Pierre Elliott Trudeau citations
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Pierre-Elliott Trudeau surnommé PET, né le 18 octobre 1919 à Outremont et mort le 28 septembre 2000 à Montréal, est un homme d'État canadien. Il exerce les fonctions de Premier ministre du Canada à deux reprises : du 20 avril 1968 au 3 juin 1979, puis du 3 mars 1980 au 30 juin 1984, sous la bannière du Parti libéral. Par sa longévité politique et l'importance des changements qu'il a mis en œuvre, il est certainement la figure politique canadienne la plus importante de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle. En tant que ministre de la Justice sous Lester B. Pearson, il fait adopter le Bill omnibus qui légalise le divorce et décriminalise l'avortement et l'homosexualité, considérant que « l'État n'a rien à faire dans les chambres à coucher de la nation ».

Alors qu'il est Premier ministre, le Canada établit des relations avec la Chine communiste en 1970, puis avec Cuba en 1976. C'est également sous son mandat que la peine de mort est abolie. Chef du camp du « non » au premier référendum portant sur l'indépendance du Québec, il est le principal artisan du rapatriement de la Constitution de 1982, événement qui suscite encore aujourd'hui la controverse. Pierre-Elliott Trudeau influence fortement la politique canadienne par diverses interventions. Son caractère flamboyant et intellectuel sert à rehausser la visibilité du Canada sur la scène mondiale. Il est également un homme dont l'héritage est souvent critiqué : au niveau économique, le déficit des finances publiques canadiennes se creuse pendant l'administration de Trudeau.

Au Québec, il lui est reproché son implication dans de nombreux scandales s'attaquant au mouvement indépendantiste québécois tandis que son Programme énergétique national créé un fort ressentiment dans l'Ouest canadien. Son fils Justin Trudeau exerce également les fonctions de Premier ministre du Canada depuis 2015. Wikipedia  

✵ 18. octobre 1919 – 28. septembre 2000
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Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 55   citations 0   J'aime

Pierre Elliott Trudeau Citations

Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Citations en anglais

“Of course a bilingual state is more expensive than a unilingual one — but it is a richer state.”

Remark in 1968, quoted in Improving Canada's Democracy (2006) by Terry Julian, p. 14

“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.”

Être votre voisin, c'est comme dormir avec un éléphant; quelque douce et placide que soit la bête, on subit chacun de ses mouvements et de ses grognements.
Addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C. (25 March 1969) - Audio clip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trudeau_sleeping_with_an_elephant.ogg

“I don't really know what a cyclotron is but I am certainly very happy Canada has one!”

Visiting the TRIUMF cyclotron in (February 1976), as quoted in "A Canadian TRIUMF" http://www.alumni.ubc.ca/grad_gazette/grad_gazette_june_2005.html in Grad Gazzette [University of British Columbia] (June 2005)

“Democracy demands that elected members be able to realize fully the role for which they have been chosen.”

Part 2, 1968 - 1974 Power And Responsibility, p. 117
Memoirs (1993)

“We aimed far and high, but we did not miss the mark.”

Part 4, 1979 - 1984 "Welcome to the 1980's", p. 340
Memoirs (1993)

“Paddling a canoe is a source of enrichment and inner renewal.”

As quoted in "Pierre Elliott Trudeau" profile in The Greatest Canadian at CBC http://web.archive.org/web/20041029152936/http://www.cbc.ca/greatest/top_ten/nominee/trudeau-pierre-know.html

“The essential ingredient of politics is timing.”

As quoted in The Rainmaker : A Passion for Politics (1986) by Keith Davey, p. 57; also in The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations (1998) by Connie Robertson, p. 439

“The next time you see Jesus Christ, ask Him what happened to the just society He promised 2,000 years ago.”

In reply to a high school student's question about what happened to Trudeau's promises of a "Just Society", in Regina, Saskatchewan (September 1972)[citation needed]

“I'm not leaving! I must stay.”

On the reviewing stand of a St. Jean Baptiste Day parade in Montreal, after being subjected to objects being thrown by demonstrators. (24 June 1968)[citation needed]

“We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.”

Speech (13 December 1980), quoted in It's great up north" by Henry Porter in The Observer (20 November 2005) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/nov/20/usa

“The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.”

Statement of 1970, as quoted in profile at the Canadian Museum of Civilizations http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/biography/biographi270e.shtml, also quoted in York University: The Way Must Be Tried (2008) by Michiel Horn, p. 4

“Our hopes are high. Our faith in the people is great. Our courage is strong. And our dreams for this beautiful country will never die.”

Farewell speech to the Liberal Party http://www.primeministers.ca/trudeau/bio_9.php?context=b (14 June 1984)

“Liberalism is the philosophy for our time, because it does not try to conserve every tradition of the past, because it does not apply to new problems the old doctrinaire solutions, because it is prepared to experiment and innovate and because it knows that the past is less important than the future.”

Defining liberalism at the 1968 Liberal leadership convention, as quoted in "History of the Liberal Party of Canada" (PDF at the Liberal Party website) http://web.archive.org/web/20070418135603/http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/070417_lpc_history_en.pdf

“I've been called worse things by better people.”

When it was reported to him that President Richard Nixon had called him an "asshole" (1971), quoted in Absurdities, Scandals & Stupidities in Politics (2006) by Hakeem Shittu and Callie Query, p. 19
My only response was that I had been called worse things by better people.
Trudeau's account of the comment, in Memoirs (1993) by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, p. 218

“Long live free France.”

Comment referring to the 1968 student protests in Paris, patterned after the 1967 remarks of Charles de Gaulle in Montreal on Quebec independence from Canada: "Vive le Québec libre!" (Long live free Quebec!), quoted in The Lima News (11 December 1968)

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