7 Pierre Elliott Trudeau 7His colourful personality and disregard of unnecessary for-
mality, combined with his progressive ideas, made him the
most popular of the 20 candidates. He became party leader
on April 6, 1968, and prime minister two weeks later. As a
determined antiseparatist, Trudeau in 1970 took a strong
stand against terrorists from the Front de Libération du
Québec during the October Crisis.
The elections of October 1972 left Trudeau and the
Liberals much weakened, with a minority government
dependent on the coalition support of the New Democratic
Party (NDP). During the next year and a half, the prime
minister faced a series of no-confidence votes in
Parliament, but in the national elections on July 8 the
Liberal Party won a clear majority and an increased num-
ber of seats in Parliament.
Throughout the 1970s, Trudeau struggled against
increasing economic and domestic problems. In the
national general elections of May 22, 1979, his Liberal
Party failed to win a majority (although Trudeau main-
tained his seat in Parliament), and the Progressive
Conservative Party won power as a minority government.
The Liberal Party was returned to power in the gen-
eral election of Feb. 18, 1980, and Trudeau began his fourth
term as prime minister on March 3. The proposal of
French separatism in Quebec was defeated in a provincial
referendum on May 20, 1980, and Trudeau then began
work on his plans to reform Canada’s constitution.
Proposed reforms included “patriation” (that the British
Parliament transfer the authority to amend Canada’s con-
stitution to Canada), a charter of human rights, broadened
federal economic powers, and institutional changes in fed-
eral structures such as the Supreme Court.
On Dec. 2, 1981, the Canadian House of Commons
approved Trudeau’s constitutional reform resolution with