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Pierre Trudeau

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (1919-10-18 – 2000-09-28) was a Canadian politician. He was Prime Minister of Canada from 1968-04-20 to 1979-06-03 and again from 1980-03-03 to 1984-06-30. His eldest son is Justin Trudeau, a teacher and politician.

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  • What sets a canoeing expedition apart is that it purifies you more rapidly and inescapably than any other. Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.

  • I would have to point out in the strongest terms the autocracy of the Liberal structure and the cowardice of its members. I have never seen in all my examination of politics so degrading a spectacle as that of all these Liberals turning their coats in unison with their Chief, when they saw the chance to take power.
    • As a CCF member taking issue with the federal Liberal Party. Cite libre (April 1963)

  • Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens. The citizens can go on speaking one language or six languages, or no languages if they so choose. Bilingualism is an imposition on the state and not the citizens.
    • Statement to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, as quoted in Problems of Journalism (1966) by the American Society of Newspaper Editors
    • Unsourced variant : "Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens — it is an imposition on the state."

  • We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.
    • L'État n'a pas d'affaires dans les chambres à coucher de la nation.
    • Comment in the Canadian House of Commons on the decriminalization of homosexuality (1967-12-22)
    • Although usually attributed solely to Trudeau, the quote is a paraphrase by him from an editorial that appeared in the Globe and Mail on December 12, 1967 (page 61) which read in part: "Obviously, the state's responsibility should be to legislate rules for a well-ordered society. It has no right or duty to creep into the bedrooms of the nation."

  • Vive le Franc libre.
    • Long live free France.
    • Comment referring to the 1968 student protests in Paris, patterned after the 1967 remarks of Charles de Gaulle in Montreal on Quebec independence from Canada: "Vive le Québec libre!" (Long live free Quebec!), quoted in The Lima News (11 December 1968)

  • I'm not leaving! I must stay.
    • On the reviewing stand of a St. Jean Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, after being subjected to objects being thrown by demonstrators. (24 June 1968)


  • Of course a bilingual state is more expensive than a unilingual one — but it is a richer state.
    • Remark in 1968, quoted in Improving Canada's Democracy (2006) by Terry Julian, p. 14

  • Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future.

  • If you want to see me again, don't bring signs saying "Trudeau is a pig" and don't bring signs that he hustles women, because I won't talk to you. I didn't get into politics to be insulted. And don't throw wheat at me either. If you don't stop that, I'll kick you right in the ass.
    • Comment to a young protester throwing wheat at him during a speech in Regina, (17 July 1969), in The Best of Trudeau (1972)

  • Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.
    • Addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C. (25 March 1969)

  • Canada regards herself as responsible to all mankind for the peculiar ecological balance that now exists so precariously in the water, ice and land areas of the Arctic archipelago. We do not doubt for a moment that the rest of the world would find us at fault, and hold us liable, should we fail to ensure adequate protection of that environment from pollution or artificial deterioration.
    • House of Commons Debate (24 October 1969)

  • Trudeau: Well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it's more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier—
    CBC reporter Tim Ralfe [interrupting]: At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?
    Trudeau: Well, just watch me.
    • Responses to reporters following the kidnapping by the FLQ of a provincial cabinet minister who was eventually murdered. CBC video archives (1970-10-13)

  • Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent.
    • Approaches to Politics (1970)

  • Mangez de la merde.
    • (Translation: Eat shit.) Response to the taunting of a group of striking Montreal mail truck drivers in 1970, as quoted in The Trudeau Decade (1979) by Rick Butler and Jean-Guy Carrier, p. 219

  • There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian. What could be more absurd than the concept of an "all Canadian" boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate.
    • Speech to the Ukrainian - Canadian Congress, Winnipeg, Manitoba (9 October 1971)

  • Fuck off.
    • Comment alleged to have been made to an opposition MP in the House of Commons, as quoted in Trudeau in Power (1971) by Walter Stewart, p. 47
    • Oh, I don't know...fuddle-duddle or something like that.
      • Comment to the media, explaining what he told the MP.

