Pierre Trudeau

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian statesman and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and again from 1980 to 1984. Between his non-consecutive terms as prime minister, he served as the leader of the Official Opposition from 1979 to 1980.

Trudeau was born and raised in Outremont, Quebec, and studied politics and law. In the 1950s, he rose to prominence as a labour activist in Quebec politics by opposing the conservative Union Nationale government. Trudeau was then an associate professor of law at the Université de Montréal. He was originally part of the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), but then joined the Liberal Party in 1965, believing that the NDP could not achieve power. That year, he was elected to the House of Commons, and was quickly appointed as prime minister Lester B. Pearson's parliamentary secretary. In 1967, Trudeau was appointed as minister of justice and attorney general, during which time he liberalized divorce and abortion laws and decriminalized homosexuality. Trudeau's outgoing personality and charisma caused a sensation, termed "Trudeaumania", which helped him win the leadership of the Liberal Party in 1968. He then succeeded Pearson and became prime minister of Canada.

From the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, Trudeau dominated the Canadian political scene. After his appointment as prime minister, he won the 1968, 1972, and 1974 elections, before narrowly losing in 1979. He won a fourth election victory shortly afterwards, in 1980, and retired from politics shortly before the 1984 election. Trudeau is the most recent prime minister to win four elections (having won three majority governments and one minority government) and to serve two non-consecutive terms. His tenure of 15 years and 164 days makes him Canada's third-longest-serving prime minister, behind John A. Macdonald and William Lyon Mackenzie King.

During his tenure as prime minister, Trudeau institutionalized official bilingualism and multiculturalism in Canada. Amid the Quebec sovereignty movement, he invoked the War Measures Act during the 1970 October Crisis and successfully led the federalist campaign against the 1980 Quebec sovereignty-association referendum. In economic policy, he introduced the capital gains tax, expanded welfare programs, and oversaw major increases in deficit spending. He also enacted the Anti-Inflation Act in response to the 1970s recession. In a bid to move the Liberal Party towards economic nationalism, Trudeau established Petro-Canada and launched the National Energy Program, both of which generated significant controversy in oil-rich Western Canada and led to a rise in what was called "Western alienation". His government also implemented metrication in Canada, established Via Rail, and later enacted the Access to Information Act and the Canada Health Act. Trudeau pursued an independent foreign policy. He reduced alignment with the United States, maintained cordial relations with the Soviet Union, and developed strong ties with China and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, which put him at odds with other Western capitalist nations. He also oversaw Canada's entry into the G7. In 1982, Trudeau patriated the Canadian constitution and established the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, with the passage of the Canada Act 1982, achieved full Canadian sovereignty.

In his retirement, Trudeau practised law at the Montreal law firm of Heenan Blaikie. He also spoke out against the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords (which proposed granting Quebec certain concessions), arguing they would strengthen Quebec nationalism. Trudeau died in 2000. He is ranked highly among scholars in rankings of Canadian prime ministers, though he remains a divisive figure in Canadian politics. Critics accused him of arrogance, economic mismanagement, and unduly centralizing Canadian decision-making to the detriment of the culture of Quebec and the economy of the Prairies, while admirers praised what they considered to be the force of his intellect and his political acumen which maintained national unity throughout the Quebec sovereignty movement. Trudeau's eldest son, Justin Trudeau, served as the 23rd prime minister of Canada from 2015 to 2025, and was the first prime minister of Canada to be the child of a previous prime minister.

The Trudeau family can be traced to Marcillac-Lanville in France in the 16th century and to a Robert Truteau (1544–1589). In 1659, the first Trudeau to arrive in Canada was Étienne Trudeau or Truteau (1641–1712), a carpenter and home builder from La Rochelle.

Pierre Trudeau was born at home in Outremont, Quebec, on October 18, 1919, to Charles-Émile "Charley" Trudeau (1887–1935), a French-Canadian businessman and lawyer, and Grace Elliott, who was of mixed Scottish and French-Canadian descent. He had an older sister named Suzette and a younger brother named Charles Jr. Trudeau remained close to both siblings for his entire life. Trudeau's paternal grandparents were French-speaking Quebec farmers. His father had acquired the B&A gas station chain (now defunct), some "profitable mines, the Belmont amusement park in Montreal and the Montreal Royals, the city's minor-league baseball team", by the time Trudeau was fifteen. When his father died in Orlando, Florida, on April 10, 1935, Trudeau and each of his siblings inherited $5,000 (equivalent to $110,000 in 2023), a considerable sum at that time, which meant that he was financially secure and independent. His mother, Grace, "doted on Pierre" and he remained close to her throughout her long life. After her husband died, she left the management of her inheritance to others and spent a lot of her time working for the Roman Catholic Church and various charities, travelling frequently to New York City, Florida, Europe, and Maine, sometimes with her children. Already in his late teens, Trudeau was "directly involved in managing a large inheritance".

From the age of six until twelve, Trudeau attended the primary school Académie Querbes, in Outremont, where he became immersed in the Catholic religion. The school, which was for both English and French Catholics, was an exclusive school with very small classes and he excelled in mathematics and religion. From his earliest years, Trudeau was fluently bilingual, which would later prove to be a "big asset for a politician in bilingual Canada." As a teenager, he attended the Jesuit French-language Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, a prestigious secondary school known for educating elite francophone families in Quebec.