Pierre Trudeau

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Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (18 October 1919 – 28 September 2000) Canadian politician; Prime Minister of Canada (20 April 1968 - 3 June 1979) & (3 March 1980 - 30 June 1984)

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Sourced

  • We take the position that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.
    • Comment in the Canadian House of Commons on the decriminalization of homosexuality (Dec. 22, 1967)
  • Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt..
    • Addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C. (25 March 1969)
  • Trudeau: Yes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it is more important to keep law and order in the society than to worry about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of—
    CBC reporter Tim Ralfe (interrupting): At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?
    Trudeau: Well, just watch me.
    • Responses to reporters following the kidnapping by the FLQ of a provincial cabinet minister who was eventually murdered. CBC video archives (13 October 1970)
  • If Canada is to survive, it can only survive in mutual respect and in love for one another.
    • Televised address (24 November 1976)
  • Oh, for Christ's sake shut up. Obviously the New Democratic Party is not only misinformed but uninterested in the subject.
    • Comment in the Canadian House of Commons in response to a honourable member heckling his response in Question Period (May 4, 1977)
    • House of Commons Debates - Official Report - Second Session--Thirtienth Parliament - Volume V, 1977 - Page 5272
  • Travel a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a canoe and you are already a child of nature.
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Attributed

  • Fuck off.
    • comment alleged to have been made to an opposition MP in the House of Commons
  • Fuddle-duddle or something like that.
    • comment to the media, explaining what he told the MP
  • In Quebec, people are moved too often by passion and too little by intelligence.
    • Statement while president of the 1956-1958 anti-Duplessis intellectual guild, Le Rassemblement
  • I've been called worse things by better people.
  • Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled.
  • Mr. Montgomery, there are only two things I do in bed. One of them is sleep and I wouldn't let you photograph the other one.
  • Canada is a country built against any common, geographic, historic or cultural sense.
  • Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens - it is an imposition on the state. - 1966
  • Reporter: Will you give up the Mercedes?
    Trudeau: Are you talking about the car now, or the girl?
    Reporter: The car.
    Trudeau: I won't give up either.
  • It's not a perfect job, but it sure beats working.
  • If you don't stop that, I'll kick you right in the ass.
    • to a young protester throwing wheat at him in Regina, July 16, 1969
  • I am trying to put Quebec in its place--and the place of Quebec is in Canada.
  • Mr. Lévesque was saying that part of my name was Elliott and since Elliot was an English name, it was perfectly understandable that I was for the No side, because, really, you see, I was not as much of a Quebecer as those who are going to vote Yes. That, my dear friends, is what contempt is ... It means saying that the Quebecers on the No side are not as good Quebecers as the others and perhaps they have a drop or two of foreign blood, while the people on the Yes side have pure blood in their veins. ... Of course my name is Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Yes, Elliott was my mother's name. It was the name borne by the Elliotts who came to Canada more than 200 years ago. It is the name of the Elliotts who, more than 100 years ago, settled in Saint-Gabriel de Brandon, where you can still see their graves in the cemetery. That is what the Elliotts are. My name is a Quebec name -- but my name is a Canadian name also.
    • Paul Sauvé Arena, Montreal, May 14, 1980, six days before the Quebec referendum.
  • Of course a bilingual state is more expensive than a unilingual one--but it is a richer state.
  • Nuclear weapons exist. They probably always will. And they work, with horrible efficiency. They threaten the very future of our species. We have no choice but to manage that risk. Never again can we put the task out of our minds; nor trivialize it; nor make it routine. Nor dare we lose heart.
    • Feb. 9, 1984
  • Somethings I never learned to like. I didn't like to kiss babies, though I didn't mind kissing their mothers.
  • Mangez de la merde. (Eat shit)
    • To a group of striking Montreal mail truck drivers.
  • The Past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshiped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
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On Trudeau

  • Irving Layton: "In Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has at last produced a political leader worthy of assassination."
  • Morgan Austin: "Today, Pierre is regarded as a genius, to me hes a faggot.
  • John Lennon: "If all politicians were like Pierre Trudeau, there would be world peace."
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