The Pierre Trudeau Home Page
Links and Resources

Pierre Elliot Trudeau Links and Resources:

Pierre Trudeau Books, Auctions, Memorabilia

Pierre Trudeau Pictures, Photographs, Images
Pictures of Trudeau with Thatcher, Liona Boyd, Barbara Streisand, more.

Pierre Trudeau's Essay on the Quebec referendum

Pierre Trudeau Memorial Page
People share their thoughts on the passing of the former prime minister of Canada.

October Crisis, 1970
There's a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is go on and bleed." - Good article at CBC's wweb site on the FLQ, and the Quebec crisis in 1970.

Canada Speaks: Pierre Elliot Trudeau
Offers biography, photograph, and selected addresses to the House of Commons.

End of Trudeaumania
An "anti-Trudeau" political opinion.

Negotiations with Quebec
Part of an article which appeared in the Montreal Gazette, entitled Who Said No to Meech?.

Pierre Trudeau's Essay on The Referendum
Entitled Lucien Bouchard, Illusionist.

Pierre Trudeau's Legacy

From Wikipedia.:
Many Canadians, particularly in western Canada, disliked Trudeau and his policies. This is because Trudeau's policies were thought by many westerners to favour Ontario and Quebec, at the expense of Alberta and British Columbia.

On a visit to Winnipeg, Manitoba he quipped: "Why should I sell the Canadian farmers' wheat?" One particularly unpopular policy in the West was the National Energy Program. His imposition of the War Measures Act, on the written request of the Premier of Quebec and the Mayor of Montreal, is remembered by many, especially in Quebec, as an attack on democracy. Though his popularity had fallen in English Canada at the time of his retirement in 1984, public opinion later became much more sympathetic to him, particularly when in comparison to his successor, Brian Mulroney.

Some people consider Trudeau's economic policies to have been a disaster. Inflation and unemployment marred much of his term and, when he left office, the national debt and deficit were at all time high levels. However, these trends were present in most western countries at the time, they continued after he left office, and the role Prime Minister Trudeau played in them is debatable.

The value of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms continues to be disputed. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Charter does not apply to common law, and its notwithstanding clause has occasionally been used (particularly by Quebec and more recently Alberta) to circumvent its provisions. The Supreme Court has described situations in which charter rights can be superseded and withdrawn. However, Canadians still remain subject to double jeopardy, in the sense that the Crown retains the right to appeal acquittals (a right upheld by the Supreme Court in 1988 as consistent with the Charter), and Canadian libel laws still do not incorporate a presumption of innocence. Mr. Trudeau's government did remove the right of courts to substitute a conviction for an acquittal on appeal (the so-called Morgentaler amendment) in 1975, but when formulating the Charter Mr. Trudeau did not provide any further protections against double jeopardy.

The charter does appear, however, to have clarified issues of aboriginal rights. It has, for example, been used to establish the previously denied aboriginal rights of Métis. The charter has also been used to extend the rights of women, gays and lesbians, and minorities. Hundreds of federal and provincial statutes were rewritten in order to comply with the charter and many others have been struck down as unconstitutional. Most notably the law restricting abortion was struck down in 1989 and in 2003 Canadian courts ruled that restrictions against same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. Just as much controversy exists around situations where the courts interpret charter rights broadly as it does when the courts restrict or qualify them.