A rchive Date
[ 13-09-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[P.E.T. shaped modern Canada
By LINDA WILLIAMSON -- Toronto Sun
September 10, 2000
They say you never forget your first. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was the first prime minister I met (not that I've met many of them since), the first politician I knew anything about, the first political leader I went to see in person.
He was also the only politician I knew of, before or since, whose picture occupied a place of honour on my best friend's mother's fridge.
I've always described myself as a child of the Trudeau era, but I'm only now beginning to understand how true that is; how many things I grew up taking for granted were actually forged by him. (What, you mean official bilingualism and multiculturalism, deficit spending, constitutional battles and the Charter of Rights weren't always with us?) Last week's events drove this home.
As a child during Trudeaumania, about all I knew of the man was that devil-may-care smile - the one that set the hearts of young moms like my friend's racing. I was 9 during the October Crisis, of which I remember little except the day my parents informed me the prime minister had declared "martial law," whatever that was. Their tone told me that while this was gravely serious, it was the only thing to do.
Later, when that same prime minister took a surprise young bride, my parents took me to a mall parking lot in suburban Winnipeg to see them both on the campaign trail. I don't remember any of the speech - something about "wage and price controls," perhaps? But I remember Margaret and Pierre vividly.
I didn't know it, but Trudeau was then already influencing my life. I studied French until I finished high school in 1978, a year in which I travelled to both Calgary and Ottawa on two separate federally funded student trips. The latter was something called the Forum for Young Canadians, during which dozens of nerdy kids like me held mock political debates, toured Parliament and the Senate - and I became one of a lucky trio of blushing 16-year-olds who got to shake PET's hand. I was stunned to discover this larger-than-life figure with the rose in his lapel was scarcely taller than we were.
I returned to Parliament Hill in April, 1982, as a journalism student at Carleton University, for the historic "patriation of the Constitution," something few of us really understood, but which Trudeau had convinced us was necessary. Somewhere, I have a picture from that day in which all you can see is the top of Queen Elizabeth's blue hat, a shadow of Trudeau and his acolyte Jean Chretien, and a giant sign reading, "THANKS/MERCI, PIERRE."
Always inspiring
Because of him, I now realize, I came to see bilingualism as an asset and a gift. Because of him, I became interested in Canadian politics. Because of him, I, a Westerner, became passionately interested in Quebec. As the Toronto Sun certainly proved, you didn't have to agree with him to be inspired by him.
By the time he finally took his famous "walk in the snow," it was hard to imagine life without him - just as it is now. When I was a kid, of course, I took the pirouettes, the "fuddle-duddle" episode, the Christmas babies and the shrugging in stride - just things our prime minister did. I knew it shook some people up, but Canada seemed guiltily proud of it all, right down to Margaret's Rolling Stones scandal. I thought it entertaining. Hey, I didn't know any better. Besides, it was.
What is it we've always said of him? He haunts us still. Recent days have made that painfully, poignantly clear.
He reminds us of a passionate, infuriating time, when a prime minister talked of things like a "just society" and the constitution, not tax cuts (even as he drove taxes, the deficit and debt to unthinkable levels). Love him or hate him, he makes today's leaders look weak and flat by comparison.
Imagine any of the current crop grappling with an October Crisis. Perish the thought. (Case in point - the Meech Lake mess. Remember the media love-in when Trudeau returned to the spotlight to trash the deal, insisting there must be no special status for Quebec? Without his benediction, the deal was doomed. Were we surprised?)
Of course, it's also unthinkable that someone as arrogant and intellectual and disdainful as Trudeau could come along now and get elected.
But Trudeau remains unique - brilliant and colourful at a time when Canada was seen as anything but. He challenged and shaped us to an extent millions of us are only now just beginning to realize. For better or for worse.
It's time we repeated it: Thanks, Pierre.
Linda Williamson is the Toronto Sun senior associate editor. She can be reached by e-mail at linda.williamson@tor.sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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