Pierre Trudeau, it is said, catapulted to success on the Canadian political scene “like a stone through a stained-glass window.” Near-mystical good fortune has attended him ever since. It took years for his inflationary policies to put Canada into a trade deficit, partly because the country’s strong position in oil and gas insulated it against OPEC prices, but also because crop failures abroad changed the prairie wheat surpluses from liability to precious asset. When it looked as if his government would finally fall, he was spared because his Tory opponents fought a divisive election with the leadership advocating wage and price controls. On two Christmases during his tenure his wife gave birth to sons.
It was thus appropriate that Trudeau should choose Canada’s Thanksgiving Day to announce on national television a program of controls even more stringent than the Tories had advanced 18 months earlier. In sepulchral tones, he warned that unless Canadians accept his program, economic disaster will ensue. What is now apparent is that his program, which had obtained the support earlier that day of all provincial premiers, is only part of the most massive assault on the private sector in Canadian history.
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