Pierre Elliot Trudeau

Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau had a profound influence on Canada, its culture and society in general. The four specific areas that will be focused on in this essay are the FLQ crisis, Canada’s immigration policy and its foreign relations, the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the growing and everlasting conflict between the French and the English.

Trudeau was born on October 18th, 1919 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was the youngest child of three, son of Charles Trudeau, a French Canadian lawyer, and an English Canadian woman. Trudeau had always received top marks in school and went on to study law and become a lawyer, which he had accomplished by 1943. He remained outside the Liberal Party throughout the early 60’s, but had supported the Quebec Liberals in its conflict with the Union Nationale. Trudeau was also opposed to the fact that Prime Minister Pearson accepted and supported U.S. nuclear weapons (Encarta Encyclopedia, http://e...