At the end of March 2023, I used artificial intelligence to turn Canada’s prime ministers into 1980s hair metal singers and posted the results online.
Amidst the responses many on social media were surprised at what some of the prime ministers looked like and only a few had heard of prime ministers Sir John Abbott, Arthur Meighen, or R.B. Bennett.
Even William Lyon Mackenzie King, who led Canada for 21 years, is relatively unknown to many Canadians.
Then, there was one prime minister that’s like a rockstar and everybody knew him.
Which makes sense…. For 15 years he led Canada and although he last sat in Parliament 40 years ago, his legacy continues to this day because he fundamentally altered the country…forever.
Which was surprising because when he entered the political scene in the late-1960s, he was relatively unknown and then in a short time, everywhere he went he caused a frenzy
His name? Pierre Trudeau
and mine… is Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today we’re diving into… Trudeaumania!
This story begins when the first of the Trudeau family, Etienne Trudeau, arrived in New France on Sept. 7, 1659.
The territory first explored by Jacques Cartier in 1534 became home and for the next two centuries, the Trudeau family grew, and for the most part, prospered.
Charles-Emile Trudeau was Etienne’s great great grandson? was born on his family’s farm in Saint-Michel-de-Napierville, Quebec on July 5, 1887. He went on to become a prominent lawyer in Montreal which made his mother Malvina very happy.
While in the city he saw the world change around him… in 1896 the first American gas-powered car was sold. Soon a man by the name of Henry Ford would revolutionize the industry when he introduced the Model T on October 1, 1908. The vehicle is considered as the first mass-affordable automobile, which made car travel available to the middle-class.
Charles -Emile saw this innovation and invested his earnings into building gas stations and eventually had 30 of them along with 15,000 members in his Automobile Owners’ Association.
He quickly became a millionaire.
.
All the while he was courting Grace Elliott, the daughter of a prominent entrepreneur and after a decade of courtship the couple married in 1915 and just over four years later, they welcomed a baby boy into their family.
On Oct. 18, 1919, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was born.
Pierre Trudeau grew up in an affluent family with a large, but unpretentious home, where they had a maid and chauffeur.
Charles-Emile was a loving, if distant father, who enjoyed parties, drinking, and staying away from home for days at a time.
In 1932, he sold his gas stations and association for $1 million and then just three years later…he was gone.
Charles-Emile died suddenly in 1935 from pneumonia while vacationing in Orlando, Florida.
Pierre Trudeau was only 16-years old and suddenly he inherited $5,000. The modern equivalent of $100,000 in his pocket.
His father’s death impacted him deeply. He knew how his father’s hard partying affected the family and his health and Pierre vowed to avoid a similar fate.
For the rest of his life he never smoked, rarely drank, and typically avoided large parties.
Instead, Pierre turned to nature.
He used his inheritance to fund long canoe trips through the many rivers of the Canadian Shield.
He also shared the wealth and offered to buy classmates books, records, and concert tickets they could not afford.
Pierre eventually attended the University de Montreal from 1940 to 1943 and graduated with a law degree at the top of his class, even if he found practicing law…. boring.
A year later he began his master’s in political economy at Harvard University. But things were challenging for him at the Ivy League school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Pierre was a French Catholic living outside of Quebec for the first time and he felt isolated and like an outsider, so he moved to Paris to study at the Institut d’Eduted Politques.
But he never finished the Harvard dissertation because Pierre briefly entered a doctoral program to study under the socialist economist Harold Laski at the London School of Economics. He didn’t finish this either.
With his future uncertain he looked for purpose while traveling the world. He justified it by saying the journey would fuel his research, but it didn’t because he never worked on his thesis during this time.
He embarked from Poland, through Eastern Europe, into the Middle East and down into Iraq.
Then he traveled east, through Pakistan, India, China and to Japan.
In 1949, he returned to Quebec.
He arrived at a province ruled by the nearly dictatorial Premier Maurice Duplessis.
You will remember him from my episode on the Quebec Revolution.
Pierre Trudeau was appalled by the authoritarianism, and it led him to become a leading figure in the Asbestos Strike of 1949.
He marched alongside h strikers in shorts, a beard and a head cloth earning him the nickname of St. Joseph.
But the support of the strikers had consequences.
The provincial government blacklisted him, which prevented Pierre from teaching law at any Quebec university,
This had been his hope but with no teaching opportunities available, he focused on criticizing the Duplessis government.
He co-founded the publication, Cite Libre, and in it he called the provincial government corrupt and socially regressive and accused the federal government of ignoring the French in Quebec despite Prime Minister, Louis St. Laurent being a Francophone.
As you might remember after Maurice Duplessis died in 1959 the Quiet Revolution began in earnest and Pierre found he had more options as the province soon became more progressive.
In 1961, he took the position of Associate Professor of Law at the Universite de Montreal.
At this time, Pierre was heavily left-leaning, and identified more with the Co-operative Commonwealth, today’s New Democratic Party, rather than the Liberal Party.
A supporter of Co-operative Commonwealth Party, now known as the NDP since his youth, he moved away from the NDP after 1961 because he believed it would never be powerful enough to form government while the Liberal Party had governed Canada for just under 30 years.
As his political ambitions grew, Pierre believed the Liberals aligned with his values over the Progressive Conservatives.
In 1965, he joined the Liberal Party.
On Sept. 10, 1965, almost 306 years to the day that his ancestor Etienne Trudeau arrived in present-day Quebec, Pierre announced he would be running for Parliament in the Mount Royal riding.
On Nov. 8, 1965, the Liberals won 131 seats, to form their second consecutive minority government under Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.
Pierre won 55.6 percent of the vote in his riding.
And with that his new career as a Member of Parliament began.
Soon after the election, Lester B. Pearson offered Pierre the role of Parliamentary Secretary. For a brand-new Parliamentarian, it is a high-profile position as members in this position typically assist more senior ministers in their duties.
Yet, he initially turned it down.
It was not until his friend Jean Marchand, a fellow Quebec MP who was involved in the Asbestos Strike, also elected in 1965, changed his mind and accepted.
From Jan. 7, 1966, to April 3, 1967, Pierre served as the Parliamentary Secretary.
Then, less than two years after was first elected, Pierre was chosen by Pearson to take on the high-profile cabinet position of Minister of Justice.
This is one of the most important and high-profile cabinet portfolios in Parliament. It is often seen as a stepping stone to becoming prime minister. From 1867 to 1967, six prime ministers, including Pierre Trudeau, served as Minister of Justice.
Not only did Pierre suddenly find himself in front of television cameras on a regular basis, but Canadians were also getting their first look at a dynamic young French-Canadian dressed in stylish suits, with a sports car, and had a healthy dose of charisma.
As Justice Minister, Pierre Trudeau oversaw the Criminal Law Amendment Act.
This was one of the most important changes to the criminal act in Canadian history.
It included amendments to laws surrounding animal cruelty, divorce and abortion.
Its most notable impact was that it legalized same-sex relations between consenting adults in private,
If you remember the episode about the We Demand March, you’ll know there was much more work to be done.
When asked to defend the Act, Pierre Trudeau famously said,
“There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation. What’s done in private between adults doesn’t concern the criminal code.”
While he introduced the Act, known as Bill C-195, on Dec. 21, 1967, by the time it passed in mid-1969, he was no longer the Justice Minister.
He was now.
Prime Minister.
On Dec. 14, 1967, one week before Bill C-195 was introduced in Parliament, Lester B. Pearson announced his retirement.
Immediately Canadians speculated about his replacement.
Pearson was still popular, but the Progressive Conservatives had ousted their leader John Diefenbaker in 1967 and replaced him with Robert Stanfield, the former premier of Nova Scotia giving them a boost in the polls.
Pearson was in his early-70s and had been in power for five years and he s. With an election coming sometime between 1968 and 1970, he wanted someone new to take the reins.
Various prominent Liberals put their names forward.
Paul Martin Sr. was one of the first.
He had served in Parliament since 1935 and was a cabinet minister for three different Prime Ministers. He came second to Pearson in the 1958 leadership race, and his desire to be prime minister was well known.
Also in the mix were Paul Hellyer, the Minister of Transport, Robert Winters, the Minister of Trade and Commerce, and a young John Turner, who was called Canada’s JFK when he was first elected to Parliament in 1963.
There was speculation that Pierre Trudeau would run for the leadership, but for weeks he gave no indication he would.
Early on, Paul Martin Sr. led in the polls but as speculation grew around Pierre Trudeau his lead dwindled.
It was well-known that Pearson’s personal choice in the succession was Pierre Trudeau. The growing separatist movement in Quebec worried him and he wanted someone from Quebec to lead Canada through the next decade.
In a write-in poll done on Jan. 17, 1968, in Toronto, Pierre Trudeau was the favourite to become the next Prime Minister.
