History Post-confederation (1867-)
The History of Canada Series - The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau
The Gang Of Eight And The Fight For Canada
- Publisher
- Penguin Group Canada
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2012
- Category
- Post-Confederation (1867-), Constitutions, Civil Rights
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780143053354
- Publish Date
- Apr 2012
- List Price
- $22.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
In November 1981, in what has been called the most important conference since the Fathers of Confederation got together in Quebec City in 1864, Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau met behind closed doors in Ottawa with the ten premiers. It was the culmination of more than five decades of political wrangling, one last attempt to renew the constitution with the consent of the provinces. Given the threat of Quebec independence, the ambitions of Western Canada, and the provinces’ demands for more power, failure seemed the most likely result. But Trudeau was determined to make Canadians fully independent and to entrench a Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
What happened that day still reverberates. It severed the last important link to Canada’s colonial past. It guaranteed individual liberty and minority rights in the future. It gave ownership of the constitution to Canadians. But it came at a price.
In The Last Act, Ron Graham delivers a vivid account of the fractious debates and secret negotiations, based on newly uncovered documents and the candid recollections of many of the key participants.
About the author
Ron Graham is an award-winning author and journalist based in Toronto. His books include One-Eyed Kings, The French Quarter, All the King's Horses, and The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau, the Gang of Eight, and the Fight for Canada. In addition to his own writings, he edited Straight from the Heart and My Years as Prime Minister, the memoirs of Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien; The Essential Trudeau, with Rt. Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau; and The Call of the World, by Hon, Bill Graham. Graham served as president of PEN Canada, the Maclean Hunter Chair of Communications Ethics at Ryerson University, and a trustee of the Royal Ontario Museum.
Excerpt: The History of Canada Series - The Last Act: Pierre Trudeau: The Gang Of Eight And The Fight For Canada (by (author) Ron Graham)
Alberta also stepped forward to take Quebec ’s side in combating Ottawa. Politics has seldom seen stranger bedfellows than the stiff conservative from Calgary and the slovenly social democrat from the Gaspé. Circumstances made them as tight as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They had a common enemy in Pierre Trudeau and the federal government. They respected each other’s courage and needed each other’s strength. . . . Lougheed was Lévesque’s sole line of communication to the Gang of Eight and the one premier he trusted to be with him to the very end. Calling him “the most remarkable man on the prairies in his time,” Lévesque concluded that the Albertan was “so passionately concerned about sovereignty in his own way that, even though opposing us, he can understand our position.”
“Likeable isn’t the right word,” Lougheed said of the Quebec premier. “He was shrewd, affable, and naturally friendly. He saw me as an ally, and we worked closely together to stop Trudeau’s unilateral action. But dealing with a separatist who had just tried to take Quebec out of Canada was always front and centre in my mind, and it made me uneasy about where we were at and where we would end up.”
Editorial Reviews
"A spirited and judicious account ... Ron Graham is ... one of the finest long-form journalists of his generation." - The Globe and Mail
“Gripping ... authoritative ... a superb job ... a fine work of scholarship that is also a wonderful read for anyone interested in understanding the political forces in play during those turbulent four days.” - Literary Review of Canada