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The Impact Of Pierre Elliot Trudeau On Canada

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Pierre Elliot Trudeau was the Prime Minister of Canada between 1968-79 and between 1980-84. He was arguably one of the most controversial people in Canadian history, and was widely known across the world. When Trudeau was elected as Prime Minister, he became extremely popular due to his charismatic personality, which was different compared to previous leaders. This sparked “Trudeaumania”, the name given to his campaign due to his popularity among Canadians. However, before he became Prime Minister, he reformed the laws in the Criminal Code and liberalized certain laws on abortion and homosexuality while he was Justice Minister. In 1969, Trudeau implemented the Official Languages Act, which made Canada officially bilingual in French and English. …show more content…

First of all, while he was Justice Minister, he reformed laws in the Criminal Code for divorce, and liberalized homosexuality and abortion. This essentially allowed homosexuals and other people to have more freedoms in Canadian society. Moreover, the Official Languages Act made French Canadians feel as if they were finally a part of Canada. This was because their language was widely available, and Trudeau catered to them by making French an official Canadian Language. Furthermore, the October Crisis proved to Canadian citizens that Trudeau was a smart and strong leader. This was due to the fact that Trudeau was able to defuse the situation without having more lives being lost. Also, he successfully stopped the Quebec separatist movement, which would have been catastrophic to the rest of Canada. Likewise, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave Canadians guaranteed individual freedoms for the first time. It also enabled women and Aboriginals in Canada to finally feel treated as equal people. Finally, Canada was finally able to have access to their own Constitution after it was patriated from the British in 1982. This allowed Canada to deal more effectively with language and other rights issues. It also gave Canada a sense of nationalism, as they were truly independent from Britain. Therefore, Pierre Elliott had an extremely significant impact on

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