A month later, he still hadn’t announced his candidacy, yet he was a close second to Paul Martin Sr.
Meanwhile, Pierre felt his friend Jean Marchand was the best man for the job, but the latter wouldn’t run because felt his English was not good enough, and he was dealing with health issues.
Just like when Pierre had turned down the position of parliamentary secretary, Marchand pushed his friend to run for leader of the party.
On Feb. 10, 1968, at the Liberal Party of Ontario’s convention at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Pierre Trudeau announced he would fly in for the event but unofficially and would give no formal speech.
He stressed that his commitment to the convention would be three hours at most. Delegates were invited to what was called an informal coffee party in the Ontario Room of the historic hotel.
As they entered, they noticed the trillium motif above the doors, the custom designed chandeliers, resembling baskets of trilliums, that hung from the domed ceiling in honour of Ontario’s official flower.
1,400 delegates made their way into the room which features a mural, by Canadian artist C. J. Greenwood, depicting the Toronto Purchase of 1788.
And then…at 5 pm Pierre Trudeau entered the jammed room and for r two hours, he worked through the crowd, stopping to talk with each delegate.
Ramsay Cook, a professor of history at the University of Toronto was there and said after the meeting,
“Pierre seemed a little surprised and even a little confused by the extraordinary reception he had received in Toronto.”
One young unnamed woman witnessed the magnetic effect Pierre Trudeau had on people,
“Pierre can excite people like no one else can. The thing has mushroomed. He is like a savior.”
At 7pm when he was done with the delegates in the Ontario room Pierre Trudeau finally spoke to the press about his candidacy
“At the outside 10 days. If I’m lucky, sooner. I don’t know if the answer will be yes or no.”
The next day, the front page of the Toronto Star featured a picture of Trudeau speaking to young woman.
The headline read “Liberals make it a love-in for Pierre Trudeau”.
Various news stories compared him to John F. Kennedy and The Beatles and just like the Fab four… a mania was just around the corner.
The growing enthusiasm around Trudeau was not completely welcomed.
The old guard of the Liberal Party didn’t like that he had just joined the party three years earlier in 1965.
Prior to being elected he was seen as too radical and outspoken because of his views on abortion, divorce, and homosexuality.
One unnamed party official said,
“Let’s just cool off. He’s not the new messiah. I’m fed up to the teeth with all this charisma.”
In response Pierre Trudeau stated that if they wanted a fight, he would fight them on the ballot and run for the leadership.
His reluctance to say if he was running or not was seen by some as a way to build enthusiasm for his eventual leadership race.
Pierre rebuked this theory in his autobiography, titled Memoirs.
In it he states he was hesitant to become prime minister.
He valued his personal freedom, which he would lose if he became prime minister.
He also secretly agreed with the old guard and felt it presumptuous to run with only three years of Parliamentary experience, especially against someone like Paul Martin Sr., who had entered Parliament when Trudeau was still a teenager.
Lastly, Pierre worried about living in what he called the eye of the media.
(PAUSE – Music Transition)
Regardless of Pierre’s feeling on the matter, Pearson asked Trudeau to attend the Federal-Provincial Conference on Feb. 6, 1968, where he received nationwide coverage over his debate on constitutional reform with Quebec Premier Daniel Johnson Sr.
Less than ten days later 200 prominent Quebecers signed a petition on Feb. 15, 1968, urging Trudeau to run for the Liberal leadership.
Despite his initial reluctance, Trudeau announced his candidacy for Leader of the Liberal Party the day after.
[PAUSE]
He shot to the top of all the polls, passing Paul Martin Sr.
Pierre said in Memoirs,
“Once I made up my mind, I resolved to forge ahead with all the energy at my disposal and never look back.”
One of his first meetings was with Joey Smallwood, the Liberal premier of Newfoundland who had led the province since it joined Confederation in 1949. Smallwood was impressed with Pierre and gave him his support and said,
“Pierre is better than Medicare. The lame have only to touch his garments to walk again.”
As each day of the leadership campaign passed, Trudeau seemed to be everywhere.
A Universite Laval study found that between Jan. 1 and March 20, Pierre Trudeau received 26 per cent of the media coverage among the nine leadership candidates, a full 16 per cent more than Finance Minister Mitchell Sharp.
During his campaigning Pierre introduced the notion of what he called the Just Society.
He said o,
“The Just Society will be one in which all of our people will have the means and the motivation to participate. The Just Society will be one in which personal and political freedom will be more securely ensured than it has ever been in the past. The Just Society will be one in which the rights of minorities will be safe from the whims of intolerant majorities.”
