The tragedy of October seemed even more ironic because April 29 had brought unrestrained optimism to English Canada, for as the TorontoGlobe and Mailexpressed it: “the Province of Quebec is alive and well in Canada.” Seldom, if ever, had a provincial election been so carefully watched; seldom, if ever, had a provincial election such national implications. And never had the results been as overwhelmingly approved outside a province as was Robert Bourassa’s Liberal victory in the province of Quebec. Yet within six months the Canadian army had to be called in at the request of the young premier...

At 8:15 on Monday morning, October 5, two armed men pushed past the maid at 1297 Redpath Crescent in Westmount. Within minutes James Richard Cross, senior British trade commissioner in Montreal, had dressed under the barrel of a sub-machine gun and been whisked away in a taxi. The Montreal police had difficulty understanding the garbled plea for help from the Cross’ Greek maid, and by the time they arrived on Redpath Crescent Jasper Cross, as he was known, had disappeared without a trace. Strangely enough the kidnapping took the nation by surprise, strangely because the disappearance of James Cross had...

As Jérôme Choquette spoke four men leaped into a 1968 Chevrolet. Half an hour later Pierre Laporte, forty-nine-year-old minister of labour and of immigration in the Bourassa cabinet, was the captive of the flq’s Chenier cell. The story of the kidnapping was allegedly told by Paul Rose, one of the kidnappers, after his capture:

I, Paul Rose, born October 16, 1943, of 5630 Armstrong Street, St Hubert, do solemnly declare that I am also known by the names of Paul Blais and Paul Fournier. I rented the house at 5630 Armstrong Street in St Hubert in company with Lise Balcer...

Troops continued to move to Camp Bouchard, twenty-five miles from Montreal, on October 14. In Toronto Prime Minister John Robarts rejected any deal with the flq – “It’s war – total war.” In Paris a group calling itself the European contingent of the flq boldly threatened to destroy Canadian air and rail communications outside of Quebec. In Quebec the press continued its speculations. Claude Ryan and some others believed that the Quebec cabinet, although badly divided, was anxious to go to almost any length to secure the release of Cross and Laporte but were held in check by an inflexible...

Nothing had been heard from the flq cells since the morning of October 14. But at 10 AM October 17 the Liberation cell penned its tenth communiqué. Receipt of the communiqué was not made public, however, until Mr Choquette read it in the National Assembly on December 8:

The present authorities have declared war on the Quebec patriots. After having pretended to negotiate for several days they have finally revealed their true face as hypocrites and terrorists.

The colonial army has come to give assistance to the “bouncers” of Drapeau the “dog.” Their objective: to terrorize the population by massive...

Meanwhile, the government remained under pressure to provide fuller details on the apprehended insurrection feared by Mr Bourassa and Mr Drapeau. Outside the House on October 21 Jean Marchand presented his views to Jack Webster, host of a hot-line show for cknw in Vancouver. “What can you tell my west coast listeners what it means, apprehended insurrection. What are your fears?” asked Webster.

Marchand – Well first, I understand that they don’t understand exactly what is going on in Quebec because if there were 25 or 50,000 flq members in Quebec well everybody would be aware. But they are not...

As Ottawa and Quebec grew increasingly impatient with the slow work of the police and the combined anti-terrorist forces were slowly adding to the list of those questioned or detained, the audacity of the flq cells continued. Another communiqué was issued on October 27, which not only bore the fingerprint of Paul Rose but contained his passport:

October 27, 1970

Joint communiqué of the Chenier, Liberation, and Dieppe cells.

The Front de libération du Québec wishes to clarify several items of information regarding the ideas and intentions attributed to it by the ruling authorities.

As defined in the manifesto, the...

The crisis was over, but the debate was not – and perhaps never would be. The major issues around which political and public controversy centred were the unwillingness of the governments to negotiate the freedom of the twenty-three criminals; the alleged subordination of Quebec to Ottawa; the reasons for the use of the army and the War Measures Act; and the intermediate and long-term effects of the crisis on both the governments and society of Quebec and Canada and their future relations.

Some Canadians believed and continued to believe that the governments should have freed the twenty-three prisoners for the...

The year began with deceptive calm. Faced with a more docile opposition than during the previous year, the government moved into legislative stride. The legislation presented to Parliament was largely routine. And while the Prime Minister’s new executive organization began to grind out policy decisions, the House dealt primarily in committee studies and housekeeping proposals. By the end of June the government had succeeded in putting through most of its programme, in large part because it contained only a handful of items which were at all controversial. Opposition spokesmen were justified in their criticism that it had been a dull...

