That's why I say we're talking about myth and culture here, more than we're talking about political or journalistic judgment. The fact that most tributes on his passing are coming from reporters or fellow politicians makes this cultural element of his legacy even more elusive. The first, it seems to me, involved flagrant trampling on human rights, especially in Quebec, done with a joie de combat fuelled by a lifelong enmity, even embarrassment, at what he saw as the naive and dangerous nationalism of his fellow Quebeckers. There is a striking symmetry or counterweight in his installation of a Charter of Rights for Canadians 12 years later. But perhaps I'm taking cultural liberties in drawing such a connection.
Cultural matters are largely generational matters.
You could hear that in many voices yesterday that tracked their own lives by the career of Pierre Trudeau. So let me add my connection. I returned to Canada, after 10 years in the United States, on the day in 1970 that the Trudeau government imposed the War Measures Act. I had missed the lightness of Trudeaumania and entered to a far darker period. I listened, soon after, to the news of Pierre Laporte's death, at the hand of kidnappers perhaps reacting to the imposition of martial law.