Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Extraordinary Canadians

by Nino Ricci

Love him or hate him, Pierre Elliott Trudeau marked us all. The man whose motto was “Reason over passion” managed to arouse in Canadians fierce passions of every hue. Acclaimed novelist Nino Ricci begins with the crucial role Trudeau played in the formation of Ricci’s own sense of identity in order to examine how he expanded us as a people, not in spite of his contradictions but because of them. Downplaying the perpetual rebel image that Trudeau crafted, Ricci reconstructs the charismatic prime minister as an almost Zelig-like figure. If his beliefs shifted radically over the years—from separatist to federalist, from fascist to liberal, from civil rights champion to military strongman—Trudeau always acted on deep convictions. Brilliantly argued and sensitively observed, Ricci’s Trudeau is an unforgettable portrait of a memorable man.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Canada, Biography, Politics

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Nino Ricci’s first novel was the internationally acclaimed Lives of the Saints. It spent 75 weeks on the Globe and Mail‘s bestseller list and was the winner of the F.G. Bressani Prize, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. In England it won Betty Trask Award and Winnifred Holtby Prize, in the U.S. was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and in France was an Oiel de la lettre Selection of the National Libraries Association.

Published in seventeen countries, Lives of the Saints was the first volume of a trilogy that continued with In a Glass House, hailed as a “genuine achievement” by The New York Times, and Where She Has Gone, nominated for the Giller Prize. The Lives of the Saints trilogy was adapted for a television miniseries starring Sophia Loren and Kris Kristofferson.

Books in Canada commented that Ricci’s trilogy “so amply demonstrates the author’s tremendous talents that we would be foolish as readers not to follow him down whatever road he next chooses to follow.” That road led him to Testament, a fictional retelling of the life of Jesus. Hailed as a “masterpiece” by Saturday Night, Testament was a Booklist Choice for the Top Ten Historical Novels of the Year and a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Prize and for the Roger’s Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction and was a winner of the Trillium Award.

Ricci’s national bestseller The Origin of Species earned him the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award as well as his second Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Set in Montreal in 1980s, the novel casts a Darwinian eye on the life of Alex Fratarcangeli, who is torn between his baser impulses and his pursuit of the Good. “This novel does so well, on so many levels,” wrote the Toronto Star, “that it’s hard to know where to begin tallying up the riches.”

Ricci is also the author of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a short biography that forms part of Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians series, edited by John Ralston Saul. Ricci’s biography, according to HistoryWire, “provides the best, and best written, perspective on Trudeau there is.”

Ricci's newest novel is Sleep, out in the fall of 2015.

Reviews

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to the sickly green miasma all aswirl about a PET seemingly fresh from sticking his head up a chimney, the man eventually began to take form in my mind as a rather well-dressed and mirthful Dr. Octopus. I suppose the powers that be at Penguin Canada wanted to craft a series of covers that would be memorable while yet slightly off-kilter, and they succeeded. It eventually proved itself to be absorbing, compelling this reader to return to it at intervals to ponder with head slightly atilt, as one might contemplate a puddle of intriguingly constituted vomit. So well done on that level, PC.

As for this biography of arguably our most famous Prime Minister—inside, Ricci references an Independent article from England that neatly divided Canada's political leaders into two camps: those whom the rest of the world has largely forgotten, if it ever knew about them, and Pierre Trudeau—it is constructed according to the Extraordinary Canadians standard, which requires that the author pinch heavily from lengthier, more academic biographies (in this case, Ricci liberally borrows from John English's recent two volume standard, and Clarkson and McCall's Trudeau and Our Times, an excellent earlier work. That's quite all right, however, as Ricci, a Canadian novelist of whose work I've read nary a word, has set out here to offer an interpretation of Trudeau, plumbing the late Prime Minister's life, personality, and psychology in order to determine its effect upon that of our nation: ere the charismatic, brilliant, and bilingual Trudeau one that suffered from an identity crisis and a lack of self-esteem, simultaneously tugging at the United States' pants while disparaging the quality of the material, and desperate to pull itself from the shadow of Great Britain even as it suffered night terrors from that dreadful responsibility. After Trudeau, such traits still defined us at our core; but we were blessed with a touch more confidence, a tad more moxie upon the international stage and within our enormous borders. After all, his young and beautiful wife had (allegedly) slept with the Rolling Stones when they were slumming in Toronto! We hit the big time with that bit of groupie awesomeness.

Ricci's primary interest is in the man himself, especially the image Canadians formed of him, from the heady days of Trudeaumania in 1968, shortly after he had won the Liberal Party leadership and inspired Beatlesesque passion in teenage girls, through to his return from a brief retirement to win the Prime Ministership one more time in 1980. It's quite true that, love him or hate him, Canadians were fascinated by Trudeau: his remarkable intelligence, quickness on his feet, mastery of both languages, predictable unpredictability; his (apparently not so well-earned) reputation as a ladies man while a young bachelor, one feathered after he had divorced Margaret in 1980; his unrelenting commitment to a strong Canadian federalism and a bilingual Canadian nation (which, rather haphazardly, morphed into a multiculturalism that perhaps pleased Trudeau more) which contrasted curiously with his fierce Quebec nationalism and Jesuit-inscribed authoritarianism during his wealthy, cloistered upbringing in Montreal. Ricci performs an admirable job of sifting through all of the mythology and legend to determine how much was real, and how much a performance; how much a true measure of the man himself, and how much the various projections from a thoroughly bedazzled and hungry public. The Trudeau that is revealed is a complex individual, one whose success could often be attributed to the contradictions in his makeup, the peculiar admixture of French and English that, combined with his academic exposure at places like Harvard, the Sorbonne, and the London School of Economics, together with his extensive travels across the breadth of the globe, including political hotspots and warzones, gave him a unique insight into the Canadian character situated as part of a global framework and how parochial its politicians—particularly the provincial, and especially within his native Quebec—could be due to the absence of such experiences and resumes in their own lives.

His politics are less examined than his political legacy. Ricci, borrowing from the scholarship on Trudeau, points out how his most successful policies were usually those originally conceived by his predecessors, while his own obsessions—the repatriation of the constitution and the efforts to quash Quebec separatism—came to increasingly entangle him. He strove to make Cabinet politics more democratic, while he endeavored to implement progressive policies perhaps in imitation of LBJ's Great Society. He spent a wackalicious shitload of money and massively added to the government's debt. His ill-conceived National Energy Policy thoroughly alienated the Canadian West from the Liberal Party, a state of affairs that has continued through to the present day. His determination to ultimately defeat the Separatists was to be ultimately left to his Liberal Successor, Jean Chrétien, to fulfill. His enduring successes—bilingualism, achieved de jure, if not de facto; revising the Canadian Health Care Act; repatriating the constitution and creating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the last two achieved via a classic bit of political horse-trading and outmaneuvering that Ricci relates perfectly, and which the author convincingly argues has proven to be a powerful centripetal force as against regional particularism) still provoke controversy in different parts of the country, and amongst people of different political persuasions. As does his role, central and decisive, in defeating the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords, wherein, reaching out from retirement, he wielded his pen as a sword against the efforts of the Mulroney Government to bring Quebec into the constitution and delineate the powers of the provincial and federal governments.

But we were fond of the old devil, or at least respectful. I remember that one of my father's closest friends, a Progressive Conservative* supporter who loved ribbing my Dad about Trudeau—though my father always railed about how the invocation of the War Measures Act had soured his previously fervent admiration for the man, he still voted for Trudeau every single time—once gave him, as a Christmas present, a book called Great Things Trudeau Has Done For Canada. It was a thick paperback, containing perhaps three hundred blank pages. I thought it was pretty damn hilarious, even while I respected the genius who was making money off of such a concept. But the friend was actually maudlin when Trudeau passed away. To have had such a political figure, seemingly so different from those who had come before, an intellectual, a smooth-talker, a ladies man, reported about regularly by the world's press; it was something else. But above all, Trudeau was a Canadian; pragmatic, conservative, cautious even while seeming to be charging ahead at full speed. Ricci sums it all up quite nicely:

Perhaps our attraction to him came exactly from this, that however different from us he seemed, however much the outsider, we sensed he was one of us. He gave the impression of adventure and change even as he affirmed the general flow of things as they were. Rebellion without risk. A very Canadian sort of rebellion. Or put differently: he showed us how to be ourselves, but to do it with style.

Trudeau's famous exchange with CBC journalist Tim Ralfe (famous in Canada, at any rate) shortly before invoking the War Measures Act in 1970.

*Truly the most ridiculous, oxymoronic name for a political party that one could imagine. Only, and I mean only in Canader.

[Ty Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never get tired of mythologizing this man

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not the glossy version of Trudeau that you might expect,but a look back at what he was, a man of his time. But not perfect. I learned a few things such as how very young Margaret really was to be thrust into such a thankless public role. And yet their sons seem to have been well loved and well raised. I am grateful for the immigration change and the bold 'bedrooms of the nation' stand. Whatever else history might fault him for, those two things changed my life and others for the better.I admire Nino Ricci's writing now and have looked back to find his more well known novels that I have somehow neglected to read. I look forward to reading them. Sometimes a brief succinct book is just what you need. Not all biographies need to be 900 pages. This is a good series and as objectively done as you could hope.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

sucked

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A glance at the other reviews, not all of which separate the book from its subject, seems further proof of the polarization evoked at the name of Trudeau but that also resides within Canadian society itself. As Ricci points out in the concluding chapter, "so far, the country has held. It continues to function, in fact, much as Trudeau envisioned, as a struggle among competing powers with competing interests that somehow works to the benefit of the people...what has held the country together has been exactly the forces that have always seemed on the verge of tearing it apart," In Trudeau's time, it was the nationalism of Quebec against the disdain of English Canada. I don't think I need to say what these forces are now.

Indeed, reading this reflection of Trudeau at the end of 2025 has proved an interesting experience, having recently witnessed a surge of Canadian nationalism not seen since Vancouver 2010. It's impossible not to notice the lessons of Trudeau's successes and mistakes, the gyre of history turning again. He, perhaps of any prime minister, recognized that Canada isn't a homogeneous society but vast numbers of communities that must compromise with each other, with the government helping to usher in these compromises. He succeeded in some ways, failed in others, and Ricci highlights both. Considering the series is called "Extraordinary Canadians", I was expecting an overly positive reflection on Trudeau's life and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't filled with fawning statements and exaggerations (though some do exist). It's one man's attempts to explain Trudeau's legacy not only to us, the readers, but to himself.

The book includes chapters on Trudeau's years in school, his early political career, the October crisis, his relationships with women, and the Constitution. It's more or less in chronological order, though there's some jumping around and mentions of names and events that I had to skim back for a refresher. The dive into these historical events isn't deep; rather, it's a launching point for those who can't remember their high school history lessons (like me). If nothing else, it was a painful reminder that I know very little about my country's past or its key moments, a lack that I plan to rectify. If the "Extraordinary Canadians" series achieves just this one result, a growing curiosity in its readers, I say it's a success.

[F · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author's writing style can sometimes prove to be annoying. He turns around the subject so much, skips many important details, the dates get a little somehow darkly confusing, all for the sake of stylistic prose, reflective and insightful as he might have thought on one of Canada's greatest men.

Pierre Elliot Trudeau is truly an inspiring genius, witty in language and deep in thought. A true renaissance man. He transformed Canada and given it its rightful place as a leader of social, progressive reform amongst the countries of the Free World, by distinguishing his foreign policy from those of our southern neighbor, by implementing major social reform that contributed to the making of a Just Society – by legislation on language policy, multiculturalism, sexuality, women's rights, human rights –, by repatriating our constitution (an action that granted us real, though quite symbolic, sovereignty), and, finally, by preserving the country's unity in face of Quebec's tribalist separatists.

But to disregard the downs of his time in office, as did Nino Ricci – although he mentioned some of them very briefly at the end –, would be disingenuous. Canada’s finances and economy were, one can argue, in a bad state, almost mismanaged, hardliners argue. Trudeau polarized Canadian society and divided it along regional lines with his National Energy Program, beneficial to eastern provinces, but disastrous to the West, alienating its people and instilling in them a deep distrust of federal government, culminating in the rise of regional and populist parties such as the Reform Party, which predated the Bloc, and Canadian Alliance. The NEP had such disastrous impact on Alberta that its real estate prices plummeted 40%, compared to 10%-15% in the East. Oil corporations in the West started selling off as Ottawa’s policy was so interventionist it seemed as a masquerade for nationalization. People lost their job and were so angry they wanted “the eastern bastards [to] freeze in the dark.” Some historians and pundits allege that Trudeau’s intention was to ease the hardship on his voter base, but they’re wrong, it seems, as the policy was shown to be needed at the time as subsequent neoliberal Conservative PM Brian Mulroney kept it on hold for two years, waiting till world prices rise up again.

The national debt under Trudeau had risen to an unprecedented height. The federal debt of $18 billion in ’68, 24% of GDP, escalated to $200 billion, 46% of GDP, in ’84 when he retired. However, as much as these numbers suggest mismanagement, one shouldn’t forget that two oil crises occurred in as short as six years, resulting in a stock market crash and an enduring recession, first of its kind since the Great Depression. Western governments resorted to Keynesian programs, deficit spending, to combat stagflation; Trudeau’s government wasn’t the only spending so massively, so did Ford’s, d’Estaing’s, Wilson’s, to name the most important ones. So it is clear that, despite Trudeau’s relative disinterest in the economy, it was natural at the time that a government’s debt grows so hugely. Then Trudeau, as happened elsewhere, notoriously in Britain under Labour, as insisted the IMF, shifted his policies to austerity, introducing a $2 billion cuts as a first. Yes, he didn’t have a consistent fiscal policy, he, instead, acted pragmatically, changing policies as he saw fit. And by the way, Conservatives often like to say that free-trade with the US was their major achievement during the Mulroney era vis-à-vis Trudeau’s economic policies, but it is under the latter that free-trade was first discussed and it is a Liberal, Minister of Finance Donald MacDonald, who laid out the rationale and basis for the free-trade policy, which later came to be NAFTA. So to suggest that Liberals were (and are) left-wing dirigistes, is just plainly false.

Further, what critics usually fail to understand is that Trudeau isn’t the one on who we should throw the blame, as he, despite what they want us to believe, frequently consulted his cabinet and consultants. Another point requiring clarification is that interest rate and unemployment were not of Trudeau’s fault (he hadn’t authority in that domain), but of Canada’s Central Bank Governor, Gerald Bouey, a man who once said: “We are fighting inflation with high unemployment.”

Canada’s foreign politics under Trudeau were radical; he was sympathetic toward communism, favored détente with the Soviets and the Chinese, and seemed unconcerned with the plight, terrible living standards and the trampled human rights of citizens of communist countries. I am uncertain on whether his foreign policies were such to distinguish Canada on the international level from the US, were reflective of his rebellious, anti-conformist attitude, or were reflective of his sympathy toward “nation-building” leaders, with whom he tended to associate himself. He befriended Fidel Castro, at a time when such enterprise was rightfully unforgivable. It was the height of the Cold War. He withdrew Canadian troops from Vietnam, angering his American counterpart. He wanted indeed to assert Canada’s role in the world by his opposition to perceived “American imperialism” and by helping the development of Third World nation, a noble pursuit, but ill-timed considering global and domestic economic downturn.

A very intriguing figure, his persona is built on an array of paradoxical traits only unique to such a worldly man. His most important achievement is the insertion of the Charter in the Constitution. From the desks of La Sorbonne to the height of the Constitutional Wars, Trudeau's legacy is of notorious grandeur.

[Christy Pham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was creatively written almost like a memoir / biography and creatively showed the complexity and many facets of Trudeau. I appreciated understanding the importance behind the Charter of Rights and Freedom, through Ricci’s narrative.

[Steven Voorhees · Rating 3 out of 5]

I finished this interesting psychoanalysis of Trudeau on July 1st -- Dominion Day in Canada (it became so on July 1, 1867). Despite threats -- human and otherwise -- over the past 148 years to abrogate its united status, Canada remains so. This is partly due to the work of the nation's 15th prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. A coolly intelligent and stoic man, Trudeau entered the Canadian consciousness upon his election as Liberal Party leader in 1968. Through two terms as PM and beyond his death in 2000, Trudeau never left his nation's nervous system. Through interesting anecdotes and prose, Ricci explains how Trudeau transcended Canadian politics and history to became enshrined in the nation's culture, much like Thatcher did in the UK and Reagan did in the US. Yet this account of Trudeau isn't a traditional cradle-to-grave biography. Rather, Ricci takes a personal approach to both Trudeau the man and Trudeau the leader. This biographical method took me a little getting used to. But in the end, I obtained a full picture of Trudeau and his various personas. I saw the importance of both family and religious faith to him. I also met the politician who didn't bat an eye when he made Canada a virtual police state during the October Crisis of 1970. Ricci's humanistic and political portrait is a fine introduction to the man who reigns over Canada -- even in death.

[Fiona Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about Trudeau from this book, which was the objective in reading it. But I feel like it was written for people who already knew a lot about him, which I didn't. As one of the first biographies I've ever read, I was rather disappointed as I was hoping it would really recount Trudeau's life and accomplishments. It mentioned many of these, but was more a commentary on some of the most important points, without really telling the whole story. It left me wanting to read a "real" Trudeau biography, and to be fair Ricci did frequently reference some such works. This book did nothing to improve my opinion of Ricci. I read his book about Jesus, that wasn't bad, but when we tried to read Origin of the Species for our book club he ticked most of us off. It seemed then like he was so full of himself that the book was really all about how clever he thinks he is. This biography of Trudeau, unfortunately, seems to bear that stamp as well, to its detriment. I was very motivated to read this Penguin series of biographies of extraordinary Cdns. I will read one more, but if it is as unsatisfying as this one, I'm going to turn my non-fiction reading aspirations elsewhere.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This biography is part of the Extraordinary Canadians Series edited by John Ralston Saul.
Trudeau was loved, hated, vilified and praised and Ricci deals impressively with all these ambiguities. He makes a good attempt to reacquaint us with Trudeau’s spirit, and his vulnerability both in his political as well as personal life.
I have read a number of biographies in this series and have found that they are usually not a good starting point if you do not know the subject of the text, but they are an excellent addition to the vast number of articles, books and columns that have been written by others and often give an interesting, original and personal slant to the material. In this way they are a wonderful complement to the material already written by others. It is the same with this volume by Ricci as he recounts the part this Canadian Prime Minister played in shaping Ricci’s own personal sense of identity.
Well researched, crafted and written.
I have not been disappointed by any of the books in this series.

[Jeffrey Sylvester · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was good but not what I expected. The author humanized Trudeau by sucking out the romanticism that surrounds him. His rise was interesting but far more silver spoon than I imagined. I also got a stronger sense of his evolution from seperatism to globalism to Canadian federalism, which tied into his views on constitutional matters and the subsequent referendums to which he was opposed. I think for anyone wanting a realistic view of Trudeau's contributions to Canada, and ultimately, a better understanding of how Trudeau upheld traditional values throughout his seeming radicalism, this book is a worthy contribution.

[Bob Shepherd · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was the least interesting of the Extraordinary Canadians series that I have read so far. When Trudeau was in his political hay days I was in my teens and twenties mostly, and politics was not of great interest to me. I remember much of what was in this biography and enjoyed the review of such significant events as Trudeaumania, the FLQ crisis, Maggie, the Quebec referendums and so on. On the other hand this novel did nothing to bring these days back to life – too much listing and not enough passion or insight into the man. Ho hum.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt that I've read better things about Trudeau and that Ricci really just stuck to quoting and sourcing things that had already been written, rather than doing interviews or trying to find something new. I thought he did a good job trying to show how conflicted Canadians are about Trudeau.

Part of the problem with the book was not Ricci's fault. Trudeau is a subject that merits a long, long book and this book was too short.

[D.A. Lockhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book in an great series on key figures in Canada's history. Not all empty praise, but a clear and engaging portrait of man. A must read if you have interest in Canadian politics and a man that came to define modern politics in this country.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Makes no chronological sense.