Charlie Rose

Login or Register

What’s on Charlie Rose:

5/17: Al Hunt, Karen Tumulty, Jessica Yellin and more 5/16: Bono 5/15: Matthew Warchus, Tim Minchin, Dennis Kelly and more 5/14: Jessica Buchanan, Erik Landemalm, Paul Farmer and more 5/13: Olympia Snowe and Jeh Johnson

Guests: Pierre Trudeau RSS

2000:

1. 

   A conversation with Pierre Trudeau

   with Pierre Trudeau on Sep 29, 2000

   Duration

   6 min

   Comments

   4 comments

   Rating

   * * * *

Pierre Trudeau (October 18, 1919 - September 28, 2000) was the fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada from April 1968 to June 1979, and from March 1980 to June 30, 1984.

Trudeau dominated the Canadian political scene from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s. He established the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within Canada’s constitution. As justice minister, Trudeau was responsible for removing laws against homosexuality from the Criminal Code of Canada. At the April 1968 Liberal leadership convention, Trudeau was elected leader of the party on the fourth ballot, with the support of 51% of the delegates, defeating some prominent, long-serving Liberals. As Prime Minister, Trudeau espoused participatory democracy as a means of making Canada a “Just Society.” He defended vigorously the newly implemented universal health care and regional development programs as means of making society more just. Trudeau’s first years would be most remembered for the passage of his implementation of official bilingualism. Long a goal of Trudeau, this legislation requires all Federal services to be offered in French and English. The measures were very controversial at the time in English Canada, but would be successfully passed and implemented.

Although his ratings slipped before the election of 1979, Trudeau and his government managed to win a majority in 1980. However, he could not keep his ratings up and in 1984, Trudeau stepped down, ending his 15-year tenure as Prime Minister. Shortly after his retirement from politics, Trudeau joined the Montreal law firm Heenan Blaikie as counsel. In the last years of his life, Trudeau was afflicted with Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer, and became less active, although he continued to work at his law office until a few months before his death at the age of 80.

Source - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau