{"id":4930,"date":"2021-04-26T11:50:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T15:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=4930"},"modified":"2021-04-26T07:46:11","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T11:46:11","slug":"question-was-trudeau-a-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=4930","title":{"rendered":"Question: Was Pierre Trudeau a disaster?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:WordDocument>\n<w:View>Normal<\/w:View>\n<w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>\n<w:PunctuationKerning\/>\n<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>\n<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\n<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>\n<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>\n<w:Compatibility>\n<w:BreakWrappedTables\/>\n<w:SnapToGridInCell\/>\n<w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>\n<w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>\n<w:DontGrowAutofit\/>\n<w:UseFELayout\/>\n<\/w:Compatibility>\n<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel>\n<\/w:WordDocument>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><\/p>\n<p><!-- [if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">\n<\/w:LatentStyles>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><!-- [if !mso]><object classid=\"clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D\" id=ieooui><\/object>\n\n\n\n<style>\nst1\\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }<br \/><\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><!-- [if gte mso 10]>\n\n\n\n<style>\n \/* Style Definitions *\/<br \/> table.MsoNormalTable<br \/>\t{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";<br \/>\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;<br \/>\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;<br \/>\tmso-style-noshow:yes;<br \/>\tmso-style-parent:\"\";<br \/>\tmso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;<br \/>\tmso-para-margin:0cm;<br \/>\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;<br \/>\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br \/>\tfont-size:10.0pt;<br \/>\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";<br \/>\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;<br \/>\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;<br \/>\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}<br \/><\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13285 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Trudeau_PET-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Trudeau_PET-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Trudeau_PET.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">A few years ago, an Ottawa public policy think tank &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macdonaldlaurier.ca\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Macdonald-Laurier Institute<\/a> &#8211; <span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0<\/span>hosted a lively debate on the resolution: <em>Pierre Trudeau was Canada\u2019s most disastrous Prime Minister.<\/em> The Institute brought David Frum to speak to the affirmative and Lawrence Martin to speak against the resolution. Decades after his departure from Parliament Hill, the question of Pierre Trudeau&#8217;s impact on our country still is a topic of heated discussion. Here are abbreviated highlights from the opening statements of both arguments regarding P.E.T.&#8217;s record in office. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Georgia;\"><strong>David Frum: Yes, Trudeau was a disaster.<\/strong> <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">It has taken nearly 30 years to recover after Pierre Trudeau nearly bankrupted and split up\u00a0the country.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\">\u00a0 <\/span>Three subsequent important prime ministers \u2014 Brian Mulroney, Jean Chr\u00e9tien\u00a0 and Stephen Harper \u2014 invested their energies cleaning up the wreckage left by\u00a0 Pierre Trudeau.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">Between 1969 and 1979 \u2014 through two majority governments and one\u00a0 minority \u2014 Trudeau tripled federal spending. In 1981-\u201982, Canada plunged into recession, the worst since the Second World\u00a0 War. Trudeau\u2019s already big deficits exploded to a point that Canada\u2019s lenders\u00a0 worried about default. Pierre Trudeau was a spending fool. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">He believed in a state-led economy, and\u00a0 the longer he lasted in office, the more statist he became. The Foreign\u00a0 Investment Review Agency was succeeded by Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada was\u00a0 succeeded by wage and price controls. Wage and price controls were succeeded by\u00a0 the single worst economic decision of Canada\u2019s 20th century: the National Energy\u00a0 Program.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">To win the 1980 referendum, Trudeau promised Quebec constitutional changes to\u00a0 satisfy Quebec nationalism. Instead, he delivered a package of constitutional\u00a0 changes that tilted in exactly the opposite direction. The government of Quebec\u00a0 refused to ratify the new constitutional arrangement, opening a renewed\u00a0 opportunity to separatists and bequeathing a nightmare political problem to\u00a0 Trudeau\u2019s successors.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><strong><span style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Georgia;\">Lawrence<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Georgia;\"><strong> Martin: No, Trudeau was not a disaster.<\/strong> <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">Pierre Trudeau is beloved because he liberated Canada from old men, old thinking, narrow\u00a0 traditions and colonial caution. To understand Trudeau\u2019s impact we need first recall the type of Canadian\u00a0 leaders who came before him. All these [past] leaders thought along conventional lines. Then came this phenom\u00a0 with a roman cut, sandals and an air of Jesus Christ. Pierre Trudeau combined\u00a0 intellectual electricity, star-power charisma, and a contrarian\u2019s independent\u00a0 mind. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">Think of the ways in which he [transformed Canada], the ways in he became the country\u2019s\u00a0 liberator. With his repatriation of the Constitution, Trudeau liberated us at\u00a0 long last from Great Britain. With his Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he\u00a0 liberated us from the authority of the state. With his bilingualism and\u00a0 multicultural polices, he liberated us from unilingual, unicultural trappings;\u00a0 from anti-pluralist prejudice that had rarely seen a woman in top governing\u00a0 posts, that saw no Jews in the cabinet or on the Supreme Court.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">With ice in his veins Trudeau liberated us from the blackmail of FLQ\u00a0 terrorism. With the same he took down the threat posed by Ren\u00e9 L\u00e9vesque in the\u00a0 1980 referendum. With his never-back-down resilience, he provided a sense of\u00a0 freedom from American encroachment, this at a time when the giant next door was\u00a0 mired in war, racism, Watergate and economic nationalism.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">Standards of living grew appreciably in the\u00a0 Trudeau years, far more so than in the three decades following when they have\u00a0 flatlined. Under Trudeau, the percentage of Canadians living in poverty dropped\u00a0 from 23 per cent in 1968 to 13 per cent in 1984. Repeat, from 23 per cent to 13\u00a0 per cent.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 11pt; font-family: Georgia;\">To read the full arguments, for and against, visit the\u00a0<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho';\"><em>Macdonald-Laurier Institute\u2019s website, where they have reprinted the Ottawa Citizen columns containing David Frum&#8217;s and Lawrence Martin&#8217;s opening statements. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macdonaldlaurier.ca\/history-wars-was-trudeau-a-disaster-david-frum-and-lawrence-martin-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Click here.<\/a><\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Chris George<\/em><\/strong><em>\u00a0is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cgacommunications.com\/m\/\">CG&amp;A COMMUNICATIONS<\/a>. Contact:\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:ChrisG.George@gmail.com\">ChrisG.George@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: Georgia;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago, an Ottawa public policy think tank &#8211; The Macdonald-Laurier Institute &#8211; \u00a0hosted a lively debate on the resolution: Pierre Trudeau was Canada\u2019s most disastrous Prime Minister. The Institute brought David Frum to speak to the affirmative and Lawrence Martin to speak against the resolution. Decades after his departure from Parliament Hill,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[35,30,32],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4930"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13286,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4930\/revisions\/13286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}