Former Canadian P.M. Trudeau Dead at 80

Sept. 28, 2000 -- 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.”

Privileged Son

Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born Oct. 18, 1919, to wealthy and politically conservative parents in Montreal. He was educated at an elite French-Canadian Jesuit prep school, though he would resist that patrician upbringing and lead a far less conventional life.

He embraced traditional liberal intellectualism —“I have probably read more of Dostoevski, Stendhal and Tolstoy than the average statesman,” he once said — and spent his formative years hunting for adventure in far-away places. He was once arrested as a suspected Israeli spy by Arabs in Jerusalem.

His sojourns eventually brought him back to Canada where Trudeau, who had already earned a law degree, got involved in an asbestos miners’ strike in Quebec, serving as a legal aide.

Before entering politics, Trudeau focused his attention on trying to reform Quebec society and politics, became a journalist and worked in a private law practice.

Turning to Politics

Trudeau was motivated to enter politics in 1965 largely as a response to the rise of radical Quebec nationalism. He strongly believed Quebec should remain a part of the nation. He also believed the rest of English-speaking Canada should recognize Quebec’s unique place in Canadian history.

Many of his most important and controversial policies grew out of his preoccupation with fighting separatists.

Trudeau joined the Liberal party in 1965. He became prime minister in 1968, ushering in an era of “Trudeaumania” as he became a media darling.

Though he was not often praised for his economic policies, Trudeau helped Canada build a new economy less dependent on the United States, said Chris Sands, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

During the height of anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the early 1970s, Trudeau reduced Canada’s military commitment to NATO and was considered by several U.S. presidents to be a “pain in the neck” for his foreign policies, Sands said.

Trudeau turned his energies to matters at home.

In 1970, Trudeau was hailed for his role in handling extreme separatists in Montreal, who had kidnapped a British trade commissioner and Quebec’s labor minister. Trudeau took a tough stand by invoking the War Measures Act, which suspended civil liberties while the crisis continued.

When asked by reporters how far he would go, Trudeau said: “Just watch me!”

A Colorful Politician

The 1970s were turbulent for Trudeau, whose party was fighting to keep power from falling into the hands of Conservatives. Their efforts failed in 1979, when the Liberal Party was defeated in the general election.

During the bitterly fought contest, Trudeau insulted farmers by calling them complainers and told Vancouver voters to “get off their asses” and do an honest day’s work. (Three years later, in 1982, Trudeau would “flip the bird” to another crowd of protesting voters, Duffy said.)

The colorful Trudeau announced he would step aside for a new leader, but the new Conservative government fell apart and another election was called. Trudeau ran and was re-elected.

In the early 1980s, Trudeau would annoy some American officials with his persistence in pressing peace initiatives at the height of the Cold War. He visited leaders in Europe and in the Soviet Bloc to try to get them to dismantle nuclear arms.

But Trudeau also championed individual rights, and buttressed support for a new Charter of Rights, Canada’s version of the American Bill of Rights. His liberal thinking extended to all groups of individuals, including homosexuals, to whom he is known for coining the phrase, “the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation.”

At the same time, his personal life was coming apart. He and his free-spirited wife, Margaret, divorced in 1984. He won custody of the couple’s three sons, Justin Pierre, now 29, Sascha, 27, and Michel, who died at age 23 in a skiing accident in British Columbia in 1998.

End of an Era

Trudeau would go on to live a relatively quiet life, practicing law in Montreal. Today, he is respected by a generation of Canadians who came of age during his time as prime minister.

The accidental death of his son Michel, who was killed when an avalanche swept the young man and his friends into a freezing cold lake, was said to have hit him hard. “ He never quite recovered from that,” Sands said.

But Trudeau’s legacy is likely to live on. It is said that even his enemies, who found him utterly frustrating at times, respected his wit and charm.

“I don’t think there was anybody who did not have respect for him in the end,” La Londe said. “He earned respect from all quarters.”

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.