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Pierre Trudeau: Prime Minister Of Canada

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Synopsis

Born in Montreal on October 18, 1919, Pierre Trudeau was the 15th prime minister of Canada for nearly 16 years. His charismatic personality matched the revolutionary ideas of the 1960s. In additional to several advances he made for the Liberal Party, he gained a reputation for dating high-profile women. His 1982 partition of the Canadian constitution greatly advanced Canadians’ civil rights.

Biography

Pierre Trudeau was born on October 18, 1919, and raised in the wealthy Montreal suburb of Outremont. His mother, Grace Elliott, was of both French and Scottish descent, so Trudeau and his two siblings grew up speaking both French and English. His family was quite wealthy by the time he was a teenager, as his father, a businessman and lawyer, had sold his gas station business to Imperial Oil some years prior. After graduating from the elite Jesuit preparatory school Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, Trudeau went on to receive a law degree from the University of Montreal. Shortly after graduating, he landed a position as a desk officer for the Privy Council. From 1951 to 1961, he practiced law, specializing in labor and civil liberty cases, issues he would later bring into focus for all of Canada. …show more content…

Four years later, Liberal Party leaders were searching for potential candidates. Trudeau and two of his colleagues were invited to run for party seats. All three men won in the election that year; Trudeau became Minister of Justice. His flamboyant and charismatic personality meshed well with the changing attitudes and opinions of the late 1960s. Within a year, he had reformed the divorce laws and liberalized the laws on abortion and

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