On the evening of April 6, 1968, the Ottawa Civic Centre was the setting for what would prove to be a monumental event in the recent history of Canada.  Following the resignation of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, nearly 2400 delegates representing the Liberal Party assembled in Ottawa to choose a new leader.  Because the Liberals were still in power, their new leader would also become the fifteenth prime minister of Canada. Among the nine candidates was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, a forty-nine year-old French-Canadian who was the justice minister on Pearson's cabinet.  For some reason Trudeau had won the hearts of Canadians, both young and old, without really trying.  His campaign was referred to as Trudeaumania and the auditorium was teeming with his unorthodox supporters holding giant placards and screaming "Trudeau!"  There was little doubt about whom the public supported but the verdict of the delegates was still pending.  After more than seven hours of counting ballots, the final tally was announced.  Trudeau had won - quite soundly - and the crowd erupted with cheers, chants and fist-pumping for its new leader.  Trudeau's victory that evening marked the beginning of an unusually lengthy career as Prime Minister.  Excepting a brief interruption, he would hold the post for an incredible sixteen years. 

    A reign of sixteen years is reason enough for scholars to examine the life and thought of a political figure.  In Trudeau's case, however, there is even further impetus because in addition to being a politician he is also in many ways a political philosopher.  He has expended much time and effort reflecting upon what is necessary to improve government and society, and his leadership role gave him an excellent opportunity to apply his thinking.  In analyzing Pierre Trudeau's thoughts and actions, many writers have emphasized the congruity of his philosophical positions and his rigid adherence to them throughout his life.  In the introduction to Trudeau's Federalism and the French Canadians, for example, John T. Saywell argues that "consistency is, in fact, the most remarkable quality of Mr. Trudeau's thoughts and actions". The intent of this essay is to explore the opposite view: that inconsistency, incongruity and contradiction are as much if not more a part of Trudeau's politics than anything else.  In other words, perhaps it is irony, and not consistency, that is the most remarkable feature of Pierre Trudeau's political style.  

Pierre's Political Philosophy  

Although Trudeau flirted with socialism in his youth, he eventually settled on a fairly conventional political liberalism.  In fact, there is little innovation in his philosophy.  George Radwanski, Trudeau's official biographer, describes Trudeau's political thought as consisting of an overlay of Acton, de Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and many other thinkers on a foundation of the classical liberalism of John Locke and John Stuart Mill.  However, what separates Trudeau from others who have read these writers is that he consciously chose aspects of various philosophies that appealed to him and constructed a philosophical system of his own.  

      In Trudeau's system, there are four central themes:  the freedom of the individual; the political equality of all individuals; the superiority of rationality; and democracy as the best  form of government.  What is interesting about these principles is that at various points in his writing Trudeau's value for each one of them compromises and even contradicts his value for one or more of the others.  In this way, irony becomes a part of Trudeau's liberalism.  

     Of the many themes in Trudeau's political thought, the freedom of the individual is certainly the most important.  "Freedom is a free gift," Trudeau asserts, "a birthright which distinguishes man from beast."  Without freedom, a human being has no chance to achieve the ultimate objectives of self-fulfilment and self-perfection.  And if a human being cannot strive for self-fulfilment, then s/he can never be truly human.  The goal of freedom, therefore, is essential for human progress.  In Trudeau's words: "For humanity, progress is the slow journey towards personal freedom."  Ironically, Trudeau's high regard for the freedom of the individual conflictswith his desire for consensus and a uniformity of purpose in society.  But this will become apparent later in the discussion. 

     Because of Trudeau's belief in the primacy of personal freedom, he insists that every just society's foremost aim must be to secure freedom for individuals.  "The purpose of living in society," he claims, "is that every man may fulfil himself as much as possible."  If the achievement of individual freedom is not the most sacred principle of a given society, then people have no reason to continue living in it.  In Trudeau's opinion, "they would do better to go live alone in the woods or on the hills."  

     Fortunately, in a just society this extreme measure is far from necessary.  The reason for this, according to Trudeau, is that in a just society the government bestows political equality upon all its citizens.  Since all human beings are politically equal, no one person can rule another by right.  That is, "no man or group of men can impose authority on a population against its will."  Human beings are thus equally free to do as they will.  Following Hobbes, however, Trudeau is not comfortable with this state of complete freedom since he feels that it leads inevitably to a state of narcissistic anarchy.  Therefore, in his opinion, "to allow human society to develop in order and justice, men agree to some restriction on their liberty, and obey the authority of the state."  There is, of course, a conspicuous contradiction here.  If the aim of a just society is to further the freedom of individuals, what reason do these individuals have to consent to an authority, which limits liberty, in order to more effectively protect liberty?  Is this not an instance of freedom being restricted in the interests of freedom?  This is an incongruity that Trudeau implicitly acknowledges but does not iron out.  

