Just Watch Me

by John English

  In reply Nixon said that Canada was “terribly important” to the United States, but that both countries “are inevitably going to pursue their own interests.” Seeing that things were not going well, Kissinger intervened and told Trudeau that Canada would be treated more fairly than was stated when the shokku was announced. Trudeau responded that Kissinger’s remarks were “extremely helpful,” adding, “I think we’re reassured by everything you’ve said that this [protectionist policy] is temporary, [that] this is not a philosophical approach that we want to keep you in a state of domination just because we want to protect our society now.” Eventually, both Kissinger and Nixon assured the Canadian that they were only temporarily protectionist. After the meeting, Trudeau told the press with some exuberance that he had been reassured by the president, but Nixon became sour again. After Trudeau left, Nixon called him a “pompous egghead” but allowed that the “asshole” was a “clever son of a bitch.”* The president followed up by urging his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to plant a negative story about Trudeau with a particularly nasty Washington columnist.32

  Trudeau was not fully reassured by Kissinger’s comment that the United States would later return to free trade, and within the bureaucracy and the Prime Minister’s Office, plans began to be drafted for a review agency to scrutinize foreign—overwhelmingly American—investment in Canada.33 Moreover, energy, always highly flammable as an issue, became central to Canadian-American negotiations at this time. New difficulties seemed to appear almost daily. It was during his first visit to Washington in March 1969 that Trudeau had uttered his famous line: “Living with you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant: no matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt,”34 and the words were more than apt. Despite Trudeau’s statement and Nixon’s earlier vow never to set foot in Canada so long as Trudeau was leader, Nixon finally did visit the Canadian capital in April 1972. The raw irritations resulting from the August shokku had healed, but Nixon made it clear that Ottawa no longer had a special relationship with Washington. Canada and the United States, he declared in remarks he wrote himself, “have very separate identities” and “nobody’s interests are furthered when these realities are obscured.”35 Nixon was blunt, but Trudeau genuinely appreciated the strong words and the public declaration. The candour brought him some freedom.*

  To be fair to Nixon, although he constantly referred to Trudeau as “that son of a bitch” in private, he normally separated his personal dislike from American interests, and he recognized that Canada had its own objectives too. In a December 1971 White House discussion about the Canadian dollar that took place after Trudeau’s visit to the Oval Office, Nixon said: “I’ve never seen that son of a bitch Trudeau say anything good about [the economic crisis] before but he was very good” during their recent meeting. “I mean … we’re not trying to exploit Canada—even if we were, we would own 90 percent of their oil resources. You know 85 percent of their auto industry is tied to ours … we understand Canada has its own right to its destiny and no Canadian politician could survive without that ideology…. But … we have to look out for our own interests.” Though Nixon’s and Trudeau’s views on international affairs were different, each one, in his own peculiar way, was a realist, and their relationship was functional and efficient in its approach to details. Nevertheless, Jay Walz, the New York Times’ excellent Canadian correspondent, concluded on June 19, 1972, that “despite three cordial official visits with President Nixon, [Trudeau] has still not found an effective way of dealing with the country with which Canada does most of her trading.” Now, he lamented, the resolution of “about a dozen grievances” would have to await elections in both countries.36

  Burglars had struck the Watergate apartments on June 17, two days before Walz wrote his comments, and the fateful re-election of Richard Nixon in November would complicate Trudeau’s task even more. His own campaign plans were in disarray. Most party officials had wanted an election in the spring, but neither Trudeau nor his Cabinet was ready. And meanwhile, the rise of the NDP in the polls forced the Liberals to tack to the left in both foreign and domestic policy.

  Although Trudeau had said he would not bestow “goodies” on Canadians of all kinds, he had indicated in the election campaign of 1968 that a Just Society meant that regional economic differences were the proper concern of the federal government. Building on earlier regional programs, Trudeau established the Department of Regional Economic Expansion (DREE), with a specific mandate to use the finances and authority of the federal government to spur economic development in depressed areas of Canada. With Jean Marchand as minister, the highly creative former Pearson adviser Tom Kent as deputy, and the talented and experienced Pauline Bothwell as executive assistant, DREE was ambitious, powerful, and influential within government. Its enthusiasm has not been questioned, but its effectiveness has. Many economists believe that DREE and major unemployment insurance reforms introduced in 1971 made the economy less flexible and productive, particularly when other initiatives in the fields of competition, taxation, and tariff reduction were limited.