It was a quiet year beyond Parliament Hill for the second year in a row. For most of the politicians it would be the final lull before launching their campaigns for a general election predicted for 1972. The Liberals carried on with their policy review, preparing a charter of principles for the 1970s, while the Conservatives struggled to find any issue on which the party could unite and stand together. The New Democrats, for the most part, retired to the backrooms to begin preparations for a convention in April 1971 to pick a successor to retiring leader Tommy Douglas. And...

The continuing debate between Ottawa and the provinces seemed even more hum-drum than usual against the backdrop of the October crisis. Yet, while there were no bold ventures, the discussion of constitutional reform continued to make some progress and the discussions of overall governmental revenues and expenditures brought home the realities to be faced by policy-makers and taxpayers in the 1970s. Either restraints on spending or higher taxes or increased efficiency – or a combination of the three – were outlined with telling clarity in the report of the Tax Structure Committee. Increased efficiency and rational, regional economic development were...

The rumours which had been receiving an ever wider circulation and which reached a crescendo in early November were confirmed by the Premier himself on December 8. John Robarts, after nine years as premier of Ontario, was resigning. In a not uncharacteristic statement, he told the province that “my own personal political philosophy leads me to believe that in the very fast-moving times in which we live government policies and actions need to be continuously reviewed, revised and rethought. I have never believed that any one man or one group had a monopoly of ideas, and I firmly believe it...

Les événements provoqués par le Front de libération du Québec dans la province, au cours de l’automne de 1970, ont été intimement liés à la vie politique de la province, mais ils ont pris une telle envergure et ils se sont si profondément intégrés dans l’histoire canadienne générate qu’on en trouvera le récit ailleurs. Ce chapitre, comme celui des années précédentes, sera done surtout consacré à l’activité législative dans le Québec et à l’histoire politique interne, c’est-à-dire celle des partis et celle de l’admimstration avec toutefois quelques regards sur ce qu’on se plait à appeler depuis quelques années les relations...

At the outset 1970 promised to be little different from the years immediately preceding with the Nova Scotian public continuing to support those policies of economic development that were the central feature of the Progressive Conservative government of Premier G. I. Smith. Before the year ended, however, a variety of labour troubles and the tenacity and vigour of provincial opposition leader Gerald Regan, who succeeded in throwing grave doubts upon provincial development practices and the economic administration of the province, produced a growing dissatisfaction with the government, culminating in its stunning and totally unexpected defeat on October 13.

Nova Scotia...

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that the first year of the new decade marked the end of something for New Brunswickers. It was more than the defeat of the ten-year-old Robichaud administration; it was a growing disbelief in the utterances of leaders from the politico-business community. The general election campaign “laid an egg”; the ceremonies opening the province’s eighth and largest pulp mill at Nackawic were greeted coolly. In contrast, when a government-created study recommended the closing of six small hospitals the public outcry was immediate, angry, and effective. Later in the year hundreds of citizens expressed their...

To celebrate its having survived a century, Manitoba justifiably behaved more like a keystone cop than the keystone province. At the province’s centennial party in Ottawa on January 28, Prime Minister Trudeau, accompanied by Barbra Streisand, reportedly “started tribal dancing,” while “the bar did a roaring business” and guests consumed “hundreds” of buffalo pies. In February Lech Fulmyk, a forty-four-year-old handbag manufacturer, organized a protest against the scheduled visit of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and their lithograph display showing the couple in a medley of allegedly erotic postures. After five months of uncertain inquiries Mr Lennon finally announced that...

For British Columbians 1970 was a perplexing year. Population increased 3.4 per cent (twice the national average), and gross investment increased almost 7 per cent, exceeding $3 billion for the first time. But the gross provincial product rose only by an estimated 7.1 per cent, the lowest rate of growth since 1961. Contributing to this slowdown was the record number of man-days lost in a year-long series of management-labour disputes – a slowdown which inevitably led to a steady increase in the number of unemployed, until, in November, British Columbia shared with Quebec the unenviable position of having – on...

The year 1970 was election year in Prince Edward Island and the contest dominated the province’s affairs. This domination has been traditionally heavy and all-pervasive because of the large size of the government and party structure in relation to the area and population and because of the resulting seriousness with which Islanders take their politics.

Reliance on Ottawa for funds had been growing steadily, and a resulting increase in federal direction and administration had become apparent within the last five years. This combination became in 1970 the theme of both legislative debates and election campaigns and a major element in...

Saskatchewan ended 1969 with new records in both total and per capita income, but with almost every other economic indicator showing dangerous signs of weakness.

In 1970 the weaknesses developed: retail sales showed persistent declines; housing starts fell off drastically (in one month over 90 per cent below the comparable figure for 1969); total investment and construction generally were the lowest in at least five years. Wheat acreage was cut back in response to federal policies At the same time major segments of the economy experienced prolonged strikes, whose by-products included three threatened emergency sessions of the Legislature, one of...