     In addition to individual freedom and political equality, Trudeau's political philosophy places a great deal of importance on rationality, particularly with respect to the political process.  Trudeau believes that human beings are free only because they have the ability to reason.  Therefore, only rational and intelligent decisions can lead to free actions and an individual who chooses not to conform to these expectations is crossing the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.  This is the root of Trudeau's hatred for nationalism, especially Quebecois nationalism.  In his view, nationalism appeals to people's emotions in the political realm.  And  because emotionalism forces them to surrender their rationality, it is also an attack on their freedom.  Participation in politics, Trudeau argues, must be based on "cold, unemotional rationality" in order to be meaningful.  Again, there are at least two inconsistencies here.  First, Trudeau does not acknowledge the individual's right to choose to be irrational.  In this way he has restricted personal freedom, the highest value in his philosophical system.  Secondly, Trudeau's insistence on rationality also jeopardizes political equality.  After all, one is hardly able to do as one pleases - the purpose, Trudeau claims, of political equality - if this excludes being irrational.  

     The fourth and last major principle in Trudeau's political philosophy is that democracy  is the best form of government.  Of all political systems, "democracy seems the most effective as well as the most consistent with peace, justice and liberty."  The reason for this, he explains, is that democracy, unlike other arrangements, encourages all citizens to participate in government.  The way a democracy allows for citizen participation is quite simple.  Since all citizens are politically equal, each citizen's choices are given equal weight in the voting process.  If fifty-one percent of people agree on a certain decision, then that decision will prevail since it is an expression of the will of the majority.  And because all  individuals are equal, Trudeau argues, "the happiness of fifty-one people is more important than that of forty-nine."  

     Once again, there is some tension here.  The personal freedom of forty-nine individuals is obviously violated if their objection to a certain decision is disregarded.  Furthermore, if political equality means that no one person can rule another by right but only by consent,as Trudeau has argued, then this principle is also sacrificed.  In Trudeau's version of a democracy, the decision agreed upon by a fifty-one percent majority will be used to rule everyone even though a forty-nine percent minority did not consent to such an imposition.  Is it not ironic, then, that the best form of government compromises personal freedom and political equality, the very principles that it is supposed to advance?  

Preaching and Practicing  

It has hopefully been demonstrated that Trudeau's philosophical positions have not always been in complete agreement.  The same can be said about his thoughts and his actions.  Trudeau's many years in the limelight provide us with a myriad of instances where his decisions seem to fall short of, and even contradict, his stated convictions.  He has, in fact, acknowledged this discrepancy and he attributes much of it to the distinction between his role as critic and his role as statesman:  

    "When you're teaching, you must as much as possible preach ideal solutions.  When you're in politics, you must preach solutions which are possible... If I wanted to be right rather than prime minister, I'd have stayed in university."  Whatever his reasons were, it is apparent that at various times in his life Trudeau considered it appropriate to sacrifice his philosophical principles.  

     The first inconsistency involves Trudeau's preoccupation with the individual and his/her freedom.  Personal freedom, as a previous portion of this essay has demonstrated, is the   highest value in Trudeau's philosophical system.  In his opinion, every state's principal aim must be to secure freedom for individuals.  If a given society's government does not consider this goal an important one, then the people have no reason to obey.  Ironically, Trudeau the prime minister did not always seem as though he valued personal freedom above all else.  The most notable example of his less than paramount concern for civil liberties was his imposition of the War Measures Act during the October Crisis of 1970.  On October 5, 1970, British trade commissioner James Cross was kidnapped by members of the Front du Liberation du Quebec (FLQ), a terrorist organization intent on achieving independence for Quebec by any means necessary.  Five days later, the same group kidnapped Pierre Laporte, the deputy premier of Quebec.  Perceiving a threat to  democracy in Quebec, Trudeau consulted with Quebec premier Robert Bourassa and decided to invoke the War Measures Act, a piece of legislation that allows the federal government to suspend civil liberties.  As a result of his decision, 465 people were arrested and detained, and the large majority of them were not in any way connected with the FLQ.  And Pierre Trudeau, self-styled champion of civil liberties, became the only prime minister to invoke the War Measures Act outside of wartime.  

     Although the October Crisis is probably the most famous (and infamous) example of Trudeau's disregard for civil liberties, it is by no means the only case.  Trudeau has always supported the legalized use of wire-tapping by police to battle crime, a flagrant abuse of personal freedom.  He has even opposed the right of civil servants to strike against the government.  "I never thought that the state should be weak in front of the individual," he explains.  "I thought it should never be oppressive, but I never thought it should be weak."  Trudeau has defended himself by claiming that his actions have been critical to protect democracy which, in turn, furthers the freedom of the individual.  But again this is ironic because personal freedom is compromised in the very interests of personal freedom.  

     The next contradiction concerns Trudeau's value for rationality, primarily in the realm of politics but also in his personal life.  A few of his most famous words attest to this conviction: "Let us cast down the totems, break down the taboos.  Or better, let us consider them void.  Dispassionately, let us be intelligent."  While he was prime minister, Trudeau even hung a tapestry that displayed the motto "Reason before passion" on a wall in his official residence to remind himself of the importance of being rational.  But he was far from faithful to his own advice.  As a student at the University of Montreal, he once participated in a public debate on the subject of "gallantry".  After being informed that he had lost, he produced a pistol and fired it at the judge.  It was a blank, of course, but the judge was understandably terrified.  In the mid-1950s, Trudeau was in Moscow attending an international economic conference.  At one  point, showing a lack of concern for his life, he threw a snowball at a statue of Stalin.  He was apprehended immediately, but after  informing them of who he was and his 'playful' intentions, they released him. 

     Trudeau's bursts of spontaneity and irritability did not end in 1968 upon his election as prime minister.  In fact, he continued to show an incredible lack of restraint when dealing with the public and the press.  Once he was asked by a francophone journalist to explain what he would say to Quebecers concerning his appointment of two anglophone experts to conduct a constitutional reform study.  "I'd tell them to go to hell, " he snapped.  Another time, giving a speech on the prairies, Trudeau encountered a young demonstrator who heckled him throughout the speech and threw handfuls of wheat at him.  His reaction this time was even more abrasive: "Cut that out or I'll come down and kick your ass."  

     Even in parliament, that most sacred of Canadian political institutions, Trudeau was not always the coolly rational man that he aspired to be.  Like others, he resorted to name-calling and insults when the opportunity presented itself.  Once, Trudeau responded to the jeers of the opposition with a very caustic speech: "I think we should encourage members of the opposition to leave.  Everytime they do, the IQ of this House rises considerably ... When they get home, when they are fifty yards from Parliament Hill, they are no longer honourable members - they are just nobodies."  Surprisingly, this outburst was tame  compared to Trudeau's remarks on other occasions.  For example, he once called Calgary MP Harvie Andre "a son of a bitch".  And on yet another occasion he yelled "fuck off" at the opposition benches.  These are hardly the reactions of a stolid human being.  It is ironic, then, that someone who considered passion and emotion to be so dangerous was perhaps one of Canada's most emotional, most passionate and most temperamental politicians.  

    There are many more examples of the incongruities between Trudeau's thoughts and his actions.  For instance, Trudeau has always been uncomfortable with excessive state intervention in the economy.  For this reason he has consistently opposed the imposition of price and income controls.  But this did not stop him from deciding, in 1975, that a lack of responsibility on the part of business and labour necessitated the introduction of a controls system.  Trudeau has spoken of the need for a shift of emphasis in Canadian  society from consumption to conservation.  And yet, he allowed energy-conservation measures in Canada to fall far behind those of the United States.  More than a few times, Trudeau has insisted that it is our moral obligation as Canadians to share our wealth with poorer nations.  Nevertheless, he still reduced foreign-aid spending and even put a protective quota on textile imports from developing countries.  Trudeau has written about the importance of consensus in government.  But again, this did not prevent him, on more than a few occasions, from entirely disregarding the consensus of his cabinet ministers on a given issue, preferring instead to make the decision on his own.  And the list goes on.  It can therefore be said, with confidence, that irony is a more than adequate characterization of the relationship between Trudeau's ideas and his actions.  

Paradoxical Prose 

The third and final portion of this essay is not concerned with locating Trudeau's inconsistencies, incongruities and contradictions.  That has been the task of the first two parts.  The aim of this section is to demonstrate that Trudeau himself employed irony in his writings, speeches and remarks to the public and the press.  Despite his pleas for "cold, unemotional rationality", Trudeau's own rhetorical style has always been far from bland.  In fact, many of his writings take a polemical form and are replete with poetic figures of speech.  Of these figurative tools, irony is perhaps the most important and the most common.  By exploiting tensions between appearance and reality, expectation and fulfilment, deception and disguise, Trudeau has been able to more effectively insult his opponents and add force to his own opinions.  There are a variety of devices by which irony is achieved.  In Trudeau's texts and speeches, satire, hyperbole and sarcasm are commonly used to produce the effect of irony.  Through these devices, irony becomes an important element of Trudeau's rhetorical and oratorical style. 

