The University of Montreal where Pierre Trudeau received a Bachelor of Law degree in 1943.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
79 John F. Kennedy St, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States
The John F. Kennedy School of Government where Pierre Trudeau received a Master of Arts degree in 1946.
Career
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1965
Canada
Pierre Trudeau after being nominated to represent the riding of Mount Royal on June 6, 1965.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1982
Close-up of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, seated at a desk with a glass of water.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1983
Canada
Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, making an address from a podium with Canadian flags in the background.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1983
Wellington St, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A9, Canada
Pierre Trudeau and Diana, Princess of Wales, visit Parliament Hill on the 20th of June, 1983.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1984
Ottawa, Canada
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau with Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía of Spain.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1984
Stable Yard, St. James's, London SW1A 1BB, United Kingdom
Pierre Trudeau and British Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher outside Lancaster house for the start of the Economic Summit on June 8, 1984.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
Montreal, Quebec H2K 1W8, Canada
Prime Minister Trudeau speaking in French during a rally held in Park Mederic Martin in the riding of St. Marie.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
Canada
Prime Minister Trudeau appeals to liberals to stay toughener.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1969
Pierre Trudeau with John Lennon and Yoko Ono on December 22, 1969.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1969
150 Albert St, Ottawa, ON K1P 5G2, Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau speaks at the National Press Club.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1971
Russia
Canadian politician Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau with Russian politician Alexei Kosygin in Russia, May 1971.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1971
Delhi, India
Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau pictured with Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, as they walk together through a palace courtyard in Delhi during a visit by the Canadian premier to India in January 1971.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1972
London, United Kingdom
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau during a visit to London in December 1972.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1973
24 Sussex Dr, Ottawa, ON K1M 1M4, Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in his office in February 1973.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1974
Paris, France
Canadian politician Pierre Trudeau and French politician Jacques Chirac in Paris, in October 1974.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1974
Paris, France
Canadian politician Pierre Trudeau and French politician Jacques Chirac in Paris.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1974
Paris, France
Canadian politician Pierre Trudeau, Margaret Trudeau, French politician Bernadette Chirac and French politician Jacques Chirac at a gala dinner, Paris, October 1974.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1974
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau arrives in Montreal in May 31 wrapping up his four day "Trudeau Express" whistle-stopping campaign train tour which started in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1976
Canada
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth ll attend a formal event on August 1, 1976.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1977
Stable Yard, St. James's, London SW1A 1BB, United Kingdom
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, British Prime Minister James Callaghan and Dr. Joseph Luns, the Secretary-General, at a meeting at Lancaster House for the opening session of the NATO conference on May 10, 1977.
Gallery of Pierre Trudeau
1978
Ottawa, Canada
Close-up of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau during press conference.
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Order of the Companions of Honour
The Order of the Companions of Honour that Pierre Trudeau received on June 24, 1985.
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada that Pierre Trudeau received on July 4, 1984.
Canadian Centennial Medal
The Canadian Centennial Medal that Pierre Trudeau received in 1967.
Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal
The Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal that Pierre Trudeau received in 1977.
125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal
The 125th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal that Pierre Trudeau received in 1992.
Canadian politician Pierre Trudeau and Russian politician Alexei Kosygin in the Kremlin signing Soviet-Canadian Protocol on Consultations on International Problems in May 1971.
Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau pictured with Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India, as they walk together through a palace courtyard in Delhi during a visit by the Canadian premier to India in January 1971.
Canadian politician Pierre Trudeau, Margaret Trudeau, French politician Bernadette Chirac and French politician Jacques Chirac at a gala dinner, Paris, October 1974.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau arrives in Montreal in May 31 wrapping up his four day "Trudeau Express" whistle-stopping campaign train tour which started in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Stable Yard, St. James's, London SW1A 1BB, United Kingdom
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, British Prime Minister James Callaghan and Dr. Joseph Luns, the Secretary-General, at a meeting at Lancaster House for the opening session of the NATO conference on May 10, 1977.
(In the spirit of his father, Alexandre Trudeau revisits C...)
In the spirit of his father, Alexandre Trudeau revisits China to put a ground-breaking journey into a fresh, contemporary context. In 1960, Pierre Trudeau and Jacques Hébert, a labour lawyer and a journalist from Montréal, travelled to China in the midst of the Great Leap Forward. In 1968, when Two Innocents in Red China, Trudeau and Hébert's sardonic look at a third world country's first steps into the rest world, was released in English, Trudeau had become prime minister of Canada.
(Trudeau burst like a comet onto the federal political sce...)
Trudeau burst like a comet onto the federal political scene, becoming Canada's fifteenth prime minister in 1968. But as this collection of essays from the 1950s clearly shows, Trudeau had thought long and hard about the fundamental principles of government and politics before gaining the national spotlight. Approaches to Politics is an essential introduction both to the political philosophy of Pierre Trudeau and to the eternal principles underlying democracy - a book as relevant and readable today as when it was first published several decades ago.
