Word: trudeau
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Outside his homeland, Pierre Elliott Trudeau is still regarded by some people as a debonair political-intellectual with a certain Kennedy-like flair. But Trudeaumania has long since faded away in Canada. After eight years in office, the Prime Minister is increasingly seen by Canadians as an impetuous "philosopher king," contemptuous of both voters and Parliament. His economic policies are under savage attack, and his Liberal government (which has an 18-seat majority in the House of Commons) has become embroiled in scandal. His popularity and prestige have slipped so low, in fact, that some believe that Canada...
Rambling Interview. The real signs of trouble for the Trudeau administration came last fall, when persistent double-digit inflation and climbing unemployment forced the Prime Minister to adopt price and wage controls-a Tory proposal he had ridiculed in the 1974 campaign. The policy itself received overwhelming public support, but its imprecise application (changes in the rules are still being made almost weekly) angered and alienated both labor and business. Complained one top appliance-company executive: "How in hell can you make plans for production when you don't know what the policy really...
...Trudeau added to his political problems by a rambling TV interview last...
December in which he announced that the "free market system" was dead. In effect Trudeau was really saying what many other leaders of industrialized countries have recently argued: namely, that new solutions, possibly government-imposed, would have to be found for the perennial problems of stagflation. But to most listeners, Trudeau's remarks seemed unnecessarily autocratic. He was accused by organized labor, business and the Tories of trying to move Canada toward a socialist dictatorial state. To quell the storm of protest, Trudeau was forced to make a public speech explaining that he did not mean to dismantle democracy...
...that time, the Trudeau government appeared to be involved in scandal. The first came in November, when Tory M.P. Elmer Mackay unsuccessfully petitioned Commons for a judicial inquiry into possible federal influence peddling in the granting of duty-free shop concessions at Montreal's airports. Mackay charged that Louis Giguere, a Liberal Senator and prominent party fund raiser, had made a $92,000 windfall profit from the timely purchase and sale of shares in Sky Shops Ltd., the concession in question. Mackay also charged that Health and Welfare Minister Marc Lalonde, who was Trudeau's principal secretary when...