    Satire is the literary art of ridicule.  A successful satirist can belittle her/his subject by making it seem absurd and by encouraging the reader to laugh or feel contempt.  Though satire is often the form of an entire literary work, it can also be an incidental element in writings that are not wholly satiric.  It is in this sense that Trudeau has used satire.  In the following passage, written in 1987, Trudeau uses satire to express his disgust for the Meech Lake accord and its proponents:  

"Alas, only one eventuality had not been foreseen, that one day the  government of Canada might fall into the hands of a wimp.  It has now happened.  And the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, P.C., M.P., with the complicity of ten 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 be governed eventually by eunuchs." 

    Trudeau's use of satire makes his adversaries appear remarkably foolish, more than any dispassionate argument could.  The passage also achieves the effect of irony in at least one major sense.  In forging the Meech Lake accord, the goal of Brian Mulroney and the premiers was obviously to improve Canada through constitutional reform.  But according to Trudeau, the effect will be the opposite of that intended.  Instead of improving Canada, the accord will leave the country "to be governed eventually by eunuchs." 

    Hyperbole is another figure of speech that Trudeau has consistently employed to gain the effect of irony.  Hyperbolic expressions or statements consist of exaggeration for the sake of emphasis, and although the use of hyperbole does not necessarily result in irony, it frequently does.  Because Trudeau despises the notion of independence for Quebec, he has often used hyperbole to exaggerate its undesirable qualities.  For example, in a campaign speech delivered in Winnipeg, Trudeau compared Quebecois nationalism to "a form of African tribalism that even the Negro kings don't want for themselves." Insulting to both nationalist Quebeckers and African peoples, this comment serves to ridicule Quebec's independence movement by exaggerating even Trudeau's own conception of its 'backwardness'.  It also results in irony since the people of Quebec - a people with 'progressive' democracy within their reach - are portrayed by Trudeau as striving instead for a 'backwardness' that even supposedly 'backward' peoples are not satisfied with. 

    Sarcasm is the most common device by which irony is achieved.  And unlike satire or hyperbole, sarcasm necessarily results in irony because it always involves a discrepancy between what is said and what is actually intended, between appearance and reality, expectation and fulfilment.  Sarcasm is also the most overt way to produce irony and it is has the least potential for misinterpretation.  For these reasons, perhaps, Trudeau seems to have favoured sarcasm over other rhetorical tools, especially in his writing.  A good example can be found in Trudeau's article entitled "The Election" in which he seems to encourage voters not to take elections seriously: "why not enjoy yourself on election day, go and have a quick one while these fake protests are going on, and sell your vote to the highest bidder as your vote is meaningless anyway".  Of course, Trudeau does not mean what he says; indeed, he means the opposite.  The literal meaning of his statement is undermined by its context since the rest of the article proceeds to explain why elections are exceedingly important.  Another example of sarcasm can be found in an article called "Tyrannicide, the Jesuits, and Father de Lery" which contains Trudeau's responses to some of his detractors.  In it, he feigns an apology: "I am sorry that such a brief foray into theology was enough to trouble the consciences of the Jesuits".   Again, Trudeau does not mean what he says and he is far from sorry.  The rest of this article proceeds to justify his "foray into theology" and explains why, in fact, he has no reason to be apologetic. 

    As the preceding discussion has demonstrated, irony as an element of Trudeau's politics is not limited to his inconsistencies, incongruities and contradictions.  It is also an important characteristic of his rhetorical and oratorical style.  Through the use of satire, hyperbole, sarcasm and other devices not discussed here , Trudeau has been able to achieve the effect of irony in his writings, speeches and public remarks.  The resulting irony has helped Trudeau to insult his enemies and add rhetorical force to his contentions in a way that strictly logical and rational argumentation could never have done. 

When Pierre Trudeau's name comes up in conversation or turns up in a newspaper headline, many Canadians are reminded of a determined yet stoic prime minister.  His supporters remember a man committed to a worthy political vision.  His detractors remember someone who was uncompromising and always ready to impose his personal creed.  But both the positive and the negative images of Trudeau seem to point to the same thing: consistency. 

     This essay has been an attempt to provide a contrary view of Canada's fifteenth prime minister.  It has been suggested in the preceding pages that irony as much as and perhaps more than consistency characterizes Trudeau's political style.  Some readers may see this emphasis on irony rather than consistency as an implicit attack.  But this would be an unsatisfactory interpretation because the purpose of this discussion has not been to discredit Trudeau's ideas, his political career, or the man himself.  In fact, the aim has been quite the opposite.  Following the French philosopher Michel Foucault, this study has emphasized discontinuity rather than continuity, the unreasonable rather than the reasonable, in order to bring attention to the positive nature of the irrational and its presence in the make-up of a great human being.  After all, if the political style of an important and influential individual is distinguished by something as unreasonable as irony, then perhaps irony and unreason are not such bad things.  Irony, then, is a significant part of the life of Pierre Trudeau, a remarkable person.  And it may have had something to do with making him remarkable.