Paul Martin Sr. sits down with protesters at McGill

Arriving at McGill University’s Arts Building, Paul Martin “walked into a cauldron of demonstrating students,” we reported on Feb. 11, 1967, recounting the previous day’s events. But Canada’s External Affairs minister had been unfazed.

Martin — not the prime minister of the same name, but his father — “politely invited (the protesters) to join him inside in Moyse Hall,” where he was to speak on the “political and economic aspects of Canadian policy in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”

As they all proceeded inside, reporters asked Martin what he thought of his reception.

“I find this all extremely healthy. It’s a free country and everyone has a right to express his views,” he replied.

Martin put his prepared text aside and “spent the greater part of the hour allotted to him answering prepared questions submitted by the Association at McGill to End the War in Vietnam. The students asked “why Canada sells armaments to the United States, why Canada does not condemn U.S. violations of the Geneva agreements, why Canada doesn’t recognize Red China and why Canada doesn’t act like an independent nation.”

In Montreal, as elsewhere, opposition to the Vietnam War was growing. On the same page, we carried an ad for a public meeting titled What Can I Do About Suffering Vietnam, featuring René Lévesque and professors John Humphrey and Robert Garry. The minister told the audience that Canada stood to have more influence with the Americans in promoting peace if it did not join the “public clamour.”

Martin died in 1992 at age 89, after a long career in public life that included serving in the cabinets of four prime ministers.