In 1970 Premier Harry Strom took the first of two important steps necessary to establish his administration’s mark in the political history of Alberta. He presented his first comprehensive programme to the Legislature in a throne speech which stressed the need for long-range planning in government and paid specific attention to problems of urbanization and a changing economy in Alberta. The new Premier would take the second step when the legislative proposals necessary to implement his far-reaching programme for human resources development and social welfare received the endorsement of a majority and went into operation in time to stem the...

The St John’sDaily Newsin its New Year’s Eve special edition referred in a bold headline to the year just past as “An Economic Mix Defying Description.” This inability to find a single word or phrase to characterize the year accurately reflected a state of uncertainty, bordering on perplexity, that possessed Newfoundlanders in 1970 and which embraced particularly the twin themes of economics and politics.

The bitter political fight that had in the preceding autumn led to a reaffirmation of Premier Smallwood’s leadership of the Liberal party was carried forward into the new year. Thus, when the House of...

In his opening address to the November session of the Yukon Legislative Council, Commissioner James Smith noted: “There is no place in North America where the future is coming faster than here in the Yukon.”

The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Jean Chretien, indicated how his department would handle the future in his keynote address on “Northern Development in the Seventies” at the fifth National Northern Development Conference on November 5 in Edmonton. He spoke of the need to ensure that “the Seventies are a decade ofbalancedandcontrolleddevelopment, a period in which new economic, political,...

The government’s long-awaited white paper on foreign policy was released on June 25. More than two years in the works, the white paper was the product of fairly wide consultations within the government and with academe. Outside experts had participated in policy discussions with foreign service officers and cabinet officials; there had been long parliamentary hearings; and there was unquestionably very careful attention paid to the views of Prime Minister Trudeau. The result was an attractively packaged bundle of six pamphlets, one each on Europe, Latin America, the Pacific, the United Nations, and international development, and one general pamphlet called...

The white paper pamphlet on Europe was, more than most, devoted to a concern with security. The continuing division in Europe was appraised realistically, attributed to the “rough balance of military strength between the Communist and Western powers” and to the increasing care of the Americans and Russians in “avoiding high-risk situations arising from conflicts in which they are involved on opposing sides …” And the white paper noted that “The risk of a deliberate large-scale Soviet attack on Western Europe is therefore much diminished.” No one could seriously argue with that appraisal. The white paper then considered the pace...

The sections on the Pacific in the white paper on foreign policy were probably more uninformative than those on any other area. The bulk of emphasis was on trade relations, on the ways to expand Canadian exports, and on the creation of investment opportunities for Canadians. All this was to be accomplished by having “Canada consider extending its presence by the opening of additional offices in the area.” Writing in the AugustBehind the Headlines, Gilles Lalande of the Université de Montréal called the white paper’s arguments “thin and disturbingly unsophisticated,” particularly in its comments on security matters. To Mr...

“The Government believes that a firm commitment to the support of international development is one of the most constructive ways in which Canada can participate in the international community in the coming decades.” That sentence from the pamphlet on International Development in the foreign policy white paper sums up the guts of the government position. As such it was heartening, implying an expanded aid effort.

In specific terms the white paper offered some figures as an indicator of its intentions. “In the fiscal year 1971–72 the level of official development assistance allocation will be increased by $60 million from...

One of the six booklets in the white paper on foreign policy was devoted to Latin America. This fact in itself could be seen as a belated recognition of Canada’s role as a hemispheric nation, as a recognition of the ties ofLatinitéto Spanish-speaking America, and as a reflection of the Canadian economic stake in Central and South America.

But to a very large extent the white paper merely reaffirmed the status quo. There was a long discussion on the various ties between Canada and the Latin American states, a measure of praise for the five hundred university students...

The white paper booklet on the United Nations served as something of a grab-bag for topics that presumably could not be filed elsewhere. Policy to Southern Africa was included as was arms control, international control of the use of the sea-bed, and peaceful uses of satellites. Canada’s objective at the United Nations was stated in magnificent “bureaucratese“:

… while seeking through its policies, foreign as well as domestic, to unite Canada, the Canadian Government has the opportunity in the United Nations … to draw on Canada’s abundant resources, its bilingualism in two universal languages, its excellence in modern science and...

There was no white paper pamphlet devoted to Canada’s relations with the United States. The official rationale was that Canadian-American relations were still under study and that the theme was implicit throughout all the pamphlets. More likely, perhaps, was the simple fact that the government had been unable to prepare a brief treatment of Canada–United States relations. In the “Foreign Policy for Canadians” pamphlet, however, Canada’s relations with its neighbour were stated to be one of the two inescapable realities facing the nation, the other being the need for national unity. “It is probably no exaggeration to suggest that...

