Riendeau A Roger E. Brief History of Canada

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

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justice from Quebec, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, to assume the role as party

leader and prime minister in April 1968.

Trudeaumania and the Just Society

The youthful, ﬂ amboyant, and decisive image projected by the new

prime minister inspired a popular enthusiasm that was dubbed

“Trudeaumania.” Trudeau’s vision of the “just society” held out the

promise of a revised Canadian constitution that would guarantee per-

sonal and political liberties, protect minority rights, and offer greater

opportunities for underrepresented or less privileged regions and social

groups. He also envisioned a renewed federalism based not only on a

strong central government capable of standing up to the provinces but

also on the institutionalization of bilingualism, in order to give French

Canada a major role to play in national politics. To Canadians weary of

the political chaos of minority government, federal-provincial conﬂ ict,

and regional polarization, Trudeau rekindled hopes for a new era of

national unity and social justice. Consequently, in the election of June

1968, the Liberals won a clear majority, while Social Credit was com-

pletely eliminated from federal politics, although its legacy lived on in

Caouette’s Créditistes. For the next 16 years, Trudeau, like Macdonald,

Laurier, and King before him, would dominate and deﬁ ne Canadian

politics (Clarkson and McCall 1990, 1994).

The Trudeau administration appeared determined to convert the

rhetoric of the “just society” into reality. In 1969 Prime Minister

Trudeau asserted that “to build and maintain a strong and united coun-

try, it is essential that both French- and English-speaking Canadians

should be able to feel at home in all parts of the country, and that their

rights as members of our major language groups should be respected by

the federal government.” According to the Ofﬁ cial Languages Act,

based upon a recommendation of the Royal Commission on Bilingual-

ism and Biculturalism, English and French were to be coequal lan-

guages of the federal civil service, the Crown agencies, and the federal

courts. The act further stipulated that full federal services would be

available in both languages in areas where a minority of either group

constituted at least 10 percent of the population. With the exception of

a small group of vocal opponents in the West led by Diefenbaker, most

Canadians accepted the policy of bilingualism on principle. But over

the years, practical efforts to introduce institutional bilingualism

received little support and aroused much criticism among English-

speaking Canadians who, in view of the growing trend toward unilin-

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gualism in Quebec, complained that they had become the victims of

unfair treatment.

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism also stud-

ied the cultural contributions of non-French and non-British ethnic

minorities, who comprised 27 percent of Canada’s population of 21.5

million in 1971 (as compared to 21 percent of 14 million in 1951). The

changing racial composition of Canadian society was largely the prod-

uct of government immigration policy. In 1962 the Diefenbaker admin-

istration made immigration regulations consistent with its Bill of Rights,

which two years earlier had rejected discrimination by reason of race,

national origin, color, religion, and gender. The Pearson administration

further revised immigration regulations in 1966–67 to eliminate any

discriminatory provisions; to restrict the admission of sponsored

dependents and nondependent relatives; and to base selection on a

point system employing such criteria as education and training, occu-

pational demand, age, personal qualities, and linguistic capacity. Whereas

Prime Minister Lester Pearson (1897–1972) (right) meets with members of his Liberal cabinet

who will become future prime ministers (left to right): Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000), John Turner

(1929– ), and Jean Chrétien (1934– ). Trudeau went on to serve as prime minister for

more than 15 years, longer than any other French-Canadian and the third-longest tenure in

Canadian political history, behind King and Macdonald.

(Duncan Cameron/Library and Archives

Canada/PA-117107)

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prior to these regulations almost 90 percent of immigrants were of

European origin, by the early 1970s about half came from other regions,

including the West Indies, Africa, South America, and Asia.

To alleviate concerns that biculturalism relegated all other ethnic

groups to second-class status, Prime Minister Trudeau proclaimed in

1971: “A policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework com-

mends itself to the government as the most suitable means of assuring

the cultural freedom of Canadians” (Palmer 1975, 136). Canada’s cul-

tural mosaic would not only be recognized and celebrated but also sup-

ported through government grants for some of the activities of ethnic

groups. Four provinces with substantial ethnic populations—Ontario,

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta—subsequently initiated their

own multicultural policies. As various ethnic groups competed for gov-

ernment support, critics of multiculturalism soon began to dismiss it as

an insidious scheme to buy votes.