This message resonated with the youth at the time. They were the Baby Boomer generation, who were just coming of age and becoming politically active.
Bob Rae was one of those inspired by Pierre.
Rae supported Pierre during the leadership race, and he would go to serve in Parliament from 1978 to 1982 and be the premier of Ontario from 1990 to 1995.
As Pierre Trudeau’s popularity grew the Liberal Party convention was fast approaching
By the time it began on April 3, 1968, at the Ottawa Civic Centre, he led public opinion polls with 32 per cent support, followed by Paul Martin Sr. at 14 and Mitchell Winters at 10 per cent.
The first day of the convention paid tribute to Lester B. Pearson and his time as prime minister.
The next day consisted of policy workshops where candidates had 25 minutes to speak to delegates on the topics of Our Life, Our Country, and Our Economy.
Pierre Trudeau outdrew every other candidate.
The third day, April 5, was reserved for speeches by the candidates, which Pierre Trudeau excelled at then he turned his attention to the nine hospitality suites in various Ottawa hotels where he had been meeting delegates over the first few days of the convention.
The fourth day gave delegates the opportunity to vote for Pearson’s successor.
On the first ballot, Pierre Trudeau came in first place with 31.5 percent, more than double his next closest competitor, Paul Hellyer, which led three candidates, including Paul Martin Sr., to withdraw from the race.
For Paul Martin Sr., this marked the end of his long political career, and he gave an emotional speech He was joined on stage by his son, Paul Martin Jr., who 35 years later would become Prime Minister of Canada.
Meanwhile the race was still on
And in the second ballot, Pierre Trudeau increased his share of the votes to 40.5 percent, but still fell short of the majority needed to win.
His next closest competitor was Robert Winters, who had 19.9 per cent.
At this point, Hellyer withdrew from the race, but before he did, he chose a leader for his delegates to support.
Judy LaMarsh, a former cabinet minister I’ll be l be covering in the future, was famously caught saying in front of a hot microphone,
“You’ve got to go to Winters. Don’t let that bastard win it Paul, he isn’t even a Liberal.”
The bastard she was referring to was Pierre Trudeau.
With the third ballot Pierre moved up four points to 44.2 per cent, but Winters closed the gap somewhat with 26.1 per cent.
On the fourth ballot, gave the 17 million people tunning in from across Canada a victor.
With 50.9 percent of the vote, Pierre Trudeau was now the Prime Minister of Canada.
When Pierre Trudeau became prime minister, the population was 20.7 million people.
The Liberal leadership convention became the most-watched event in Canada in the 21st Century and wouldn’t be surpassed until the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Gold Medal Men’s Hockey Game.
As soon as Pierre Trudeau finished his speech, 5000 people celebrated at the victory party which erupted in the civic centre, and then spilled onto the street.
Pearson wrote in his memoirs,
“Trudeau created an immediate and exciting impression. He was the man to match the times, the new image of a new era. His non-involvement in politics became his greatest asset, along with his personal appeal, his charisma.”
While the Liberal leadership convention was the spark, Trudeaumania was about to explode.
On April 20, 1968, Pierre Trudeau was sworn in as the 15th Prime Minister of Canada and as he left his first cabinet meeting, a young woman ran up to him. She hugged him and gave him a kiss.
Before long, Trudeau needed maximum-security protection from the RCMP and Ontario Provincial Police.
As Prime Minister, he called an election to take advantage of the wave of enthusiasm surrounding him.
Heading into the campaign, the Liberal’s main platform was the creation of a Just Society, with a proposed expansion of social programs.
All of the party’s campaign materials featured a picture of Pierre Trudeau with messaging that leaned into the idea of generational change with slogans such as “Vote for a New Leadership for all of Canada.”
Among young voters, his athleticism, his knowledge of judo – an unarmed martial art and his long history and love of canoeing were greatly appealing.
And he used his sex appeal to his advantage, often being in front of news cameras doing jackknife dives into pools and ponds while wearing a European men’s bikini.
Everywhere he went, he was treated like a rock star.
Keith Mitchell, a campaign worker during that election, stated,
“He came into politics in a tumultuous way, serving as a beacon of a new era.”
Progressive Conservatives had a tough time competing.
While Robert Stanfield was respected, and generally considered to be someone with the potential to be an excellent prime minister, he was also viewed as, for lack of a better term, old and stuffy.
The Progressive Conservative’s hoped to take the focus away from Pierre Trudeau with big policy announcements.
