Posted on 09/06/2007 5:00:34 PM PDT by fanfan
When it came to 'cowards' and 'bunglers,' Trudeau knew what he was talking about: Ex-PM. (Brian Mulroney)
In the following excerpt from Brian Mulroney's soon-to-be-published Memoirs, the former PM responds to Pierre Trudeau's personal attack on him in 1987 during discussions on a constitutional amendment defining Quebec's status in the federation...
On May 26, 1987, Mila and I attended a gala dinner in Toronto honouring Cardinal Emmett Carter on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination. Every dignitary in town was there, including Opposition Leader John Turner and Premier David Peterson. At the pre-dinner reception I spotted Trudeau off in a corner. Mila and I went over and greeted our fellow Montrealer prior to entering the hall. He was uneasy and somewhat reticent in his response, but had every chance to speak privately with us, had he chosen to do so. As it was, we merely exchanged courtesies before lining up to file in with the head table guests.
The next morning, on May 27, the thunderbolt struck: a vitriolic front-page story in the Toronto Star (always a faithful Trudeau supporter) and La Presse. As a splenetic personal attack by a former prime minister against a governing prime minister, replete with vicious insults and specious argument, it was unrivalled in Canadian history.
After telling readers that the Constitution he had left behind was so perfect that it should last a thousand years, he struck:
Alas, only one eventuality hadn't been foreseen: that one day the Government of Canada might fall into the hands of a weakling. It has now happened. And the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, PC, MP, with the complicity of 10 provincial premiers, has already entered into history as the author of a constitutional document which -- if it is accepted by the people and their legislators -- will render the Canadian state totally impotent. That would destine it, given the dynamics of power, to eventually be governed by eunuchs That is why they are once again making common cause with the nationalists to demand special status for Quebec. That bunch of snivellers should simply have been sent packing and been told to stop having tantrums like spoiled adolescents. But our current political leaders lack courage. By rushing to the rescue of the unhappy losers, they hope to gain votes in Quebec; in reality, they are only flaunting their political stupidity and their ignorance of the demographic data regarding nationalism. It would be difficult to imagine a more total bungle.
The implications were clear. Trudeau was strong and courageous; the premiers and I were not. Captain Canada had arrived to save the country, reporting for duty.
One of the great joys of being prime minister was my association with Canada's military men and women, whose heroic conduct over decades has inspired much admiration at home and around the world. In my mind's eye I can still see a 75-year-old George Hees, war hero and former minister of veterans affairs, standing ramrod straight beside Canada's Silver Star mother on November 11 at the cenotaph, the freezing rain dripping down his face as he took the salute on behalf of all the courageous Canadians who had fought and died for freedom.
I have also always regarded those who fought against the Nazis in the Second World War as particularly noble, because in my judgment the Holocaust was the ultimate desecration of humanity. With the Nazis openly persecuting and then slaughtering six million Jews, thank God so many young men and women summoned the courage to fight and overcome this evil force that had infected an entire nation, and that was threatening to exterminate an entire people and to enslave so many other nations. From British Columbia all the way east, out of a population of 11 million, one million young Canadians and Newfoundlanders, sensing the danger to our fundamental human values, signed up and shipped off to do battle with a vile and powerful enemy.
Pierre Trudeau was not among them. Although in his mid-20s, well educated, well informed, and in excellent health, he declined to serve. While compatriots like Pierre Sevigny, Guy Charbonneau, and Paul Sauve were fighting off Nazis on the battlefields of Europe in the summer of 1943, Trudeau and his friends were fighting off black flies in Outremont. (It is false to suggest, as some bigots have, that all young French Canadians did likewise. In fact, thousands served bravely throughout the war, in all of its most dangerous theatres, and many were among the 45,000 Canadians who gave their lives.)
I was shocked and disappointed -- but not altogether surprised -- to learn in a book published in June 2006 by two of his close friends that during this same period young Trudeau wrote and acted in an anti-Semitic play, spoke strongly in favour of fascism, stated that England and Germany were equally responsible for the war, and urged Quebecers to resist conscription and to prepare to ethnically cleanse the province if need be, to ensure the creation of a pure French Catholic state.
"I am a French Canadian and I am not in favour of conscription," he wrote in 1941, as quoted in Max and Monique Nemni's prize-winning book, Young Trudeau. "I am not only against conscription, but I am also against mobilization, against participation, against rearming, against aid to the belligerents. I am against the war. Is that quite clear now, or are you again going to play on words?" At that time, Nazi jackboots occupied almost all of Europe.
Speaking of Canadians in favour of conscription to fight the Nazis, he was vitriolic. "The traitors should be impaled alive: We'll say no more about it, but let's not forget," Trudeau said at a campaign rally during an Outremont by-election in November 1942. "If Outremont is so infamous that it elects [the federalist candidate], and if because of Outremont conscription for overseas service comes into effect . . . I beg of you to eviscerate all the damned bourgeois of Outremont who voted [for the candidate who believed in Canada's participation in the war] just to serve their own interests."