The Trudeau government also advocated “the full, free and non-dis-

criminatory participation of the Indian people in Canadian society”

(Canada 1969, 5) in its White Paper on Indian Policy issued in 1969.

Minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chrétien called for the end of the Depart-

ment of Indian Affairs, the repeal of the Indian Act, the elimination of

reserves, and the transfer of many federal responsibilities for Indian

affairs to the provinces. Legally and administratively, Indians would

eventually become like other Canadians. The overwhelmingly critical

Native response was summed up in Harold Cardinal’s book The Unjust

Society, which referred to the White Paper as “a thinly-disguised pro-

gramme of extermination through assimilation” (Cardinal 1969, 140).

Despite imposing a form of colonialism, the Indian Act at least recog-

nized the special constitutional status of the Native peoples, without

which they would be absorbed into mainstream Canadian society.

Responding to sustained Native pressure, the government retracted the

White Paper proposals in 1971. Inadvertently, the White Paper along

with the Trudeau government’s refusal to negotiate Native land claims

for the approximately one-half of the country that was not already under

treaty sparked a dramatic increase in the scope and intensity of political

organization and activism among Canada’s Native peoples. From 1968

to 1971, four organizations in particular emerged to strengthen the

resolve of Native peoples to deﬁ ne their own destiny: the National

Indian Brotherhood (reorganized in 1981 as the Assembly of First

Nations); the Canadian Métis Society (renamed the Native Council of

Canada in 1970); the Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories

(renamed Dene Nation in 1978); and the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.

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Women were also emerging as an organized political force and as

major economic contributors, as reported by the Royal Commission on

the Status of Women in 1970. Chaired by former CBC news commenta-

tor Florence Bird, the commission presented 167 recommendations on

such matters as employment equity, educational opportunities, and

family law, including the decriminalization of abortion. The commis-

sion reported that after World War II an increasing number of women

pursued a career after marriage or returned to work after raising their

children, despite social pressure to surrender their jobs to returning

servicemen or to remain occupied in the home. By 1970 married

women accounted for more than one-third of the labor force (as com-

pared to one-quarter in 1951), but they were concentrated in white-col-

lar jobs at the lower end of the pay scale. Although some improvements

were being made, women were still underrepresented in professional

and managerial occupations, political institutions, and higher educa-

tion, in addition to being subject to a range of discriminatory policies

in both the private and public sector. The Trudeau government

responded immediately by creating new ofﬁ ces and procedures to deal

with women’s rights, including a portfolio for the status of women in

the federal Cabinet, and by amending federal statutes to remove sec-

tions that were discriminatory to women, notably the Canada Labour

Code. Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with government progress in imple-

menting the commission’s recommendations led to the formation in

1971 of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, which

went on to become the largest umbrella organization of women’s

groups in Canada (Prentice 1996).

The “just society” was greatly concerned with the problems of pov-

erty and deprivation. The federal government devised a more system-

atic and integrated approach to the problem of regional economic

disparities with the establishment of the Department of Regional Eco-

nomic Expansion (DREE) in 1969. The chief purpose of DREE was to

help create employment opportunities by providing either grants to

individual ﬁ rms willing to invest in new or expanded manufacturing

plants or support for the development of local infrastructure as well as

social facilities and services. To provide “individual development cou-

pled with adequate income support,” the Trudeau government in 1971

introduced a new unemployment insurance scheme that substantially

expanded both eligibility for beneﬁ ts and levels of support. In effect,

unemployment insurance was integrated into the welfare system inas-

much as it became a regular means of income support in the poorer

areas of the Atlantic Provinces and Quebec. For all its good intentions,

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this scheme would be constantly criticized for its steadily rising cost

and its negative effects on work incentive (Bothwell, Drummond, and

English 1989).

By the early 1970s, Canadians were becoming more conscious of the

adverse effects of dynamic urban and industrial development on their

physical environment. Although concerns about the “greenhouse

effect,” the depletion of the ozone layer, the pollution of air and water,

the destruction of the tropical rain forests, the management of rapidly

accumulating disposable waste, the hazards of acid rain, and the con-

servation of natural resources and wilderness areas were largely global

in scope, Canadians demanded that their federal, provincial, and local

governments be more responsive to environmental protection. Accord-

ingly, the Trudeau administration established the Department of the

Environment in 1971, and two years later, the Federal Environmental

Assessment Review Ofﬁ ce (FEARO) was formed to monitor the bio-

physical and social impact of major projects on environmental quality

in Canada. Within a few years, all of the provinces had established their

own departments of the environment and had implemented environ-

mental protection and assessment legislation. Although Canadians

would continually debate the adequacy of government responses to

environmental issues, the ecological health and well-being of the nation

became ﬁ rmly embedded in the public agenda.

The wave of Trudeaumania and the enthusiasm for the just society

that had launched Trudeau into power in 1968 subsided considerably by

the time he sought reelection in 1972. The minute margin of victory

suggested that many Canadians disagreed with the Liberal campaign

slogan “The Land Is Strong.” Trudeau had to account for a faltering

economy, this time characterized by a unique concurrence of rising

unemployment and inﬂ ation, which economists dubbed “stagﬂ ation”

(stagnation/inﬂ ation). That Trudeau did not give this problem the atten-

tion that many voters thought it deserved was widely interpreted as

further evidence of his growing arrogance and remoteness. Western

Canada, where enthusiasm for Trudeaumania ranged from lukewarm to

skeptical in 1968, felt thoroughly alienated four years later. Prairie farm-

ers believed that the Liberal government lacked appreciation for wheat-

growing, the family farm, and rail transportation. They agreed with

others in English Canada that Trudeau had been too preoccupied with

bilingualism and rising Quebec nationalism. The Liberals lost almost all

of their support in the West and a signiﬁ cant amount in Ontario, mainly

to the Conservatives and, to a lesser extent, the NDP. Under the leader-

ship of David Lewis, the NDP launched an effective attack on “corporate

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welfare bums,” beneﬁ ciaries of the government’s policy of granting gen-

erous tax concessions to large corporations. The resulting 31 seats not

only represented a high-water mark for the NDP or CCF at the federal

level but also gave the labor-socialist alliance the balance of power in

Parliament. In the ﬁ nal analysis, the land was not as strong as Trudeau

believed because he did not fully appreciate the powerful forces of cul-

tural and regional division that were reasserting themselves.

The Quiet Revolution in Quebec

The dramatic transformation of Quebec politics and society during the

1960s and 1970s provided the most serious challenge to national unity

(Linteau, Durocher, and Robert 1991). The ﬂ oodgates of change broke

open shortly after the death of Premier Maurice Duplessis in 1959. For

the previous 15 years, Duplessis and his Union Nationale party had

governed Quebec as a feudal lord rules over his ﬁ efdom. While the

province experienced accelerated urban and industrial growth compa-

rable to neighboring Ontario or the eastern United States, Duplessis

implemented social and economic policies that either reinforced tradi-

tional values or were unresponsive to the modern realities of Quebec

life. His administration became notorious for its political and electoral

corruption that helped Union Nationale maintain its grip on power.

Duplessis also refused to revise an outdated electoral distribution sys-

tem that blatantly favored rural over urban areas. Whereas some urban

ridings had upwards of 100,000 voters, many rural ridings, which

tended to vote Union Nationale, had fewer than 10,000 voters.

Furthermore, Duplessis was reluctant to extend education and social

services out of a concern that they would undermine the role of the

Catholic Church. Instead, he preferred to subsidize church-sponsored

schools and social agencies in order to maintain the support of the

Catholic hierarchy. The provincial government consistently refused to

accept federal assistance to ﬁ nance education and social programs on

the grounds that it was an infringement on provincial rights and auton-

omy. Economic development strategy focused on inviting foreign capi-

tal to exploit the enormous natural resources of the province. Labor

unions and legislation to improve working conditions and to protect

worker rights were suppressed, often to placate foreign investors. Labor

unions, social activists, and other critics of the Duplessis government

tended to be branded and persecuted as communists.

By the 1950s growing opposition to the conservatism of Duplessis

was led by a new French-Canadian middle class linked to the practical

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and social sciences as well as to business and administration. Pierre

Trudeau was among these “radical” liberal critics of the Duplessis

regime who demanded more state intervention to provide better educa-

tional opportunities, more housing facilities, improved health care,

higher welfare beneﬁ ts, and equitable labor laws. As the traditional par-

ish organization disintegrated under the impact of urbanization and

industrialization, it was no longer practical to expect the church to

fulﬁ ll fundamental socioeconomic needs. Only the state had the

resources and capacity to undertake the complete modernization of

Quebec (McRoberts 1999; Mann 2002). Without the dynamic leader-

ship of Duplessis, Union Nationale proved powerless to resist the forces

of change, and the victory of the Liberals under Jean Lesage in the pro-

vincial election of 1960 ushered in an era of political, social, and eco-

nomic reform that became known as the Quiet Revolution (la Révolution

tranquille).

The new Lesage administration was determined to enhance the

province’s capacity to control its own economic development. Most of

Quebec’s industry was controlled by English-speaking Canadians or

Americans, and the province was not well-endowed with private

investment capital or entrepreneurial initiative. In an effort to reverse

this tendency, Minister of Natural Resources René Lévesque persuaded

Lesage to nationalize private electricity companies and to merge them

with the Crown corporation Hydro Quebec. This giant corporation

standardized hydro rates across the province, coordinated investments

in this key energy sector, integrated the electrical system, stimulated

industrial development, and inspired greater French-Canadian enter-

prise. Another success story was the creation in 1965 of the Caisse de

dépot et placement du Québec, which successfully administered the

Quebec Pension Plan and went on to become one of the largest ﬁ nan-

cial institutions in North America. The Lesage government also estab-

lished the Société générale de ﬁ nancement to assist small companies

experiencing ﬁ nancial difﬁ culty. Maîtres chez nous (masters of our

own house) was the prevailing philosophy behind government initia-

tives to promote a more dynamic French participation in the Quebec

economy.

In 1961 the average French Canadian annually earned about 40 per-

cent less than his English-speaking counterpart in Quebec. To help

bridge this gap and to promote economic progress necessitated reform

of the province’s archaic education system, which was severely strained

by the baby-boom generation reaching adolescence. The Lesage admin-

istration, therefore, appointed the Royal Commission of Enquiry on

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Education in the Province of Quebec, which recommended a sweeping

program of reform in 1962 designed to assert state control over a sector

in which the Catholic Church had played a powerful role and to equip

the youth of Quebec with the knowledge and skills demanded by the

modern occupations. The secularization of Quebec education was high-

lighted by the establishment of the ﬁ rst provincial Department of Edu-

cation in 1964, almost nine decades after neighboring Ontario had

done so. The new department undertook to create and supervise a com-

prehensive system of primary and secondary education that was acces-

sible to the entire population and to overhaul the school curriculum.

The traditional focus on the humanities subjects as preparation for the

medical and legal professions or the clergy gave way to greater empha-

sis on a wide range of scientiﬁ c, technical, and commercial studies. By

the end of the decade, Quebec’s universities and colleges were produc-

ing their share of economists, managers, engineers, scientists, and other

skilled professionals for industry and commerce.

In the social sphere, the government invested heavily in the ﬁ eld of

health care, including participation in the federal-provincial hospital

insurance program, and inaugurated the Quebec Pension Plan in 1965.

To improve labor relations, the government revised the labor code and

gave most public-sector workers the right to strike. Political reforms

included measures to curb political patronage and electoral corruption,

changes to the electoral map to provide better representation for urban

areas, and the reorganization of municipal government to promote ﬁ s-

cal stability.

The philosophy of maîtres chez nous applied not only to economic

development but also to Quebec’s relations with the federal govern-

ment. After creating a Department of Federal-Provincial Affairs with

himself as minister, Lesage forced the federal government to accept

Quebec’s withdrawal from several cost-sharing programs and to com-

pensate the province for them. Unlike Duplessis, who rejected federal-

provincial programs as an intrusion on provincial rights, Lesage

demanded greater provincial control in the provision of these pro-

grams. In his struggles with the federal government, Lesage was seek-

ing not only a further extension of provincial rights but also more

money. Indeed, reform proved to be costly as the Quebec budget nearly

tripled between 1960 and 1966. Insisting that the federal government

was ﬁ nancially starving the provinces, Lesage demanded that more of

the tax revenue that it collected should be handed over to Quebec.