They released their Blue Book, which outlined 56 proposals that included pollution controls, new port facilities and a pledge to create a guaranteed annual basic income… which sounds sexy now… but nothing compared to Pierre’s natural swagger.
And he wasn’t just magnetism and charisma… Pierre had the goods too because soon after the Conservatives released their policy book, the Liberals released their Red Book with proposals that focused on The Just Society, bilingualism, multiculturalism and more.
Peter C. Newman, wrote for the Toronto Star
“The document is a dramatic attempt by the Liberals to counteract the image of Trudeau as the hero of a screaming cult of teenager, and instead portray him as a Prime Minister.”
Since Trudeau was regularly on the news, there was no need for television advertising.
Broadcasters reserve time for political ads but instead that time went to speeches.
The money saved was put elsewhere, including the creation of the Action-Trudeau, a youth wing of the Liberal Party with four national coordinators, and each constituency had an Action-Trudeau group with a leader who recruited and trained young workers to canvas and phone voters.
They also organized demonstrations and entertainment.
During that election campaign, you couldn’t escape Pierre Trudeau’s face.
There were the expected buttons and signs but also dresses.
People were even copying his style by going to tailors to buy the same suits he wore. Designer Stuart Mackay stated,
“Suddenly everybody wants to look like Pierre Trudeau.”
Montreal’s Personality Posters Inc. sold 23,000 giant photographs of Trudeau in the first two weeks of May, mostly purchased by those under 30.
And then…. like a true rock star…. there was the fan mail.
During the campaign they had to increase the size of their Parliamentary office staff because of the influx of correspondence.
Pearson had 15 people looking after the mail but when Pierre became Prime Minister, the volume of mail increased four-fold and he needed 60 people handling his mail to keep up.
Trudeaumania was in full effect and its impact was felt across Canada as interest in the Liberal Party skyrocketed.
A Liberal nominating meeting in Minnedosa, Manitoba, which has a total population of 2,178 in 2016…. had 1,200 voting delegates and 600 spectators in 196X.
Membership of the Davenport Liberal Association in Toronto went from 200 to 5,455 members in x time.
In Alberta, where only two Liberals had been elected since 1957, membership in the Liberal Party was growing by 400 people per day.
Everywhere he went, Trudeau was being met with massive crowds.
At a campaign stop in Victoria, he was lowered by helicopter to the top of a hill because the stage was surrounded by thousands of people.
Much like the Beatles he was often drowned out by the screams. Before long, he took a bullhorn with him so he could be heard.
On May 14, the typically Conservative city of Edmonton had 3,000 people greet him at City Hall.
Four days later at a campaign stop in Toronto, Trudeau was swarmed by 1,500 well-wishers.
The Ottawa Journal reported,
“The jumpers, the squealers, the swooners and the grabbers were on hand as the prime minister took off on foot through a shopping centre and down busy streets.”
One girl, Roxanne Hollingworth, kissed Trudeau three times as the crowd descended upon him, and he was whisked away to another campaign stop.
On May 20, during a campaign stop along Lakeshore Boulevard in Toronto, police surrounded him as he attempted to walk into a crowd of excited teenagers, Cathy Wilson was one of them and she handed him a flower and fell back sobbing when he took it. As the crowd swelled adults threw rice at him as if he were a newlywed.
On May 23 in Ottawa outside the East Block which contains parliamentary offices, 500 teenagers waited four hours to catch a glimpse of the prime minister… As he walked out his security detail did their best to give him room, but people kept reaching out to touch him.
A few people even plucked hairs from his head.
There was only one place seemingly unaffected by Trudeaumania.
Quebec.
In his home province many saw him as a traitor because he resisted an independent Quebec and the separatist movement.
There his speeches were more formal, with more content and less, what he called, political fluff.
On June 4, he attended the funeral of his friend Andre Laurendeau in Montreal. As he walked out of the church, protesters yelled at him, called him a traitor and said that he should go back to Ottawa.
But he was still on the election campaign, and amidst all of this Trudeau took part in the first televised Leaders Debate in Canadian history.
On June 9, 1968 the event featured a panel of journalists that was in a format more question and answer than a classical debate.
In the aftermath legendary journalist Peter C Newman wrote,
“Nobody won it, but the audience lost.”
After the debate, NDP Leader Tommy Douglas was the victor as 40 percent of the viewers were impressed by Kiefer Sutherland’s future grandfather.
Pierre Trudeau only scored 27 percent and only five percent stated the debate changed their minds.