(Conversational and informal in tone, his reminiscences ta...)
Conversational and informal in tone, his reminiscences take readers through his life, concentrating on his 16 years as Canada's prime minister. He talks about his triumphs and disappointments at home – including his battle with the FLQ – and about the leaders he encountered on the world stage.
(In this volume, Ron Graham brought together a selection o...)
In this volume, Ron Graham brought together a selection of excerpts from Trudeau's writings, speeches, and interviews – many of them never before published in book form – to make a highly readable, lucid, and compelling summary of Trudeau's political beliefs.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a Canadian statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. He also was the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada from 1968 to 1984.
Background
Ethnicity:
Pierre Trudeau's mother was of mixed Scottish and French-Canadian descent.
Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born on October 18, 1919, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was the son of Charles-Émile Trudeau and Grace Elliott. Trudeau's paternal grandparents were French-speaking Quebec farmers. His father was a French-Canadian businessman and lawyer. He also had acquired a chain of gas stations, some profitable mines and the Belmont amusement park in Montreal. On April 10, 1935 Trudeau's father died and each of his siblings inherited $5,000. Trudeau had a sister and a brother.
Education
Pierre Trudeau attended the primary school, Académie Querbes, in Outremont, from the age of six until twelve. Later he studied at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf from 1933 to 1944. In his seventh and final academic year Trudeau focused on winning a Rhodes Scholarship. He had prepared for public office by studying public speaking and edited the school newspaper, Brébeuf. In 1940, he entered the University of Montreal where he received a Bachelor of Laws in 1943. While at the university, he was drafted into the Canadian Army as a part of the National Resources mobilization Act.
Trudeau studied political economy at John F. Kennedy School of Government where he received a Master of Arts degree in 1946. He started a dissertation on the topic of Marxism, Communism and Christianity, but in 1947 he decided to continue his work on his dissertation in Paris, France. He studied at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, however, Trudeau did not finish his dissertation. He completed his education with a year-long trip around the world in 1948-1949. Pierre also attended the London School of Economics.
Later Pierre Trudeau became a proud recipient of honorary degrees from various universities, including the University of Montreal, University of Notre Dame, Queen's University, Duke University, University of Ottawa and University of Macau.
Pierre Trudeau started his career as an economic adviser at the Privy Council Office in Ottawa in 1950. He held this post until 1951. He also founded Cité Libre, an influential journal of opinion. In 1961, he was appointed an assistant professor of law at the University of Montreal where he worked until 1965. At the same time he took an active part in the debate about Quebec's future. In 1965, he, along with two other colleagues, was invited to run for party seats. In the same year, Trudeau became a member of the Canadian Parliament for Mount Royal, a seat he held until 1984. He also served as Prime Minister Lester Pearson's parliamentary secretary from 1966 to 1967.
On April 4, 1967, Pierre Trudeau was appointed Minister of Justice and attorney general for Canada. He held this post until July 5, 1968. In this new capacity, he formulated numerous changes in the legal system of the country. In 1968, when Lester Pearson stepped down from his seat of Prime Minister, Trudeau campaigned for the leadership position in the Liberal Party. On April 20, 1968, he was sworn in as Prime Minister. In the 1972 elections, he won with a minority of votes with major powers being with the New Democratic Party. However, in the following elections held in 1974, he won with a majority of 141 seats against 264.
In November 1979 Trudeau announced that he would step aside for a new leader, but before a new leader could be chosen, the minority Conservative government fell, and a general election was called for February 18, 1980. After some deft manipulation of the party by his friends, Trudeau agreed to remain as leader. He won another majority. However, by 1983 Trudeau's government had become very unpopular. After a poll confirmed the defeat of the Liberals at the 1984 elections, he voluntarily stepped down from the seat of the Prime Minister, thus ending his 15th year of tenure.
Back in the private sector, in 1985, he became a senior consultant with the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie. He rarely gave speeches or spoke to the press, but he published his Memoirs, followed by The Canadian Way: Shaping Canada's Foreign Policy, 1968-1984. In his old age, he was afflicted with Parkinson's disease and prostate cancer, and became less active, although he continued to work at his law practice until a few months before his death at the age of 80.
Pierre Trudeau was a Roman Catholic. In one of his interview he said that he believed in life after death and in God. Michael W. Higgins, former President of Catholic St. Thomas University said that three Catholic traditions had an impact on his world view. The first of these was the Jesuits who provided his education up to the college level. A second great spiritual influence in Trudeau's life was Dominican. Trudeau studied philosophy under Dominican Father Louis-Marie Régis and regarded Régis as spiritual director and friend. At the same time Trudeau meditated regularly after being initiated into Transcendental Meditation by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He took retreats at Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, Québec, and regularly attended Hours and the Eucharist at Montreal's Benedictine community.
