Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

Pierre Trudeau Canadian statesman and Prime Minister. Born Joseph Philippe Pierre Ives Elliott Trudeau, on October 18, 1919, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The son of a wealthy French-Canadian businessman Charles-Émile Trudeau, and his wife, Grace, who was of Scottish and French decent, Trudeau spoke mostly French at home, although he learned English at a very young age as well. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the elite College Jean de Brébeuf in 1940, then went on to study law at the University of Montreal and political science and economics at Harvard University, École des Sciences Politiques in Paris, and the London School of Economics. After completing his studies and enjoying an extended trip around the world in the late 1940s, Trudeau returned to his native country to find the authoritarian regime of his childhood—Quebec was then led by Maurice Duplessis and the ecclesiastical establishment—still in power, much to his disappointment. Determined to bring about democratic change in Quebec society and politics, Trudeau helped found Cité Libre ("Free City"), an intellectual journal of opinion that became an articulate voice for the growing liberal movement in Quebec. In 1961, he became a law professor at