  • I've been called worse things by better people.
    • When it was reported to him that President Richard Nixon had called him an "asshole" (1971), quoted in Absurdities, Scandals & Stupidities in Politics (2006) by Hakeem Shittu and Callie Query, p. 19
    • My only response was that I had been called worse things by better people.
      • Trudeau's account of the comment, in Memoirs (1993) by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, p. 218

  • The next time you see Jesus Christ, ask Him what happened to the just society He promised 2,000 years ago.
    • In reply to a high school student's question about what happened to Trudeau's promises of a "Just Society", in Regina, Saskatchewan (September 1972)

  • I don't really know what a cyclotron is but I am certainly very happy Canada has one!
    • Visiting the TRIUMF cyclotron in (February 1976), as quoted in "A Canadian TRIUMF" in Grad Gazzette [University of British Columbia] (June 2005)

  • If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.
    • Televised address (1976-11-24)

  • Oh, for Christ's sake shut up. Obviously the New Democratic Party is not only misinformed but uninterested in the subject.
    • Comment in the House of Commons in response to an MP heckling his response in Question Period, House of Commons Debates - Official Report - Second Session - Thirtienth Parliament - Volume V, 1977 - Page 5272 (4 May 1977)

  • Mr. Lévesque was saying that part of my name was Elliott and since Elliot was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the No side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote Yes. That, my dear friends, is what contempt is…. It means saying that the Quebecers on the No side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the Yes side have pure blood in their veins.… Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than 200 years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than 100 years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are. My name is a Quebec name — but my name is a Canadian name also.
    • Speech in Paul Sauvé Arena, Montreal, Quebec, six days before the Quebec referendum on independence. (14 May 1980)


  • I walked until midnight in the storm, then I went home and took a sauna for an hour and a half. It was all clear. I listened to my heart and saw if there were any signs of my destiny in the sky, and there were none — there were just snowflakes.
    • Recounting a "walk in the snow" at a news conference announcing his resignation (29 February 1984)

  • Our hopes are high. Our faith in the people is great. Our courage is strong. And our dreams for this beautiful country will never die.

  • The essential ingredient of politics is timing.
    • As quoted in The Rainmaker : A Passion for Politics (1986) by Keith Davey, p. 57; also in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1998) by Connie Robertson, p. 439

  • I, for one, will be convinced that the Canada we know and love will be gone forever. But, then, Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realized Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.
    • Testifying before the Canadian Senate in opposition to the Meech Lake Accord (1988-03-30)

  • Some things I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers. I didn't like to slap backs or other parts of the anatomy. I liked hecklers, because they brought my speeches alive. I liked supporters, because they looked happy. And I really enjoyed mingling with people, if there wasn't too much of it.
    • Memoirs (1993), p. 178

  • I believe a constitution can permit the co-existence of several cultures and ethnic groups with a single state.
    • As quoted in Prime Ministers (2000) by Rennay Craats


  • People are more interested in ideas than dress.
    • As quoted in "Pierre Elliott Trudeau" profile in The Greatest Canadian at CBC

Quotes about Trudeau

Listed alphabetically by author

  • Pierre Trudeau was too much of a professional politician to be described as a good man, nor, it can be argued despite much pubilicity to the contrary, was he a particularly clever or even wise one. But he was a great man, perhaps the greatest Canada has produced in this century.
    • Peter Brimelow, in The Patriot Game : Canada and the Canadian Question Revisited (1986)

  • Trudeauism: The Highest Form of Liberalism
    • Peter Brimelow, chapter title from The Patriot Game (1986)


  • In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination.
    • Irving Layton, in "Obs II" in The Whole Bloody Bird (1969)


  • Go bang the window and see what happens — just go test it. See that? Trudeau had the office bulletproofed. I always contended that the reason he did it was because the American embassy is right outside. They probably wanted to shoot him.
    • Brian Mulroney

  • The greatest pop star this country has ever produced.
    • Geoff Pevere and Greig Dymond in Mondo Canuck : A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey (2002)
 
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