[1960 - 1982] A New National Identity and the Trudeau Era
The year is 1960. Canada, a vast and quiet dominion, still stirs to the tune of “God Save the Queen.” Its flag, the Red Ensign, bears the Union Jack in its corner, a constant reminder of its deep British roots. Life for many is conservative, predictable, and lived under the long shadow of its southern neighbour, the United States. But beneath this placid surface, a profound restlessness is brewing, particularly in the French-speaking province of Quebec. There, a “Quiet Revolution” is underway, a seismic cultural and political shift away from the old, church-dominated order towards a secular, assertive, and modern Québécois identity. This was not merely a provincial affair; it was the first tremor of a quake that would force all of Canada to ask itself a fundamental question: What are we, if not simply British subjects in North America?
The answer began to take shape not in a parliament building, but in a dazzling celebration of the future. In 1967, Canada marked its 100th birthday, and the world came to its party: Expo 67 in Montreal. It was a spectacle of breathtaking optimism. Millions of visitors wandered through a landscape of architectural marvels, from the geodesic dome of the American pavilion to the radical, stacked cubes of the Habitat 67 housing complex. For the first time, many Canadians saw their country not as a sleepy colonial outpost, but as a modern, innovative nation. This newfound confidence had its symbol, adopted just two years prior in 1965 after a bitter national debate: a simple, bold Maple Leaf. Gone was the Union Jack. In its place was a flag that was unambiguously Canadian. It flew over Expo 67, a declaration to the world and, more importantly, to Canadians themselves, that a new identity was being born.
If the new flag was the symbol, Pierre Elliott Trudeau was its living embodiment. When he swept to power in 1968 on a wave of popular euphoria dubbed “Trudeaumania,” he was unlike any leader the country had ever seen. A charismatic, bilingual intellectual who slid down banisters, wore a rose in his lapel, and dated celebrities, he was cool, confident, and utterly modern. He represented a break from the grey, stuffy politics of the past. To his supporters, he was a philosopher-king who would usher in a “Just Society.” His vision was of a Canada united not by a single, homogenous culture, but by a shared set of values. He acted swiftly, passing the Official Languages Act in 1969, making Canada officially bilingual from coast to coast. This was followed in 1971 by a policy of official multiculturalism, which rejected the American “melting pot” in favour of a Canadian “cultural mosaic,” where newcomers were encouraged to maintain their heritage.
This progressive dream, however, was soon plunged into a nightmare. The nationalist fervor in Quebec had a dark, violent fringe: the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a terrorist group dedicated to achieving independence through violence. In October 1970, the nation watched in horror as the FLQ kidnapped a British diplomat, James Cross, and then Quebec’s own Minister of Labour, Pierre Laporte. The country held its breath. When a reporter challenged Trudeau on how far he would go to stop the terrorists, asking him to justify the military presence in the streets, Trudeau stared back coolly and uttered the three words that would define the crisis: “Just watch me.” He invoked the War Measures Act, a piece of legislation never before used in peacetime, suspending civil liberties and flooding Montreal with soldiers. Hundreds were arrested without charge. The crisis ended tragically with the discovery of Pierre Laporte's body in the trunk of a car. While order was restored, the sight of tanks on Canadian streets left a deep and lasting scar, a stark reminder of the violent passions simmering just beneath the surface of the new Canadian identity.
Beyond the high drama of politics, daily life was transforming. The baby boom generation was coming of age, questioning authority and tradition. The suburbs, with their neat lawns and single-family homes, continued their relentless expansion. Women were entering the workforce in greater numbers than ever before, challenging traditional gender roles, though the glass ceiling remained firmly in place. While the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) tried to foster a national conversation, the airwaves were saturated with American sitcoms and dramas, prompting the government to create the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and “CanCon” rules to ensure Canadian stories were still being told. On the radio, those stories were being sung by a new generation of Canadian artists like Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, and Neil Young, whose music gave voice to a uniquely Canadian experience.
The heady optimism of the 1960s gave way to the economic anxieties of the 1970s. The world was gripped by “stagflation”—a toxic mix of high unemployment and runaway inflation. The 1973 OPEC oil embargo sent energy prices soaring, creating a crisis that would expose deep regional divides in Canada. While oil-rich Alberta boomed, the manufacturing heartland of Ontario and Quebec suffered. In response, Trudeau’s government introduced the controversial National Energy Program (NEP) in 1980, a policy designed to achieve Canadian energy self-sufficiency and redistribute oil wealth across the country. To Western Canada, and especially Alberta, this felt less like nation-building and more like a federal money-grab. Bumper stickers appeared on Calgary pickup trucks reading, “Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark.” The dream of a united Canada felt more fractured than ever.
This friction set the stage for the final, defining battles of the era. In 1980, Quebec held a referendum on “sovereignty-association,” a proposal to politically separate from Canada while maintaining economic ties. The campaign was passionate and divisive, pitting families and friends against each other. Trudeau threw himself into the federalist “No” campaign, promising Quebeckers that a vote to stay in Canada would be a vote to reform it. The “No” side won, with nearly 60% of the vote, but the promise of change now had to be kept. Trudeau embarked on his final quest: to “patriate” the Constitution, bringing its authority home from the British Parliament in London, and to enshrine a charter of rights within it. The process was a political firestorm, a series of tense, all-night negotiations between the federal government and the provinces. In a move that would haunt Canadian politics for decades, a final deal was struck in November 1981 without the consent of Quebec’s premier, an event later dubbed the “Night of the Long Knives.”
On a cool April day in 1982, Queen Elizabeth II sat beside Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and signed the Constitution Act into law. With that stroke of a pen, Canada was, for the first time, the complete master of its own constitutional destiny. Embedded within that constitution was the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a document that would fundamentally re-shape the country by guaranteeing the rights of every citizen against the power of the state. It was the culmination of two decades of tumultuous change. The quiet, colonial dominion of 1960 was gone. In its place stood a complex, multicultural, officially bilingual, and constitutionally independent nation, born of idealism and forged in crisis. It was a nation that now possessed a powerful new identity, but one that still carried the wounds of the battles that created it.