We live in a chaotic world -- not unlike the beginning of the 1980's. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister then. And Tony Burman wonders what Trudeau the Elder would do in the present circumstances:
Last October marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Trudeau. To mark this milestone, Massey College at the University of Toronto last Friday organized a conference exploring Trudeau’s approach to foreign policy while he was prime minister. It examined what enduring relevance Trudeau’s world view has for today’s chaotic world.
This is a question that comes at a critical time in the history of this century.
For his part, Pierre Trudeau was a historic figure in Canada, loved by many and loathed by others, but a towering intellect. As the third-longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history, Trudeau won elections on four occasions and retired in 1984.
Trudeau met the world he encountered by launching a "peace initiative:"
In 1983-84, during his final term as prime minister, Trudeau launched a personal “peace initiative” that saw him visit as many as 15 countries in an effort to ease East-West tensions.
Robert Fowler, Trudeau’s foreign policy adviser at the time, who spoke at last week’s Massey conference, remembers it as a period of very high tension in the world: “It was impossible to follow the news without a pervading sense of dread and helplessness. Trudeau felt he had to do whatever it took to lift that spectre of gloom.”
At a G7 summit in 1983, Trudeau lashed out at his fellow leaders, admonishing them that “we should be busting our asses for peace.”
Canadians were impressed. But Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan weren't:
Thatcher was reported as saying: “Oh Pierre, you’re such a comfort to the Kremlin.”
The faces have changed. And now Donald Trump is a comfort to the Kremlin. But peace still hangs in the balance.
Image: The Toronto Star
6 comments:
Libertarians love their tidy little wars. I still feel like puking when I think of the haughty little grin that Thatcher wore after hers and the advice that she gave Reagan to have one of his own. I'd liked to have seen what must have suddenly happened to that grin when she found out what he'd decided to do with that advice. I wonder if she ever came to understand her proper place in the pecking order or if she ever thought that Ron had taken the time to read "The Road to Serfdom". While Harper has referred to them as "The Greats", I find more reasons to despise them with the continuing passage of time.
Both were certain of their beliefs, John. Ultimately, what they both believed led to the financial meltdown of 2008. Like many leaders, they didn't live long enough to reap what they had sown.
Would PET have led Canada into the gaping maw of the neoliberal order implemented by Thatcher and Reagan? Of course we'll never know. Would he have inked NAFTA? These measures might have seemed irreconcilable with PET's north-south initiative and inconsistent with the thrust of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by leaving the rights of Canadians including their governments subject to at times superior rights of corporate interests.
PET was surely our last truly progressive prime minister and the neoliberal order is antithetical to progressive values such as restraint of capital in favour of labour, the welfare of individuals and societies in priority to corporate interests. Perhaps it was irresistible, beyond a modern industrial nation's ability to reject. On that question what can lay people offer beyond speculation?
Would he have been able to resist it and, if so, at what cost to the Canadian economy, if any?
All good questions, Mound -- and they're impossible to answer. But it seems clear that, while Trudeau understood he had to deal with Thatcher and Reagan, he wasn't intimidated by them.
I liked to think that the "patriation" [unfortunate word in light of the folks who lived here before this nonsense arrived] of the constitution was simply the first step in shedding the monarchy in order to give all Canadians the ability to deal with each other honestly.
Yet here we are with Trudeau's offspring dithering the country and all of it's peoples into geo-political irrelevance, and physical global oblivion for the sake of the cash flows of a few neo-liberal buddies.
But hey, at least when the international world order collapses and mother earth decides she's finished with humans, Canada will have a former member of the Royal Family living in our portion of the Realm, and a "nice" relationship with the U.S.
KH
You present a grim future, KH. But, then, these are grim times.
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