Former Canadian P.M. Trudeau Dead at 80
Sept. 28 -- Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the colorful statesman known to many as the father of modern Canada, has died at the age of 80, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported today.
Trudeau died of prostate cancer, said Roy Heenan, senior partnerof the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie, where Trudeau worked.
The flamboyant millionaire from Montreal, who radically reshaped Canadian society by introducing official bilingualism, by creating an American-style code of individual rights and by fighting against Quebec separatism, was prime minister from 1968 until 1979 and from 1980 until 1984. He completed Canada’s ultimate separation from its British colonial past.
Erudite, suave and flamboyant to the point of arrogance,Trudeau was first elected prime minister in 1968 on a wave of “Trudeaumania” in a country that had been averse to politicalcelebrities. He remained in power over the following 16 years,except for a nine-month gap in 1979-80.
Until July, when he became ill, Trudeau was still working as a partner in a Montreal law firm.
‘Canada’s Kennedy’“He was a giant in Canadian society in the second half of the 20th century,” said Marc La Londe, a longtime adviser and senior Cabinet member under Trudeau in the 1970s.
“He brought to Canada a dynamism and flare that we had not seen before,” La Londe says. “He really put Canada on the map with the sheer strength of his personality.”
Known as an intellectual bohemian with Kennedyesque celebrity — he once dated Barbra Streisand and was friendly with John Lennon — Trudeau is remembered almost as much for his personality as for his policies.
“I have said on record before that he is Canada’s Kennedy — only we got to keep him instead of shooting him,” said John Duffy, a Liberal Party member and lobbyist in Toronto.
In a poll of the country’s major broadcast and print journalists, Trudeau recently was voted “Newsmaker of the Century.”
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