Talk:Pierre Trudeau/Archive 3

Succession box replacement
I have replaced the succession box of this article with one that conforms to the standards and guidelines set by WikiProject Succession Box Standardization so that it can serve as a sample for the kind of changes we wish to make in a larger scale throughout the articles of Canadian politicians. This succession box has retained most of the information that was present in the previous box; the only information that was not included was the number and party status of the cabinets, something which is mostly of statistical nature anyway and can be found in a list of cabinets. The current box has placed Trudeau's political offices in a chronological order and has unified the Minister of Justice succession line; furthermore it is more discrete and aesthetically pleasing, as well as simpler in its parameters and syntax. Please do not immediately change back the box but discuss it and see whether the new format is indeed preferable or not. Thank you. Waltham, The Duke of 09:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Non NPOV
"Generally forgotten is that Trudeau's question in Saskatoon was rhetorical and followed by long explanation that, in epitome, said that the governments' role was only to help farmers to sell their own wheat, and told of some of the difficulties involved in doing so on the international market; likewise, that the protesters in Salmon Arm were shouting blatantly anti-French and anti-Quebec slogans. In his book Paradox: Trudeau as Prime Minister, Anthony Westell covers this incident, giving a good sense of what was actually said, rather than the excerpt that made the headlines."

In my opinion, this passage seems to be defending Trudeau in a particularly non NPOV way. I really don't know how it could be fixed without deleting it outright, so I was wondering if there were any suggestions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.66.47.150 (talk) 02:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, it could be presented as what that book said - IF that is what it said --JimWae (talk) 03:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing looks like an essay without citation aka pulling stuff outta' my butt. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.243.189 (talk) 08:44, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The phrase "In his book Paradox: Trudeau as Prime Minister, Anthony Westell..." is a citation. It's not in footnote style, but it most certainly is a citation — the book does exist, it is a reliable source, and it says exactly what it's being quoted as saying. In other words, this looks less like "pulling stuff outta' my butt" and more like "I don't want this article to contain properly cited information that could undermine why I personally hate him so much" — which is far more POV than the original passage ever was, particularly since the content in question was replaced instead with unsourced assertions that both incidents happened completely devoid of context or explanation. Bearcat (talk) 04:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Why does this entry lack images?
I find the lack of photos in this entry disturbing. Is it because of Wikipedia copyright policies? Bwark (talk) 18:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Basically, there were a bunch of images in there before (from the Canadian national archives), which were tagged as being in the public domain. Then it turned out that people were misinterpreting the archives' copyright policies, and that they weren't in the public domain at all, so they were deleted.  I plan on putting some more in at some point - any photo of Trudeau taken in Canada up until the age of thirty should be in the public domain, and I think there are definitely some fair use rationales to be written for others - but I haven't yet gotten around to it. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Why LLD (Mont)?
In the infobox, Trudeau is titled "LLD (Mont)" which presumably means that he got his LLD from University of Montreal. Is it standard for all Canadian LLDs to have their alma mater specified in parentheses? --Richard (talk) 22:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this might be because it was an honorary doctorate, and as such the place received is pertinent rather than the actual degree (and because someone might have honorary degrees from multiple institutions). It is not common for someone with a "regular" LLD to list the institution in parentheses behind their degree, unless they are listing the originating university for all of their degrees (as someone might on a c.v., for example. Richard Smith (talk) 04:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Kind and polite
A friend of mine used to cross him almost daily as they took the elevator together at her workplace (office tower). She says he was always kind, polite, and smiling.

Maybe there would be a way to include this description of the man in the main article?

CielProfond (talk) 03:43, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid not; per WP:V and WP:NOR, we can only include facts in the article if they've been published in reliable sources. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:46, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Communism
Every so often, I post on the Pierre Trudeau page, under "categories," that he was a "Canadian anti-communist." "Canadian anti-communist" is frequently deleted by other editors. Every single U.S. president since 1945 until 1993 (the beginning- to the end of the Cold War) (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush) has, on their Wikipedia pages, the category of "American anti-communist." Likewise, as Canada is a major player on the world stage, I think that it is wholly appropriate to list every single Canadian Prime Minister since 1945 until 1993 (Mackenzie King, St. Laurent, Diefenbaker, Pearson, Trudeau, Clark, Turner, Mulroney, and Campbell) as "Canadian anti-communists." If you are under the misapprehension that because Trudeau was friendly with Castro it means he was a communist or communist sympathizer, you are wrong. Ronald Reagan displayed friendly relations with the Communist Chinese leadership but does that make Reagan pro-communist? Absolutely not! Sopm (talk) 17:03, 21 December 2008 (UTC)


