Ron Peters's Reviews > Trudeaumania: The Rise to Power of Pierre Elliott Trudeau

We see Justin on television so often now with updates on Canada’s COVID response that Robert Wright’s book caught my eye. Except that they are both classic liberals, there is little similarity between father and son. Justin is no intellectual, and Pierre was the opposite of a mealy-mouthed waffler. Whence this deflation in the quality and courageousness of political discourse?

This book covers enough of Trudeau’s early history to provide context but focuses on the time from his arrival in Parliament to his election as Prime Minister. My main reaction – aside from enjoying reliving the stir Trudeau created – was the shock of remembering how weird a year 1968 was.

The U.S. had student riots, race riots, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, and Johnson declining to run for election because of massive opposition to the war in Vietnam. Charles de Gaulle fled the Élysée Palace to escape student riots in Paris. Russian tanks rolled into Prague. Canada had its demonstrations and riots, directed at the Vietnam War, women’s rights, gay rights, a fledgling Green movement, and anti-nuclear activism. But the big deal was Quebec separatism and, in its wake, the launching of our constitutional adventures.

The book climaxes with Trudeau standing up to the fierce riots and FLQ death threats that attended his appearance at the St-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal on 24 June 1968. This is history for the younger generation to ponder. Perhaps we are not now living in the craziest of all possible worlds. Now I want to read Kurlansky’s 1968: The Year That Rocked the World. Darn! Too many books.