  Manpower and Immigration Minister Bryce Mackasey radically expanded unemployment insurance to include temporary workers previously excluded, as well as extended benefits for the long-term unemployed. Economic conservative Gordon Gibson, then a senior official in Trudeau’s office, recalled how he exploded as Mackasey’s bill went forward. In the words of many ministers, however, this Irish political brawler, who suffered a heart attack at the 1968 convention while boisterously pressing Trudeau’s campaign, seemed to charm Trudeau, and he got his expensive way. Moreover, in early 1972 the impact of these policies was less apparent and politically dangerous than the rising unemployment rate, now over 6 percent. Labour critics of the government, closely tied to the NDP, seldom praised the new spending measures but regularly denounced the government’s broader economic policies.37

  The prime minister and his closest advisers knew they were in trouble early in 1972. Their economic policies had misjudged inflation in 1968; they scrambled to recover quickly, but the un employment rate remained stubbornly high, even as inflation began to rise. The unemployment rate in Ontario in 1971 (5.4 percent) was more than double that of 1966 (2.6 percent), but there were even higher rates in the other large provinces—Quebec (7.3 percent) and British Columbia (7.2 percent). Trudeau tried to woo defectors on the right as well as the left. He travelled to Toronto to meet business leaders, but he told Senator John Godfrey that he did not believe he had “made much headway with some of those present.” That was true. He halted foreign travel and energetically wooed the Canadian media, another community where his popularity had waned. In January 1972 the Conservative journalist John Gray wrote: “Although it is accepted among smart circles that Trudeau’s government is a disaster, he has delivered pretty well what he promised in 1968. He promised very little, and those who expected more were projecting their own fantasies. But what fantasies they were; what disappointments they created.” Visiting British journalist Jerome Caminada found an angry country in February, one that fed, most unhealthily, on “the personality of Mr Pierre Trudeau.” He dominated the front pages of Canadian newspapers through his “flair for physical activity” and his unerring sense of drama, Caminada wrote, but he was losing his audience.

  A major act in the continuing drama occurred on December 25, 1971, when Margaret gave birth to Justin, and glowing pictures of the new little family appeared in all the newspapers. The photograph of Trudeau’s joy and Margaret’s love as she held Justin exudes the extraordinary sense of paternity, maternity, and emotional fulfillment that their children brought to their lives. Briefly, a gentler mood surrounded the stories about Trudeau, but the black mood soon returned. At a February 1972 dinner party in Ottawa, the British journalist “listened while Canadians from contrasting ends of the country tore each other’s arguments apart like raw meat in the hands of starving men.” Canada was in a cranky mood, and Trudeau himself was
no exception.* When Caminada travelled with Trudeau on a flight to Montreal, someone told the prime minister he was seeing Bourassa the next day and asked if he had a message for the Quebec premier. “Tell him to make up his mind,” he snapped angrily, still smarting from the Victoria constitutional debacle.38

  Trudeau shuffled the Cabinet in January 1972 and, unexpectedly, made John Turner minister of finance and Donald Macdonald minister of energy, mines, and resources. Turner had become the most popular minister, particularly among the “upper middle-class English Canadians” who were abandoning the prime minister and his group. Trudeau was already uneasy with Turner, partly because of his insistence on staying in the leadership contest in 1968 and partly because he had become a clear rival. He deeply admired Macdonald, who boldly argued with him in Cabinet and won his respect. Turner’s immediate task was to prepare a budget that would reassure business while maintaining the progressive credentials the Liberal Party required for the next election. A strong minister, Turner demanded that Trudeau give a more central role to Finance and its minister. Turner followed through: when he announced his first budget, he recognized that unemployment was a greater challenge than inflation, so he added some stimulation to its mix. Corporate taxes were cut and seniors’ benefits were indexed. Press reaction was generally favourable, but continuing labour troubles, economic uncertainties, mediocre polls, and party disorganization meant there would be no election in the spring of 1972.

  The party began to pay for Trudeau’s disregard for the loyalists, and a campaign had to be cobbled together with two Cabinet ministers in charge: Jean Marchand, Trudeau’s longtime friend, and Robert Andras, a popular northern Ontario auto dealer, who was minister of state for urban affairs. In the summer the American pollster Oliver Quayle arrived to assess what Canadians thought of Trudeau, while Liberal MPs learned in their constituencies that many of their voters now loathed the prime minister. Once again, labour troubles bedevilled Cabinet’s summer repose, and in late August a frustrated Trudeau called Parliament together to force B.C. dockworkers to end their strike. As the back-to-work legislation passed rapidly through the House and Senate on September 1, Trudeau met with members of his political Cabinet, informed them he had decided on a fall election, and showed them his strategy and campaign statement. He planned on seeing Governor General Roland Michener late that same afternoon and would announce an election for October 30.

  As Trudeau read out his campaign statement, Turner thought it was “too much of a ‘you never had it so good’” declaration. Some problems should be mentioned and their solutions suggested. Mitchell Sharp argued that the statement would become a “tool in the hands of the Opposition.” Andras and Marchand said the caucus was also unhappy with the optimistic theme of the document. A despairing Trudeau said he “was prepared to sign it in its present form and work on it,” but “the alternative was to go into the election without anything in the nature of a campaign document or platform.” Party president Richard Stanbury agreed to support it, though he “was tempted” to point out that it was “not related except in the most indirect way with the decisions of the Party taken in November /70” about what party policy should be. As Trudeau left this collective indecision for Rideau Hall, the political Cabinet reached a compromise: “The campaign theme ‘The Land Is Strong’ would not be announced as such but would simply be allowed to develop in the course of speeches.”

  And develop it did, quickly but disastrously. For Liberals in 1972, the land was weak.39

  * Early in the Trudeau government, Davey had sent a memorandum to Trudeau through Marc Lalonde, warning of the “conflict between the Humanist Left and Technocratic or Rational Centre” in government ranks. Using categories developed by futurist Herman Kahn, Davey separated those on the “humanist left,” who believed the “revolutionary end of industrial society” was near, and those in the “rational centre,” who believed that the Western world was on the “threshold of [a] new technological, affluent, and humanist society.” Both views, Davey correctly asserted, were found among Trudeau’s ministers and MPs. Trudeau wrote on the memorandum, “Very interesting. Thanks very much.” A much cooler Lalonde wrote, “Pas urgent mais intéressant.” Davey to Trudeau, Nov. 1, 1968., TP, MG 26 03, vol. 290, file 319-14, LAC.

  * Trudeau’s complex series of Cabinet committees was created to deal with the greater demands on government, but an assistant warned in August 1971 that the Monday to Thursday ministerial committee system meant that it had been “very difficult to find the sort of Ministerial time for politics and communications that is contemplated for the coming year.” Senior official Marshall Crowe warned, however, that it would be “dangerous to restrict the types of work that Committees have been doing” because ministers would lose control and, more seriously for Trudeau, his own “information system,” which depended on committee reports, would break down. This dilemma remained throughout Trudeau’s first term. Gordon Gibson to Trudeau, Aug. 12, 1971, TP, MG 26 03, vol. 121, file 313-05, LAC; interview with Marshall Crowe, Jan. 2009.

  * Trudeau told the Times (London) that his work in Singapore might have averted the possibility of a “general racial war” in Africa. It was not in Canada’s interests to have such a war, he stressed, so his leadership at the conference had a specific goal, not “some vague international role.” His “helpful fixing” in Singapore therefore synchronized with his emphasis on Canada’s national interests, as expressed in his foreign policy review—at least in his own eyes.