 * While I am not one of the folks who have deleted the term "anti-communist" from this page I find it unreasonable to conclude that Trudeau was anti-communist. Trudeau was very active as a youth in the corporatism movements in Quebec which were at first pseudo fascist and later pseudo communist.  Trudeau studied under one of the pre-eminent socialist economists of the 20th century, Harold Laski, at the London School of Economics.  Laski himself was quite sympathetic to the communist, centrally controlled approaches to economic management.  Trudeau's works, such as Federalism and the French Canadians, use much of the Marxist class-based terminology. Finally, I suspect the primary reason Trudeau cannot be labelled "anti-communist" is that Trudeau himself never positioned Canada particularly strongly against communist regimes while he was PM. Rather, Trudeau tended to be middle of the road in foreign relations with such countries (arguably a better approach diplomatically).  To use your example, while Reagan did engage in some friendly foreign relations with communist countries, Reagan also took some pretty aggressive positions against communist countries. Thus, Trudeau is generally perceived as not being anti-communist whereas Reagan is.DWiatzka (talk) 23:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I have reverted your category edit. Re-inserting a claim that you know to be under dispute, without citing a source, is unhelpful. Please back up your position before putting that back in the article. I'm not an expert on the man, but my understanding is that DWiatzka's position is correct in this. Also, given his position on Cuba in the face of American pressure, you would likely have an easier time proving his sympathies for the Communist states than proving he was an anti-Communist. You need to back up your claim. Matt Deres (talk) 04:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Anti-communist means "actively fought against communism". That simply doesn't describe most Canadian Prime Ministers — although no Canadian Prime Minister has ever been a communist, certainly, virtually not a single one after Bennett was ever involved in any sort of organized anti-communist activism. Or, at the very least, Bennett's is just about the only one in which the category link itself wasn't the one and only appearance of the word "communist" (let alone "anti-communist") anywhere in the entire article — which may not be the same thing, admittedly, but in the absence of real sources we have to treat it that way nevertheless. Trudeau's article mentions communism exactly once in the entire article, as the subject of his doctoral thesis at Harvard, but that doesn't lend itself in any significant way to clarifying his beliefs on the subject one way or the other.

The Cold War simply doesn't apply to Canadian PMs in anything even remotely approaching the same way as it does to American presidents, because Canadian Prime Ministers were never leaders of the Cold War — most of them, in fact, just tried to keep Canada out of harm's way by flying under the radar as much as possible. Put simply, the category doesn't belong on any article that doesn't explicitly describe the subject as having been an active anti-communist. Bearcat (talk) 04:33, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Bearcat - you write that "Canadian Prime Ministers were never "leaders" of the Cold War." Well, using that logic, Canadian Prime Ministers, by virtue of Canada's influence, can NEVER be leaders of anything internationally, Cold War or otherwise. Obviously, a Canadian PM could never go to the Brandenberg Gate and order Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." He would have looked foolish. Reagan, on the other hand, due to the military might on his side, was credible when he said that.

If you read Peter C. Newman's "Secret Mulroney Tapes," you will notice that Newman writes extensively about how Mulroney said that he "brokered" peace deals between Bush and and Gorbachev "right here in Ottawa." Is that not leadership? Is that not anti-communism? Sopm (talk) 05:44, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
 * You're the one using flawed logic here — I didn't say that Canadians were in the background in the Cold War solely by virtue of Canada's more limited level of international prominence vis-à-vis the US and the USSR. I said that Canadian PMs weren't leaders in the Cold War because Canadian PMs actually took a neutral, hands-off, "staying out of it as much as possible" role. I'm not loading in assumptions about Canada's level of international influence; I'm merely describing the position that Canada actually chose to take. Brokering a peace deal between the US and the USSR is not "anti-communist" leadership; it's leadership of a type, but there's nothing inherently anti-communist about it. It can just as easily be characterized as pro-communist, because it's not predicated on "capitalism wins, communism loses" at all. It's like characterizing the mediator in a divorce settlement as being inherently on one side or the other — they aren't: they're mediating between two parties, not a priori taking one party's side. Bearcat (talk) 17:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Trudeau is disliked by many Québécois, particularly in the news media, the academic and political establishments.
I find that this sentence is an opinion, and that it is not supported by the citation. It looks like someone tried to say that Quebeckers who dislike Trudeau are all snobs. The rest of the paragraph about legacy in Quebec seems much better, it's true that the public opinion is very mixed about him. Depending on who your are speaking to, it's either the gretest or the worst Quebecker of all times. But it has nothing to do with the media/academic/political establishments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.203.167.253 (talk) 16:39, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Honours
Here are a few more schools bearing the name of Trudeau not yet included in the Honours section:

École élementaire catholique Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau (Pierre Elliott Trudeau Catholic Elementary School), a francophone school in the Ottawa suburb of Barrhaven opened its doors in September, 2000.

École élémentaire Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau (Pierre Elliot Trudeau Elementary School) a francophone school in Toronto is named in his honour.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Elementary School in Vancouver is named in his honour.

--Karltodd 06:31, 10 March 2010 (UTC).

Republicanism?
Why is there such a detailed treatment of Trudeau's republicanism or lack thereof, relative to skimpy treatments of - for instance - his theory of the "just society", bilingualism, forming Petro Canada, joining the G7, or his 1979 defeat? Having grown up during the tail end of the Trudeau era I've never gotten the sense that his views on the monarchy were historically important. Christopher Powell (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Being against the monarchy doesn't make you a Republican. And a French-Canadian being disrespectful of the British Monarchy certainly does not. Certainly he wasn't going to appear to be in the Queen's pocket while trying to bring the Constitution under Canadian control, and establish Canada's own Rights and Freedoms.


