Who was Pierre Elliott Trudeau?

Pierre Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 to September 28, 2000) was Canada's 15th Prime Minister, serving from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979 and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984. His combined tenure of about 15 years and 4 months makes him the third-longest-serving Prime Minister after William Lyon Mackenzie King and Sir John A. Macdonald. Trudeau was a Liberal and led the Liberal Party from 1968 to 1984.

Trudeau was born in Montreal and trained as a lawyer at the Université de Montréal, Harvard, and the London School of Economics. He was a public intellectual and civil-rights activist before entering federal politics in 1965 (along with Jean Marchand and Gérard Pelletier, the 'Three Wise Men' from Quebec). He became Justice Minister in 1967 under Pearson and Liberal leader in April 1968. His 1968 election campaign launched the Trudeaumania phenomenon, with Trudeau winning a strong majority on April 20, 1968.

Trudeau's most consequential achievement was the 1982 patriation of the Canadian Constitution. The Constitution Act, 1982 (proclaimed by Queen Elizabeth II in Ottawa on April 17, 1982) added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 35 Indigenous rights protection, an amending formula, and ended Canada's constitutional dependency on the British Parliament. Justice Minister Jean Chrétien negotiated the patriation deal with most provinces in November 1981. Quebec did not consent to the package, and the failure to bring Quebec into the constitutional family fueled the subsequent Meech Lake (1987) and Charlottetown (1992) accord attempts.

Other Trudeau-era policies include the Official Languages Act of 1969, the federal multiculturalism policy of October 8, 1971 (Canada being the first country to adopt official multiculturalism), the marijuana decriminalisation discussion (decriminalisation did not happen until 2018 under Justin Trudeau), the 1980 National Energy Program (a controversial federal intervention in oil and gas markets), and the federal Family Allowance reforms. Trudeau used the War Measures Act during the October Crisis of 1970 (after the FLQ kidnappings of British trade commissioner James Cross and Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte, who was killed). Trudeau retired in 1984 and was succeeded by John Turner. His son Justin Trudeau served as Prime Minister from 2015 to 2025.