Faced with chaos, what would Pierre Trudeau do?
That isn’t the sound of “America the Beautiful” we’re hearing out of Washington these days. Instead, it is the dying gasp of a collapsing presidency — and the clearest sign yet that a postTrump world is approaching.
But are we ready for it? If Pierre Trudeau were alive today, what would he say?
What would our first Prime Minister Trudeau suggest we do to navigate our way through the wreckage of the past three years?
Last October marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Trudeau.
To mark this milestone, Massey College at the University of Toronto last Friday organized a conference exploring Trudeau’s approach to foreign policy while he was prime minister. It examined what enduring relevance Trudeau’s world view has for today’s chaotic world.
This is a question that comes at a critical time in the history of this century.
After all, if the state of the world matters to us, we need to circle this coming Monday on our calendars. Not only will it be the eve of only the third impeachment trial of a president in U.S. history, it will also be one year — to the day — until Inauguration Day 2021 in Washington.
If Donald Trump’s departure hasn’t come earlier, Jan. 20, 2021, will likely mean the final end to the most corrupt and dangerous presidency in modern U.S. history.
For his part, Pierre Trudeau was a historic figure in Canada, loved by many and loathed by others, but a towering intellect. As the third-longestserving prime minister in Canadian history, Trudeau won elections on four occasions and retired in 1984.
More often than not, Trudeau had Canada pursue an activist, independent approach to international relations that was deeply committed to multilateral relationships. He recognized China before the U.S. government did, was known as a friend to Cuba’s Fidel Castro and was very critical of what he regarded as the reckless “nuclear brinksmanship” of the U.S. and NATO toward the former Soviet Union.
In 1983-84, during his final term as prime minister, Trudeau launched a personal “peace initiative” that saw him visit as many as 15 countries in an effort to ease East-West tensions.
Robert Fowler, Trudeau’s foreign policy adviser at the time, who spoke at last week’s Massey conference, remembers it as a period of very high tension in the world: “It was impossible to follow the news without a pervading sense of dread and helplessness. Trudeau felt he had to do whatever it took to lift that spectre of gloom.”
At a G7 summit in 1983, Trudeau lashed out at his fellow leaders, admonishing them that “we should be
busting our asses for peace.”
Although Trudeau’s initiative was very popular in Canada, it was largely resented in Washington by the administration of Ronald Reagan and in London by Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s prime minister.
After Trudeau’s attack on them at the G7, Thatcher was reported as saying: “Oh Pierre, you’re such a comfort to the Kremlin.”
Thatcher clearly loathed Trudeau and did little to hide it. She also seemed to have little use for public broadcasting, particularly the BBC and CBC. This meant that working as a CBC journalist in Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s, as I did, could be unnerving.
So, imagine our surprise in late May 1984 when the phone rang in the CBC
London bureau and an officious voice from 10 Downing Street said: “Your request for an interview with the Prime Minister has been accepted and we expect you to be here tomorrow at 12 o’clock.”
“Thank you,” I replied politely, and then hung up. My colleague Brian Stewart and I looked at each other, completely baffled, since we hadn’t asked for an interview.
However, when we hurried over the next day, we discovered that these interviews, also involving three U.S. TV networks, were all intended to be broadcast live during their morning shows.
As we set up, Thatcher’s legendary press secretary, Bernard Ingham, appeared.
“What time does your morning show go on the air,” he asked brusquely.
“We don’t have a morning show,” we answered quietly.
“You are from CTV, aren’t you?” he said.
“No, we aren’t,” we replied. “We are from the CBC.”
“Oh my God,” he muttered. “She will not be pleased.”
Sensing his desperation, we promised him that when we were in Thatcher’s presence, we would fake it and pretend with her that she was being seen “live” in Canada, and that’s what we did.
We even cut to a mythical commercial break.
It was a boring interview but, thankfully, few people saw it.
If it’s too late for Margaret Thatcher to apologize to Pierre Trudeau for all of her trash talk about his global vision, is it also too late for Brian and me to apologize to CTV’s “Canada AM”?
Tony Burman, formerly head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, is a freelance contributing foreign affairs columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyBurman