Read Pierre Elliott Trudeau Online
Authors: Nino Ricci
Pierre Elliott Trudeau (20 page)
CHRONOLOGY
| 1919 | Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau is born on October 18 in Montreal. |
| 1921 | Pierre’s father, Charles, gives up his law practice to found a string of service stations he will sell to Imperial Oil in 1932 for $1.2 million. |
| 1932 | Trudeau enrols in the new Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf in Montreal. |
| 1935 | Charles Trudeau suffers a fatal heart attack while vacationing in Florida. |
| 1940 | Trudeau completes his studies at Brébeuf at the top of his class. After failing to win a Rhodes Scholarship, he enters law school at the Université de Montréal. |
| 1942–43 | Trudeau takes part in an underground revolutionary sect known as les X . |
| 1943 | He graduates from law school and completes a year of articling at Hyde & Ahern in Montreal. |
| 1944 | Trudeau enrols in a master’s program in political studies at Harvard. |
| 1946 | After graduating from Harvard, Trudeau works at a gold mine in Abitibi, then begins a year of study at the Sorbonne. |
| 1947 | He begins a year of study under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics. |
| 1948 | Trudeau embarks on travels that take him through Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East. |
| 1949 | After his involvement in the Asbestos Strike, Trudeau is turned down for a teaching job at the Université de Montréal and becomes a junior clerk at the Privy Council Office in Ottawa. |
| 1951 | Trudeau quits the civil service and devotes himself to the journal Cité libre , founded by him and his friend Gérard Pelletier in 1950. |
| 1956 | Cité libre publishes The Asbestos Strike , a collection of essays edited and introduced by Trudeau. |
| 1960 | The June election victory of Jean Lesage’s Liberals over the Union Nationale marks the beginning of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. |
| 1962 | Trudeau publishes “The New Treason of the Intellectuals,” attacking the new Quebec nationalists and their growing separatism. |
| 1965 | Trudeau is elected to the federal Liberals, along with friends Gérard Pelletier and Jean Marchand. |
| 1966 | He takes a position as Lester Pearson’s parliamentary secretary. |
| 1967 | Trudeau is appointed justice minister and introduces controversial revisions to the Criminal Code that bring him national prominence. |
| 1968 | Trudeaumania carries Trudeau to the Liberal leadership in April. In a June election, Trudeau’s Liberals take 154 of 264 seats. |
| 1969 | Parliament passes the Official Languages Act, establishing English and French as Canada’s official languages. |
| 1970 | The FLQ kidnap British trade commissioner James Cross and Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte from their Montreal homes. Laporte is killed after the Trudeau government invokes the War Measures Act. |
| 1971 | Trudeau, aged fifty-one, marries twenty-two-year-old Margaret Sinclair after a secret courtship. On Christmas Day, Margaret gives birth to son Justin. Two more sons will follow, Alexandre (“Sacha”), born Christmas Day 1973, and Michel (“Micha”), born October 1975. |
| 1972 | After a lacklustre campaign, Trudeau’s Liberals are reelected with a slim minority. |
| 1974 | The Liberals regain their majority in a July election with the help of “the Margaret factor,” taking 141 seats to the Conservatives’ 95. |
| 1975 | Trudeau introduces wage and price controls to fight inflation after having ridiculed a similar Conservative proposal. |
| 1976 | The election of René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois raises the spectre of Quebec independence. |
| 1977 | Margaret Trudeau’s night with the Rolling Stones in Toronto makes international headlines. |
| 1979 | Trudeau announces his retirement after Joe Clark’s Progressive Conservatives form a minority government, then agrees to return as Liberal leader when the Conservatives bungle a confidence vote. |
| 1980 | Trudeau wins another majority, though with no seats west of Manitoba. In May, his promise to Quebecers to renew federalism helps defeat a referendum on sovereignty. |
| 1981 | The federal government signs the “Kitchen Accord” with all the provinces except Quebec. |
| 1982 | Canada patriates its constitution under the Constitution Act, entrenching within it the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. |
| 1984 | Trudeau resigns for the second time. In a September election, the Liberals, under John Turner, suffer the worst defeat in their history, capturing only 40 seats to the 211 of Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives. |
| 1985 | Parti Québécois leader René Lévesque resigns. Lévesque will die of a heart attack in 1987. |
| 1987 | Brian Mulroney and the ten provincial premiers negotiate the Meech Lake Accord. Trudeau publicly denounces the accord. |
| 1990 | The Meech Lake Accord dies after Premier Clyde Wells refuses to put it to a vote in the Newfoundland legislature. |
| 1991 | Canadian constitutional lawyer Deborah Coyne gives birth to a daughter by Trudeau, Sarah Elisabeth. |
| 1992 | Trudeau speaks out against the Charlottetown Accord, which is subsequently defeated in a national referendum. |
| 1998 | Margaret and Pierre’s twenty-three-year-old son Michel dies while skiing in the B.C. Rockies. |
| 2000 | Trudeau dies on September 28, after battling Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer. |
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