The irony of Pierre’s poor performance in the televised debate was surprising to Journalist Walter Stewart who said of his charisma,
“Whatever quality it is that makes television work for one person and not for another, Trudeau had it.”
Trudeaumania had taken over Canada.
On June 19, Trudeau spoke in Toronto to a crowd of 50,000 people. They heard a speech that Peter C. Newman called in the Toronto Star dismal and said his presence and not his words were what excited the crowd.
quote,
“Pierre Trudeau’s mammoth rally in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square yesterday would have been an unqualified triumph if the prime minister had not opened his mouth.”
These huge crowds of primarily young people, galvanized by his message of a Just Society.
At the time it is estimated there were one million new voters eager to cast a ballot, thanks to his influence.
Even Progressive Conservative candidates were seeing the appeal. Reverend Roberts Rolls, running in Niagara Centre, said,
“Pierre Trudeau is one of the most colourful and exciting figures on the Canadian political scene and is certainly more exciting than Bob Stanfield.”
But the constant press coverage began to irritate some.
A. Witiuk, a reader wrote to the Toronto Star,
“The press is treating our prime minister as if he was an eminent movie star. The moment he kisses a girl, the entire nation from coast to coast reads about the incident in every newspaper across the country.”
And it wasn’t just the public, some Liberal candidates felt they were being overshadowed.
Pat Mahoney, running in Calgary South said,
“We are electing Mahoney in Calgary South, not Trudeau.”
As election day drew near Pierre Trudeau attended the Saint Jean Baptiste Day parade in Montreal.
The day before they hit the voting booths, Quebec sovereigntists threw rocks and bottles at the grandstand where he was sitting, shouting “Trudeau to the stake!”.
He rejected pleas to take cover and instead sat in his seat and faced the rioters without an ounce of fear on his familiar face.
This image of the prime minister sitting defiantly amid protesters ran in newspapers the next day and gave him a big boost.
He said of the incident,
“I had absolutely no desire to give in to such a ridiculous display of violence. I detest violence.”
That same day the Toronto Star endorsed him as Prime Minister in an editorial. quote
“This astonishing man who can leave a crowd of 50,000 cheering Torontonians, spend a half hour with Montesquieu’s De L’Esprit de lois, and then do a backflip into a hotel pool is an authentic political phenomenon.”
June 25, 1968, was election day in Canada and it became a massive a triumph for Pierre Trudeau and the Liberal Party.
For the first time since 1953, the Liberals won a majority government, gained 26 seats and finished with 154 seats.
The Progressive Conservatives fell by 22 seats to finish with 72, while the NDP had 22 seats, the same amount from the previous election.
Even in Quebec, the Liberalspicked up 56 of 74 seats
And what did the man himself say of Trudeaumania? In his autobiography, he simply stated,
“It is extremely difficult to evaluate a shift of opinion when you yourself are the focus of it.”
Trudeaumania eventually quieted down as the 1970s rolled in and his popularity waned as high gas prices skyrocketed along with unemployment and government debt.
Pierre Trudeau won a minority government in 1972, followed by a majority government in 1974 and another majority in 1980.
In all, Trudeau served as Prime Minister of Canada for 15 years and 164 days from 1968 to 1979 and 1980 to 1984. He served longer than anyone else except Sir John A. Macdonald and William Lyon Mackenzie King.
During that time, he was photographed walking behind the Queen enroute to dinner when he twirled behind the monarch and even went on a date with Kim Cattrall. In 1981 the actress was 24, and a year away from appearing in the film Porky’s which became the second highest-grossing Canadian film of all time.
He was then 62.
As prime minister, he fundamentally changed Canada.
His government created Petro-Canada, implemented bilingualism and multiculturalism, navigated the country through the October Crisis of 1970 and the first Quebec referendum in 1980, while outlawing the death penalty and expanding unemployment insurance.
The biggest impact of Trudeau as Prime Minister came in 1982 when he patriated the Constitution, giving Canada full sovereignty from the United Kingdom, while establishing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
He was named the Canadian Newsmaker of the Year a record ten times, including every year from 1968 to 1975, as well as in 1978 and in 2000.
In 2000, he was also named the Canadian Newsmaker of the 20th century shortly before he died at the age of 80 on Sept. 28, 2000.
In a poll conducted by CBC in 2004, he was named the third Greatest Canadian after Tommy Douglas and Terry Fox.
And today, his son, Justin Trudeau, is our prime minister and the leader of the Liberal Party.