  * When the first Nixon tapes appeared during the Watergate affair, it became known that Nixon had called Trudeau an asshole. Trudeau responded by declaring, “I’ve been called worse things by better people.” An impish John Diefenbaker condemned Nixon’s remark but allowed that Nixon demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the human anatomy. An account of the tape and the Trudeau response are found in the Toronto Star, Dec. 8, 2008.

  * Nixon was in no better mood about Canada during this visit. A particular target was Trudeau aide Tim Porteous, who was described as an “ugly bastard, probably very left-wing.” Again, Nixon told Haldeman to plant a negative story in the press, this time about Porteous. He told Haldeman: “Play it hard. Find a way, goddammit. You’ve got to put it to these people for kicking the US around after what we did for that lousy son of a bitch,” referring, of course, to Trudeau and to the agreement with Canada to eliminate the harsh effects of the economic actions of August 1971. Nixon said, “That trip we needed like a hole in the head.” Porteous later told Kissinger the visit did not help Canadian-American relations, although Kissinger reportedly enjoyed his evening at the National Arts Centre with Canadian television host Charlotte Gobeil, sister of Trudeau’s friend Madeleine. When asked what Trudeau thought of Nixon’s hostility toward him, Porteous said: “It wasn’t the kind of thing that really concerned Pierre. I don’t think he had any aspirations to be a friend of Nixon’s.” Alexandra Gill, “Nixon’s Bushy-Haired ‘Bastard’ Bites Back,” Globe and Mail, March 23, 2002; interview with Tim Porteous, Sept. 2007.

  * Progressive Conservative leader Robert Stanfield, with characteristic fairness, dismissed claims that Trudeau was not serious about life and Parliament. He told the visiting British journalist: “They haven’t observed the wear and tear of four years in office, the lines on his face. He’s very earnest, serious and tough, but he gets impatient with people and with Parliament.” It was a fair and accurate assessment. Jerome Caminada, “Canada’s Struggle for Identity,” Times (London), Feb. 17, 1972.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE LAND IS NOT STRONG

  Pierre Trudeau did not like politics much—at least not those parts the oldtimers considered to be the heart of the game. Chicken suppers, calls to soothe wavering supporters, working a room, remembering the kids’ names, and kowtowing to journalists were tasks he forswore. It had mattered little in the first months in power when Trudeaumania swept the land. In those good times, Trudeau could organize a dinner for the great Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal, get
away to see Ted Kennedy at Ste-Adèle on the weekend, and free up a morning to meet the French publisher Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber but respond, “Hell, No” when the Liberal Party national director asked him to “consider having the National Executive for cocktails sometime over the weekend.” But things had changed by 1972, and Trudeau and his group were ill prepared for a more critical political world. Too much debate, too little decision, and far-too-complicated policies meant that the Trudeau campaign team had a weak foundation for the fall election. They had no bold new program to present to voters, and so they decided, almost by default, to run on their record.1

  The Liberals began the campaign breathtakingly overconfident. Their draft platform of August 10—the fourth draft—was smug, condescending, and adrift. The first Trudeau government had many concrete achievements, but the new platform presented them poorly. “The Land Is Strong,” the heading of one section on the economy, began: “The Canadian economy is 20% bigger than it was 4 years ago. People have more money to spend than they did 4 years ago (about $815.00 more for every man, woman, and child). No matter how you measure Canada’s well-being, we are in good shape: industrial production is up 18%; manufacturing is up 14%; 744,000 houses were built; retail sales are up 25%; labour income is up 45%; and company profits are up 17%; we are exporting 25% more than we did in 1968. They are the numbers that indicate steady and sure growth. Behind these statistics is a man with a good job and a steady wage; a man and a woman starting a new family in a new house; another man with a good job because Canadian products sell so well abroad; still another man with a good job because Canadian enterprise has the confidence in itself and in the country to re-invest to create the new jobs our young people want.” The statistics were complex and the sexism jarred. Later, the platform claimed that “there are good jobs in Canada for everybody who wants to work.”2 Although the earlier sentences were largely accurate, the final one was visibly untrue, especially in the Maritimes and Quebec, where 8 percent of the workforce was unemployed when the election was called for October 30 on the eve of Labour Day.