Trudeau as Statesman: 1965-2000, Son of Quebec, Father of Canada

Pierre Elliott Trudeau takes on the Quebec Question with a bang, not a whimper.

In Max and Monique Nemni’s third and final volume of their Pierre Elliott Trudeau biography, the man who would be statesman is granted his life’s wish. In his fifteen years as prime minister of Canada, Trudeau oversaw the controversial White Paper of 1969 on Indigenous policy, the fateful October Crisis of 1970, and the repatriation of the Canadian Constitution together with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In retirement, he exercised immense influence over Canada’s later constitutional politics and was principally responsible for defeating both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords during the government of Brian Mulroney.

Loved and hated in almost equal measure, Trudeau was an iconoclast, shaking up Canada’s two solitudes as no other prime minister has ever dared to do. In this meticulously researched and argued political biography, Pierre Trudeau is seen wrestling with the most difficult - and momentous - decisions of his career.

Max Nemni, and his wife the late Monique Nemni, taught in Quebec and Ontario universities and wrote two prize-winning books on their friend Pierre Trudeau entitled Young Trudeau and Trudeau Transformed. They also served as editors of Cité libre, 1995-2000.
David Milne taught political studies at the University of Prince Edward Island and wrote extensively on Canada during the Trudeau years in The Canadian Constitution and in Tug of War: Ottawa and the Provinces Under Trudeau and Mulroney. He lives in Toronto.