providing infrastructure and employment. A well-functioning federalism, on the other hand, could limit the appeal of this sort of demagoguery by ensuring protections against assimilation at the federal level as well as the provincial one.
In the ferment of the Quiet Revolution, however, such dispassionate views quickly began to seem out of step with the spirit of the times. The new crop of intellectuals, such as the founders of the journal Parti pris —who had initially looked to the Cité libre- ists as “our fathers,” but who quickly parted ways with them—could not understand how Trudeau could continue to make such cold, logical arguments, with their legalistic niceties, in the face of what they saw as two hundred years of English oppression. Those who knew Trudeau well, of course, never described him as cold butrather as a man of deep feeling, even if he often hid it. “Let us be coolly intelligent,” he had written in the first issue of Cité libre, and that had become his public stance, his mask. But the same issue had included heartfelt tributes from him to two thinkers recently dead, Léon Blum and Trudeau’s old mentor, Harold Laski, “deux marxistes juifs” who had “distinguished themselves without cease by their intelligence, by their valiance, and by their tireless generosity.” Bemoaning Canada’s support for the Korean War and for America’s Cold War logic, Trudeau praised Laski and Blum for being among those who had never subscribed to either of the totalitarianisms, but rather had “consecrated their lives to elaborating and agitating for a doctrine that advanced the cause of liberty, justice and peace. As was inevitable, they were hysterically denounced and hatefully reproached, as much by the orthodox Marxist camp as by the party of official Christianity.”
The memorial to Laski must have had particular significance for Trudeau. Beneath his “coolly intelligent” mask, surely, was the memory of how his own, earlier totalitarianism had lessened his humanity, leading him to demonize others on the basis of race. Now Trudeau could hear the old language of ethnic nationalism beginning to creep into the rhetoric of the Lesage government. At the urging of Ministerof Natural Resources René Lévesque—who had left his job as the popular host of a TV newsmagazine to join Lesage’s Liberals—the government was proposing to nationalize Quebec’s mainly English-owned hydroelectricity companies, which had long been a symbol for Quebecers of English domination. For Trudeau, the issue was not the proposal itself but the slogan under which it was being promoted: maîtres chez nous, masters in our own home. The new regime, even if it leaned left rather than right, was beginning to sound like the old one to Trudeau. Rather than making sound economic arguments for its actions, it was resorting to the old ideologies, using the familiar cry of repelling the enemy at the gates.
As the Lesage government grew more nationalistic, the new crop of young intellectuals grew more openly separatist in their beliefs and more revolutionary in their rhetoric. Trudeau was appalled to hear young people in universities speaking out against democracy or arguing for the necessity of totalitarianism during revolutionary movements. It all must have sounded familiar to him, though it must also have made him wonder if the province had taken a step forward only to take two back.
In a 1962 article in Cité libre, “The New Treason of the Intellectuals,” Trudeau laid out in clear terms his objectionsto the separatists and the new nationalists, blaming ethnic-based nationalism for “the most devastating wars, the worst atrocities, and the most degrading collective hatred” of the previous two hundred years. All of Quebec’s desired reforms, he argued, could be accomplished within the existing federation. Once more he took the view that Quebec’s focus ought to be on the pressing economic and practical issues facing the
In the ferment of the Quiet Revolution, however, such dispassionate views quickly began to seem out of step with the spirit of the times. The new crop of intellectuals, such as the founders of the journal Parti pris —who had initially looked to the Cité libre- ists as “our fathers,” but who quickly parted ways with them—could not understand how Trudeau could continue to make such cold, logical arguments, with their legalistic niceties, in the face of what they saw as two hundred years of English oppression. Those who knew Trudeau well, of course, never described him as cold butrather as a man of deep feeling, even if he often hid it. “Let us be coolly intelligent,” he had written in the first issue of Cité libre, and that had become his public stance, his mask. But the same issue had included heartfelt tributes from him to two thinkers recently dead, Léon Blum and Trudeau’s old mentor, Harold Laski, “deux marxistes juifs” who had “distinguished themselves without cease by their intelligence, by their valiance, and by their tireless generosity.” Bemoaning Canada’s support for the Korean War and for America’s Cold War logic, Trudeau praised Laski and Blum for being among those who had never subscribed to either of the totalitarianisms, but rather had “consecrated their lives to elaborating and agitating for a doctrine that advanced the cause of liberty, justice and peace. As was inevitable, they were hysterically denounced and hatefully reproached, as much by the orthodox Marxist camp as by the party of official Christianity.”
The memorial to Laski must have had particular significance for Trudeau. Beneath his “coolly intelligent” mask, surely, was the memory of how his own, earlier totalitarianism had lessened his humanity, leading him to demonize others on the basis of race. Now Trudeau could hear the old language of ethnic nationalism beginning to creep into the rhetoric of the Lesage government. At the urging of Ministerof Natural Resources René Lévesque—who had left his job as the popular host of a TV newsmagazine to join Lesage’s Liberals—the government was proposing to nationalize Quebec’s mainly English-owned hydroelectricity companies, which had long been a symbol for Quebecers of English domination. For Trudeau, the issue was not the proposal itself but the slogan under which it was being promoted: maîtres chez nous, masters in our own home. The new regime, even if it leaned left rather than right, was beginning to sound like the old one to Trudeau. Rather than making sound economic arguments for its actions, it was resorting to the old ideologies, using the familiar cry of repelling the enemy at the gates.
As the Lesage government grew more nationalistic, the new crop of young intellectuals grew more openly separatist in their beliefs and more revolutionary in their rhetoric. Trudeau was appalled to hear young people in universities speaking out against democracy or arguing for the necessity of totalitarianism during revolutionary movements. It all must have sounded familiar to him, though it must also have made him wonder if the province had taken a step forward only to take two back.
In a 1962 article in Cité libre, “The New Treason of the Intellectuals,” Trudeau laid out in clear terms his objectionsto the separatists and the new nationalists, blaming ethnic-based nationalism for “the most devastating wars, the worst atrocities, and the most degrading collective hatred” of the previous two hundred years. All of Quebec’s desired reforms, he argued, could be accomplished within the existing federation. Once more he took the view that Quebec’s focus ought to be on the pressing economic and practical issues facing the
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