Politics
Pierre Trudeau became an active supporter of workers in the Asbestos Strike in 1949. He wrote pungent political criticism and continued to travel widely. In 1960, he supported the Quebec Liberals in the election which is traditionally identified as the beginning of the so-called "Quiet Revolution" in Quebec. In 1965, Trudeau joined the Liberal Party of Canada and soon he was appointed as Minister of Justice. He introduced the Criminal Law Amendment Act, legalized contraception, liberalized the law against abortion and homosexuality and reformed the divorce law. He brought about new gun ownership restrictions as well as the authorization of breathalyzer tests on suspected drunk drivers.
In his election campaign Trudeau promised a new deal for French Canadians in Canada, but no tolerance for separatism or extreme Quebec nationalism. He also indicated that Canada's foreign policy would be reassessed so that domestic interests would be given more weight. In 1967, Trudeau became Prime Minister and in this capacity he brought forth a number of procedural reforms which helped make the Parliament and Liberal meetings more efficient. Furthermore, he expanded the role and duties of the Prime Minister in office. He introduced new programs which assured welfare of the state. Trudeau also implemented official bilingualism, following which all Federal services were to be offered in French and English. His vision was to see Canada as a bilingual confederation in which all cultures would have a place.
Trudeau's government undertook a wide-ranging review of Canada's foreign policy. The military commitment to NATO was reduced, and Canadian foreign policy became less sympathetic to the international policies of the United States. He also developed international relations with the United States, China and Cuba. His economic policies were surprisingly conservative, although a significant reform in the taxation system did occur in 1971 and unemployment benefits became more generous and more widely available.
The kidnaping of James Cross, a British trade commissioner, and Pierre Laporte, Quebec's labor minister, by extreme separatists in Montreal prompted Trudeau to invoke the War Measures Act which suspended civil liberties so long as there was an "apprehended insurrection" in Montreal. The most significant event during his term at office was the rejection of the referendum on Quebec sovereignty that helped keep Oebec united with Canada. The other significant event was the patriation of Canada from Great Britain. Canada's House of Commons accepted his reform to officially separate Canada from Queen Elizabeth II's Britain. The constitution was finally proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II on April 17, 1982.
In the last years of his tenure, he ensured both the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Museum of Civilization had proper homes in the national capital region. The Trudeau government also implemented programs which mandated Canadian content in film and broadcasting and gave substantial subsidies to develop the Canadian media and cultural industries.
Views
Quotations:
"What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature."
"Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens. The citizens can go on speaking one language or six languages, or no languages if they so choose. Bilingualism is an imposition on the state and not the citizens."
"There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation."
"A man who tries to please all men by weakening his position or compromising his beliefs in the end has neither position nor beliefs. A man must say what he believes clearly, without dogma, and without guile."
"Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future."
"The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness."
"Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent."
"If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another."
Membership
Pierre Trudeau was a member of the Club of Rome, the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and the Royal Society of Canada.
Personality
Thouse who knew Pierre Trudeau said that he had strong personality, contempt for his opponents and distaste for compromise on many issues. In the mid-1950s Pierre Trudeau began practising the Japanese martial art judo. When he travelled to Japan as Prime Minister, he was promoted to shodan (first-degree black belt) by the Kodokan, and then promoted to nidan (second-degree black belt) by Masao Takahashi in Ottawa.
Quotes from others about the person
Peter Brimelow: "Pierre Trudeau was too much of a professional politician to be described as a good man, nor, it can be argued despite much publicity to the contrary, was he a particularly clever or even wise one. But he was a great man, perhaps the greatest Canada has produced in this century."
John Lennon: "If all politicians were like Mr. Trudeau, there would be world peace."
Geoff Pevere: "The greatest pop star this country has ever produced."
Interests
Sport & Clubs
judo
Connections
Pierre Trudeau married Margaret Sinclair on March 4, 1971. The marriage produced three sons. Trudeau and Sinclair separated in 1977 and were finally divorced in 1984.
In 1984, Trudeau was romantically involved with Margot Kidder. In 1991, Trudeau became a father again, with Deborah Margaret Ryland Coyne, to his only daughter, Sarah.
Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1968-2000
Trudeau's life is one of Canada's most engrossing stories. John English reveals how for Trudeau style was as important as substance, and how the controversial public figure intertwined with the charismatic private man and committed father.
2006
Trudeau's Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Published on the 30th anniversary of Trudeau's coming to power, this fascinating collection of twenty-three original, eclectic essays offers a fresh perspective on the life and legacy of the country's fifteenth prime minister.
1998
Trudeau's Tango: Alberta Meets Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-1972
In this insightful and lively history, Liberal insider Darryl Raymaker recalls the attempt to broker "a marriage from hell" between the federal Liberal Party and Alberta's Social Credit government in the late 1960s.
2017
Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau
One of the most important, exciting biographies of present time: the definitive, major two-volume biography of Pierre Elliott Trudeau – written with unprecedented, complete access to Trudeau's enormous cache of private letters and papers.