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Articles on Pierre Trudeau

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Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau dances with convention delegates at the 1982 Liberal Convention in Ottawa. Two years later, he would take a walk in the snow and decide to resign. (CP PHOTO/Chuck Mitchell)

40 years after his famous walk in the snow, a look back at Pierre Trudeau’s resignation

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces questions about his own political future, it’s worth remembering his father’s famous walk in the snow 40 years ago — and what fuelled his decision to quit.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his son, Hadrien, watch a traditional First Nations game in Whitehorse, Yukon in February 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Thomas

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assumes a new role — single dad, just like his own father

Like everyone whose marriage breaks up, nothing is ever quite the same after. What impact Justin Trudeau’s marital breakup will have on his life and career will be revealed in the months to come.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, surrounded by key members of his cabinet, announces his government will invoke the Emergencies Act. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Canada in crisis: Why Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act to end trucker protests

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history. His father had invoked its predecessor, the War Measures Act, more than half a century earlier.
Left to right, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Finance Minister Allan MacEachen and Québec Premier René Lévesque attend the constitutional conference in Ottawa on Nov. 5, 1981 — the morning after eight premiers hastily pieced together a constitutional accord. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ron Poling

Canada inked a landmark constitutional accord 40 years ago — and it’s still causing problems

The constitutional reform agreement reached in November 1981 has produced a bitterness in national relations that lingers to this day and imposes on Canada a cost that has weakened the nation.
Justin Trudeau boards his campaign plane in Toronto on Aug. 17. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Rhetoric Check: Historically, how important is the 2021 Canadian election?

Is Justin Trudeau correct about the importance of this election? Nobody has a crystal ball to foresee what the government will do in the future. But it’s certainly important to Trudeau’s legacy.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau speaks during a dramatic meeting with the entire federal cabinet and a delegation of about 200 First Nations leaders on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in 1970. THE CANADIAN PRESS/R. Mac

Pierre Trudeau’s failures on Indigenous rights tarnish his legacy

How did a national leader whose animating political spirit was protecting human rights come to adopt a passive acceptance of Canada’s worst face of colonialism?
Close to 3,000 Quebecers gathered at the Paul-Sauvé arena hours before the invocation of the War Measures Act would send Canadian troops onto the streets of the province and many people – some of them at the arena rally – were arrested in subsequent raids. Éditions du Septentrion, CC BY-NC-ND

October Crisis, 1970: Crackdown ignited by authorities’ fear of young people

A new book argues that the War Measures Act was a response to the threat young people posed to authorities.
Co-founders Craig (left) and Marc Kielburger introduce Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau as they appear at the WE Day celebrations in Ottawa in November 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

The other WE Charity scandal: White saviourism

An intense controversy over sending Canadian teens to Cuba to cut sugar cane in the 1970s raises questions about why WE Charity’s international development approach hasn’t been controversial for years.
Canada and the United States share a border and other geographical ties. But the coronavirus has underscored the need to ease our dependence on the U.S. Niagara Falls, Ont., is seen from the American side of the falls. (Pixabay)

Coronavirus shows why Canada must reduce its dependence on the U.S.

With COVID-19 radicalizing the already radical presidency of Donald Trump, Canada may be forced to confront its dependence on the U.S. more directly and with greater urgency.
Pierre Trudeau is saluted by an RCMP officer as he carries son Justin to Rideau Hall in 1973, when the elder Trudeau was in a similar political situation as his son is today. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Bregg

U.S.-Canada trade under Trudeau minority governments: Then and now

There’s a different Trudeau in office in 2019 than there was in 1972, but Justin Trudeau is also leading a minority government, just as his father did — and the Canada-U.S. relationship is key.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has his makeup applied during a commercial beak at recent the Maclean’s/Citytv leaders debate. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

Style over substance: Another uninspiring Canadian election campaign

Given entrenched characteristics of Canadian electoral politics, the 2019 election is unlikely to deal in any meaningful way with concrete solutions to the important problems of our times.
Former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and his wife, Margaret, visited Fidel Castro in Cuba in January 1976. THE CANADIAN PRESS/File

Canada-Cuba relations take a sad turn with new visa requirements

The ugly turn in Canadian-Cuba relations stemming from Canada’s new visa requirements puts at risk decades of creative, productive connections between Cuban and Canadian people.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to reporters in Toronto on Sept. 10, 2018. He’s vowing to invoke the seldom used notwithstanding clause in his fight to slash the size of Toronto city council. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov.

The history of the notwithstanding clause

The notwithstanding clause in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms has seldom been used. But it’s not totally gathering dust, and now Ontario Premier Doug Ford is threatening to wield it.
On Dec. 23, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono went to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to meet Pierre Trudeau. The Canadian prime minister was the only world leader to meet with the peace activists. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Bregg)

50 years ago, John and Yoko came to Canada to give peace a chance

John Lennon and Yoko Ono visited Canada on a peace mission: They met with leaders and asked difficult questions, relevant today. How do we effectively protest against social injustices and war?

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