Pierre Trudeau Essay, Research Paper

Pierre Trudeau

Pierre Trudeau will certainly not be forgotten, even after his death. In my opinion he accomplished a lot for Canada but I disliked his crazy ways of politics, to me the way he does things don?t make much sense. Unlike other politicians Pierre Trudeau, had four central themes: the freedom of the individual; the political equality of all individuals; the superiority of rationality; and democracy as the best form of government. What is interesting about these principles is that at various points in his writing Trudeau’s value for each one of them compromises and even contradicts his value for one or more of the others. In this way, irony becomes a part of Trudeau’s liberalism.

There are many more examples of conflicts between Trudeau’s thoughts and his actions. For instance, Trudeau has always been uncomfortable with excessive state intervention in the economy. For this reason he has consistently opposed the imposition of price and income controls. But this did not stop him from deciding, in 1975, that a lack of responsibility on the part of business and labour necessitated the introduction of a controls system. Trudeau has spoken of the need for a shift of emphasis in Canadian society from consumption to conservation. And yet, he allowed energy-conservation measures in Canada to fall far behind those of the United States. More than a few times, Trudeau has insisted that it is our moral obligation as Canadians to share our wealth with poorer nations. Nevertheless, he still reduced foreign-aid spending and even put a protective quota on textile imports from developing countries. Trudeau has written about the importance of consensus in government. But again, this did not prevent him, on more than a few occasions, from entirely disregarding the consensus of his cabinet ministers on a given issue, preferring instead to make the decision on his own. And the list goes on.

Through the magazines I have examined, I have come to the conclusion that, although Canada did very well as a country while Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister, he was a very contradicting man, and therefore can be said, with confidence, that irony is a more than adequate characterization of the relationship between Trudeau’s ideas and his actions.