These federal-provincial quarrels raised the question of the place of

Quebec and French Canadians in the Confederation.

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Although the Liberal reforms were long overdue, many rural and

small-town Québécois in particular found them to be too expensive and

too much too soon. In the provincial election of 1966, the Union Natio-

nale under Daniel Johnson won a majority of seats despite a signiﬁ cantly

lower popular vote than the Liberals. To the disappointment of Quebec

conservatives, Johnson did not signiﬁ cantly alter the Liberal reforms. In

fact, he demanded even greater provincial autonomy based on linguistic

equality of Canada’s two major ethnic communities or “nations”—“mas-

ter of our destiny in Quebec and equal partners in running the affairs of

the country.” Accordingly, Johnson argued for constitutional reform

that would involve a redistribution of intergovernmental powers and

responsibilities to recognize Quebec as an “associate state.” When Prime

Minister Trudeau asserted in 1968 that he would pursue linguistic

equality without any reduction to federal authority, the battle lines

began to be drawn between the forces of Quebec sovereignty and cen-

tralized federalism (Linteau, Durocher, and Robert 1991).

The question of sovereignty appeared peripheral to the nationalist

aspirations of Quebec through most of the 1960s. Since 1963 the Front

de libération du Québec (FLQ), a revolutionary fringe group dedicated

to the establishment of an independent and socialist Quebec, had been

involved in petty criminal and terrorist activity that did not generate

signiﬁ cant popular support. French President Charles de Gaulle seemed

to lend support to the cause of independence with his notorious cry of

Vive le Québec libre during the Expo 67 celebration in Montreal. The

sovereignty movement gained more political credibility in 1968 when

the widely respected journalist and former Liberal cabinet minister

René Lévesque formed the Parti Québécois (PQ), a union of two “sepa-

ratist” movements that had previously enjoyed limited albeit enthusias-

tic support. In the provincial election of 1970, the PQ or Péquistes, as

they were commonly known, secured almost one-quarter of the popu-

lar vote but only seven seats in the legislature.

The noteworthy support for the PQ in its inaugural election, how-

ever, was overshadowed by the infamous October Crisis of 1970.

Within a span of ﬁ ve days, rival groups of FLQ members kidnapped

James Cross, a British trade representative, and Pierre Laporte, a cabi-

net minister in the recently elected Liberal government. When Laporte

was subsequently found murdered, Premier Robert Bourassa requested

the assistance of the Canadian Armed Forces to supplement the Quebec

police. Prime Minister Trudeau responded by invoking the War Mea-

sures Act, which gave the federal government emergency powers to

deal with a declared state of “apprehended insurrection.” Under this

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unprecedented peace-time use of the War Measures Act, the FLQ was

banned, normal civil liberties were suspended, and about 500 people

were detained and arrested on the mere suspicion of being sympathetic

to the terrorists (all were later released without being charged). Cross

was returned safely, and the crisis passed within three months, but

controversy lingered. While the federal response received overwhelm-

ing public support outside of Quebec, French-Canadian nationalists

and civil libertarians throughout Canada were highly critical of such an

extreme measure being adopted for supposedly political purposes in a

liberal democracy (Bothwell, Drummond, and English 1989).

Despite the criticism, neither Trudeau nor Bourassa appeared to suf-

fer politically for their response to the October Crisis. Trudeau retained

his strong support in Quebec, which enabled him to survive the federal

election of 1972. Bourassa’s Liberals swept the provincial election of

1973, winning 102 seats, while the Union Nationale was reduced to

two seats and political oblivion. The PQ managed to increase its popu-

lar vote to slightly over 30 percent, yet won only six seats. For the

A former journalist and Quebec Liberal Cabinet Minister, René Levesque (1922–87) founded

the separatist Parti Québécois in 1968 and shocked English Canada with his election victory in

1976. His concept of sovereignty association continues to threaten national unity three decades

later.

(Duncan Cameron/Library and Archives Canada/PA-115039)

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