacques Hébert were leaders in the Quebec civil liberties movement, and lawyer Trudeau represented journalist Hébert as he waged fierce
battles for those whose rights had been denied. Trudeau had also written articles for Hébert’s journal Vrai, which reflected the arguments that their friend, lawyer Frank Scott, was making in defence of individual rights.17 By 1967, when Trudeau was minister of justice and increasingly wary of the violent and intolerant tendencies of some elements of radical thought, he wrote in a preface to his collected essays that he had “never been able to accept any discipline except that which I imposed upon myself.” And, he continued, “in the art of living, as in that of loving, or of governing … I found it unacceptable that others should claim to know better than I what was good for me.” Yet, more than in Vrai, he now recognized that liberty had limits: “How can an individual be reconciled with a society? The need for privacy with the need to live in groups? Love for freedom with the need for order?” The questions were, Trudeau wrote, the oldest in political philosophy, yet ones he confronted directly in his public life.18

  The state’s restrictions on individual behaviour were principally embodied in the Criminal Code, but they rested on societal consensus and fears. Meanwhile, the “rights revolution” had produced many moments of magnificence: John Diefenbaker’s flawed but principled Bill of Rights in 1960; King’s “I have a dream” speech in 1963; and the freedom march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Trudeau celebrated those moments but worried about where the balance should be found. In the mid-sixties he took part in the commission on “hate laws,” where freedom of speech was measured against the needs for order and individual respect and where he worked with his future political colleague Mark MacGuigan. He was less certain than MacGuigan, a law professor, about the need for hate laws, yet he agreed with him that in a free society with a diverse population, there should, for instance, be limits on what can be written and said about the denial of the Holocaust. Both men were practising liberal Roman Catholics who viewed the Index and the Inquisition as aberrations of the institution that represented their cherished faith and welcomed Vatican II’s liberalization of the Church in the 1960s. Both clearly supported the historic declaration by John F. Kennedy, the first strong Catholic contender for the American presidency, that his private religious opinions were his own affair and that no president should impose his views on the nation. These events, attitudes, and legal precedents all created the setting in which Trudeau’s government framed its response to the rights revolution of its time. The Just Society would rest on a rule of law appropriate to contemporary life.19