PIERRE ELLIOT TRUDEAU by Claudio Puddu
Pierre Trudeau was born in 1919, in the north end of Rue Durocher, part of Outremont. The start of his life was relatively normal and modest. His father was born and raised on a farm in Saint-Michel de Napierville, south of Montreal. Trudeau’s mother came from more urban roots.
Trudeau’s fathers' parents spent their lives farming land inherited from their parents. His mother's parents, the Elliots, were sometimes tavern operators, real estate agents and merchants. Trudeau’s parents both received a good education and wished more for there three children. Guyete is two years older than Pierre and his brother Charles (Tip) is two years younger.
The beginning of the 1930’s brought great change for the Trudeau family. Most people were struggling with the depression. The Trudeau’s became very wealthy. Pierre’s father sold his garage and the chain of service stations his family had built. The money was used to invest in business such as Sullivan Mines, Belmont Park Amusement and the Montreal Royal Baseball team. These investments allowed the Trudeau’s to buy a nicer home in a more upper class area, McCulloch Avenue at the foot of Mount Royal.
In 1933 when Trudeau was thirteen, he and his family traveled to Europe. This was his first trip and the start of his love of travel. They traveled all over Europe, France, Germany and Italy. His father wanted the children to be strong and self reliant through out the trip. They had to go into hotels alone and make arrangements for their family to stay in the language of that particular country. This trip was an adventure that Pierre never forgot.
Pierre started high school at Jeur-de-Bribeuf which is an upper class school where he learned such languages as Latin and Greek. Although in his Elementary years he was not that keen on his studies, high school was completely different. He became a hard working diligent student. Pierre held the Jesuit teachers with high regard and found them exceptional. Pierre surrounded himself with people of diverse interests in order for his self development to mature. Although news of today or political developments in particular did not interest him, he continued to read books, study poets and philosophers. He had keen interest in sports and his favorite was discovering other countries.
One of Pierre’s teachers, Father Robert Bernicer of literature had a great influence on him.
One essay Pierre had to write was -- What he wanted to do with his life? His answer was -- first a sea captain, an explorer, an astronaut. This was a term he learned from Jules Verne, He wanted to experience everything he could. The next thing he would like to do was become an important figure such as governor General or a Prime Minister.
Pierre had a devastating blow at the age of 15. His father passed away, while on a trip to Florida with his baseball team. His mother flew to be with her husband and unfortunately Pierre heard the news from another family member. Pierre had a great love and admiration for his father. His constant love, reassurance and constant challenge were something Pierre really missed. He found himself the man of the family at such a young age.
In 1940, Pierre graduated from Brebeuf and studied law at Universite de Montreal. The second world war was raging on and all the students spent most of their time discussing it, although Pierre felt separated from it as it really didn’t affect him. A friend of the family, Mrs. Gourd took Pierre to the forum to listen to Ernest Lapointe who was Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s number one man and Quebec’s Lieutenant. It was promised the government would not have compulsory military service in Canada. French Canadians remember the 1917 conscription crises. Therefore Ernest Lapoint’s promise was very important for Quebecois as they believed that re-electing the Liberal party would never introduce conscription. But that’s what they did. As a student, Pierre was required to join the Canadian officers Training corps. He attended drills at the armory twice a week. He learned about weapons. Every summer, he went to camp Farmham for a few weeks through the Cote. There he received more training. Pierre remembers on of the officers giving orders in English. Pierre asked why he was not speaking in French, but was mostly ignored at that time. Bilingualism was not a favored subject.
Pierre graduated in 1943 with a law degree from the Universite de Montreal. He enrolled at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a Master’s program. In 1944, Pierre finally could see the historic importance of the war. They were very well informed and Pierre could not avoid seeing the whole picture and it’s effect. There were several professors that fled Nazi persecution. After attending Harvard, Pierre spent a few years studying abroad traveling. Finally, he returned home to Canada. He was happy to see his family and friends again. But he found nothing was different. There was still the same problems. Duplessis had been governing the province since 1944. That government was very conservative and didn’t like change.
After being home for a few days, he looked up Gerard Pelletier, he was in the Eastern Township covering a strike put on by the asbestos miners.
His coverage was for the daily le Devoir. The strike was on for about four months. Gerard was traveling back there one day and invited Pierre to travel with him. Pierre stayed with the miners for several days. He made speeches at their meetings. Pierre found things quite different - their workers exploited by management, not accepted by the government and yet they fought on. When he returned to Montreal, he found the same people were still in power in almost every field. They were outdated and stifling.
Pierre started searching for a job. He wanted to share his new knowledge, but found a lot of pettiness and prejudices in the establishment. Pierre applied at the Universite de Montreal, they needed political science professors, but he was refused three different times. He found out later that Premier Duplessis had played a key roll in this refusal. He was offered a position in Queen’s, but wanted to stay in Quebec. Eventually he moved to Ottawa.
The summer of 1949, Pierre found himself as a civil servant in the private council office. Pierre wanted to see how everything worked, as he just finished studying the theory. By 1951, Pierre was growing tired of traveling back and forth from Ottawa and Montreal. A friend of his thought the labor movement was well on it’s way in other provinces by Quebec had a long way to go. This was to be a different road for Pierre, he gave classes at the labor action school. He taught basic economics, some accounting and a little political science. He also explained what was wrong with the Social credit theories. At that time, he acquainted himself with all the union leaders across the province. Pierre, at times, was appointed arbitrator. He learned a lot of labor law, he also learned how to argue a case. He learned about labor milieu and arbitration. Tribunals introduced him to all corners of the province, they held their hearings on site. The work was quite demanding, but still he had time to travel to Africa, the Soviet Union and China. There, he went to political Science Conferences. Pierre also took on a few cases as a lawyer but only the ones that appealed to him. the ones that involved civil liberties.
In the 1950’s, Pierre still wasn’t politically ambitious. He still didn’t want to leave Quebec. In 1960, the liberals under Jean Lesage came to power. That meant Duplessis was gone and the Universite de Montreal offered him a position as head of an institute for public law. Pierre decided not to accept but took the chair as professor of public law in the law faculty. Now with Quebec’s change and moving forward, Pierre was more and more interested in our government involving himself more and more until the day he became Prime Minister of Canada in 1968. He held that position until 1979 and was again re-elected from 1980-1984 and the rest is history. |