Apparently as much in sorrow as in anger, the authors also wrote the following: "Neither in his published articles nor in his private notes did Trudeau give the slightest sign of opposition to the hateful prejudices so prevalent in his world. All told, in comparison to what others were saying and writing, we find that Trudeau could be criticized less for his anti-Jewish writing than for his silence, for his lack of any critical reaction to all the anti-Jewish tirades made by his peers, his teachers, and by the authors and the 'heroes' for whom he expressed so much admiration."
Trudeau carefully kept secret from Canadians this part of his past (not least from the voters in Mount Royal, a riding with a large Jewish presence, which elected him six times). His official biographer, former Liberal MP and respected historian John English, also published his first volume -- Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Trudeau -- in 2006. He too examined Trudeau's activities during the 1942 by-election, writing the following: "He minimized the German threat, ridiculed the King government, and, according to Le Devoir, said that 'he feared the peaceful invasion of immigrants more than the armed invasion by the enemy.' The French of North America would fight when threatened, just as they had fought against the Iroquois; 'today,' he scorned, 'it is against other savages.' Then Trudeau stated dramatically: the government had irresponsibly declared war even though North America faced no direct threat of an invasion, 'at the moment when Hitler had not yet had his lightning victories.' The newspaper quoted his dramatic conclusion in full: 'Citizens of Quebec, don't be content to whine. Long live the flag of liberty. Enough of band-aids; bring on the revolution.' "
Professor English called the speech "demagogic," and said it "seemed to equate the King government with savages, minimized the Nazi threat, and attacked immigrants (who, in Montreal, were mainly Jewish)."
Although much of the free world, including Canada, recognized the destructive and criminal nature of the Nazi war machine, Trudeau did not. In fact, as the (authors Max and Monique ) Nemnis have shown, he was indifferent to its ravages and opposed to enlightened policies designed to wipe out the curse of Nazism.
Pierre Trudeau, Captain Canada? I think not.
Trudeau had his own impressive virtues and significant accomplishments, but none qualified him to moralize and insist that his vision of Canada -- and his alone -- deserved to prevail. The man who had surrendered to the provinces the most sweeping concession in history -- the notwithstanding clause, for which he still didn't get a unanimous agreement -- was reproaching others for the exercise of honourable compromise of the sort on which the nation was built. "Bunglers," "cowards," "snivellers" -- Trudeau knew whereof he spoke.
Excerpted from Brian Mulroney: Memoirs.
Ping
Waterhole would have been a perfect Democrat.
Trudeau was scum, but I’m not a huge fan of BM either.
Trudeau — Canada’s Clinton, but presumably with a functional size and shaped, disease free penis.
Cowardly, Draft Dodging, Womanizer, Liar, Corrupt and now irrelevant.
Mulroney was to Trudeau, what The Keg is to McDonalds.
Dinner won’t be perfect at either place, but I’d still rather eat at The Keg.
:-)
Trudeau was a Nazi. When that far-left ideology was discredited, he joined the other far-left Satanists, the Communists. A truly evil man who ruined Canada.
He’s dead
Yep, he’s still dead....but the stink lingers.
Way worse.
NOVEMBER 1, 1969
Barbra Streisand begins dating Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
He was PM for 16 years.
He very nearly ruined our country.
Cowardly, Draft Dodging, Womanizer, Liar, Corrupt and now irrelevant.
Except for his legacy, you're right.
:-)
Thankfully - but that doesn't alter or negate my comments.
Bump!
His sick ideas aren't.
Hillary is convinced that Streisand "dated" Clinton also....
However, I didin’t like the Meech Lake Accord — because it was disingenuous (what’s a “distinct society” anyhow). It would have left too much for the courts to decide — and the “distinct society” gave the SCOC unlimited scope to determine the status of Quebec.
The main problem with the Trudeau’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the powers that it gave to the SCOC — without the checks and balances that exist in the U.S. Constitution (notwithstanding the “notwithstanding” clause).
Mulroney’s Charlottetown Accord was an order-of-magnitude worse — especially the so-called “social charter” that gave a blank cheque to every special interest group in the country.
It would have been far better if Mulroney had just proposed strengthening the federal nature of Confederation — i.e. giving back the powers that all provinces were supposed to have in the first place. A true federal state allows each province to be a “distinct society”.
Back in the USENET days of the Internet, the best .sig file I ever saw was: “Percent of Canadians who approve of Brian Mulroney - 15. Percent of Canadians who believe Elvis is still alive - 18.”
I am much more impressed with Stephen Harpers vision for our country than I ever was with Mulroney’s, but I’ll take Mulroney’s Canada any day over Trudeau’s.
All conservatives need to stop pandering to the masses and lead. That’s what seperates us from the liberals in the first place.
No ... My intent wasn’t for you to speak “nicely” about the dead. The point that he was irrelevent though struck me as funny.
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