 * IMHO the entire section is silly. His difficulties with the Monarchy should be put under its own category and the un-cited hearsay comment that Prime Minister Paul Martin was told by Queen Elizabeth that "had little meaning to him" should be removed or at the very least have a source -preferably from the Queen herself.  I see no reason to attribute the Queen's words to Paul Martin unless he's being accused of making them up.

Mystic eye (talk) 20:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Page name vs. disambiguation page name vs. hatnote
Pierre Elliott Trudeau redirects to Pierre Trudeau, but Pierre Trudeau (disambiguation), redirects to Pierre Elliott Trudeau (disambiguation). At first glance this seems inconsistent, but it does makes some sense: the man is more often referred to without his middle name, but the disambiguation page is about things named after him, and they all use the middle name.

However, it means that the hatnote reads badly:

If the page titles are going to remain as they are, then the hatnote should be changed from an to a  :

As an unregistered user, I can't fix it myself. --208.76.104.144 (talk) 09:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Why the prominence given to Lord Moran's assessment of Trudeau?
I wonder why Lord Moran's assessment is given so much prominence. I can see him being given a sentence, but an entire section of the article seems a bit much. Why not replace it with a composite international assessment of Trudeau? After all, Lord Moran only served as High Commissioner to Canada for three years and was furthermore appointed by Margaret Thatcher, who had a very low opinion of Trudeau. -wetcoast —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.97.59 (talk) 23:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I concur. It seems distinctly odd. fishhead64 (talk) 07:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I also agree. This is a WP:UNDUE anachronism. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 15:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Having checked the section, the introduction is also a direct copyvio from the source. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις 15:17, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I just removed the whole section. The lengthy quotation was also WP:OR as it did not appear in the L'actualité reference but rather it was chosen from the pdf file from BBC by the editor who added it originally. Highlighting this specific text from the BBC pdf WP:PRIMARY source, without the reference from L'actualité doing so, is original research. In addition to the above issues, other comments by the commissioner, from the same L'actualité reference, such as finding Canadian ministers not very bright and bizarre and that Canadians spend their time praising each other etc. were omitted, thus depriving the reader from the overall context of the commissioner's comments. Δρ.Κ. λόγοςπράξις  15:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

RS

 * http://ballastmag.com/2012/09/longing-for-a-suave-prime-minister/ This seems RS to me. Regular editors of this article may wish to decide on inclusion.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:47, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * lots of gossip. Rjensen (talk) 20:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Someone may wish to remove it from Barbra Streisand's article then.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Or discuss it here. Bus stop (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It was reported in newspapers at the time that they went on dates (e.g. ), just do an advanced search on Google News for the relevant time period. Also I believe it was discussed in John English's biography, and mentioned when Allen Gregg interviewed him. Mathew5000 (talk) 09:38, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I won't add it at this time. I tried and failed, (site won't take email from Canada), to see if Ms. Streisand would like to expand her statements on it. Journalists that follow her wikipedia article may query her on it for more detail yet.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:55, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't understand your point. The fact that Trudeau and Streisand dated in 1969-1970 is a matter of historical record, covered in the biography by John English as well as contemporaneous newspapers. Why do you think Streisand should be asked to comment about it today? Whatever she says today would have no bearing on whether the romance is mentioned on Wikipedia. Mathew5000 (talk) 00:24, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Height
http://home.ca.inter.net/~grantsky/trudeau.html Middle of paragraph six. Should we include it as many readers may be curious?--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

First election, no details!!!
So Trudeau took over from Pearson, and called an election on June 25. That section does not say what year that was (I think 1968), nor who the leaders of the other parties (PCs, NDP) were, nor any details at all about the results of that election. That is a major omission of important facts that needs to be corrected.77Mike77 (talk) 02:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I could ask my mother. She was a big fan and Mr. Trudeau married Margaret in my mother's church. She has photos somewhere and is looking. The only photo we have of Margaret is a little lame. I emailed her people for a decent image but haven't heard back yet.--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure it was Robert Stanfield as party leader by that time, Dief had retired, unless maybe Dalton Camp as leader between him and Dief; and I think Ed Broadbent for the NDP, but maybe that was the '72 election; not sure of NDP party history as to who was leader before him. The Creditistes were in that race, Réal Caouette? was the leader still then.Skookum1 (talk) 03:19, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Nope, not Broadbent.....I'd thought maybe David Lewis but he didn't get the leadership 'til '71.....it was still Tommy Douglas for the NDP.Skookum1 (talk) 03:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it was tommy douglas for the NDP at the time; there isn't that much written on it specifically, but John English deals with it; he is cited here multiple times. There are also some clips on the CBC website which cover the election. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.252.236 (talk) 05:49, 3 June 2013 (UTC)