Canada an imperialist nation? Canada a nation that controls the financial affairs of a small neighbour? Canada a racist state that discriminates against blacks? This appeared to be the reaction of large elements of the population in Port of Spain, Trinidad, when a series of riots and demonstrations, complete with vandalism against Canadian companies’ property, took place in early March. The cause apparently was the trial of ten West Indian students on charges developing from the “computer centre party” at Montreal’s Sir George Williams University. The deeper cause, it seemed, was a response to the low wages paid by Canadian...

This was not a good year for the Department of National Defence. An old and trusted minister was replaced by a young and ambitious one. The wages of inflation had to be met from within a defence budget frozen at $1.8 billion. The army was called on to fill unusual duties in Montreal and Ottawa during the flq crisis in the fall. And a series of old and costly decisions on procurement returned to haunt the ministry.

As defence headquarters officials said on December 21, the reduction in manpower was proceeding as planned. The forces had been reduced from a...

The pace of economic activity in Canada declined somewhat during 1970; the gross national product rose by approximately 7.5 per cent, 3.3 per cent after discounting for price changes, well below the growth rate in 1969. At the end of the year most observers predicted a larger increase in gnp for 1970. Both consumer spending on durable and semi-durable goods and business capital investment lagged while higher government expenditures at all levels tended to strengthen aggregate demand on the economy’s resources. Housing policy continued to generate political controversy as the level of starts for 1970, at 190,500 units, failed to...

Estimates of gross national expenditure or total demand in 1970, prepared by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics and published quarterly, followed the pattern of most major indexes of economic activity in Canada during the year. Seasonally adjusted at an annual rate, the current dollar estimate of gne rose to a level for the year of $84,468 million. From $81,004 million in the final quarter of 1969, gne increased to $82,684 million in the first three months of 1970. In the second quarter, the rate of increase declined somewhat and gne reached a level of $83,824 million. Estimated at $84,988 million...

The rate of population growth in Canada in 1970 continued to be relatively steady, though well below the rates of increase in some previous years. From October 1969 to October 1970 the population increased by 309,000, 1.5 per cent, to an estimated total of 21,489,000. Between the same months of 1968 and 1969 the increase in population, at 323,000, was slightly larger. Lower immigration and birth rates both contributed to the sluggishness of the increase. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics reported that the birth rate per one thousand population in October 1970 fell to 17.8 compared with 19.2 in October...

During 1970 the Canadian economy again failed to generate enough jobs to fully employ a labour force which continued to expand rapidly. While there were definite signs of a relaxation of monetary and fiscal restraints after mid-year, unemployment exceeded 1969 levels throughout the year and became a major political issue. Part of the government’s response was the white paper on unemployment insurance tabled by the Minister of Labour, Bryce Mackasey, on June 17. The “proposals contained in the white paper,” Mr Mackasey told the House, “confirm the desire of this government to promote social policies that build the country not...

The influence of the Economic Council of Canada on the formulation of government policy seemed to declined significantly during 1970. The council’s seventh annual review,Patterns of Growth, was released on September 20 and a separate appraisal of the economy’s performance was published on October 19. In the review, various components of growth in ten sectors of the economy were analysed and five industries and services, mining, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, health care, and higher education, were subjected to more detailed examination. The council’s most controversial speculations concerned the impact of mounting expenditures on health care and education, rates...

During 1970 Canada’s trading relationships with a number of nations illustrated again the complex political and economic difficulties involved in attempting to reconcile the maintenance of major export markets for Canadian primary products with the need to protect a few domestic manufacturing industries. The dilemma was most obvious in Canada’s increasingly important trade ties with Japan. In 1970 Canada’s exports to Japan rose by 27 per cent to $796 million, almost 5 per cent of total Canadian export trade, while imports from Japan increased by more than 17 per cent to $580 million. The Japanese government remained concerned about the...

Data released in March showed that 1969 had been a reasonably good year for Canada’s two major railroads. Although final figures were not available, a poorer performance in 1970 seemed likely as both freight and passenger volume were expected to be lower. In 1969 the cnr showed an operating profit of $49.6 million, the highest since 1956 and up considerably from the 1968 profit of $41.2 million. However, interest payments on long-term debt again caused an overall deficit of $24.6 million, down from $29.2 million in 1968. Railway operating revenues were $1,001 million compared with $961.9 million the year before...

No steps were taken during 1970 to implement the recommendations in the Economic Council’s report on competition policy, released in August 1969, although the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, S. R. Basford, indicated on several occasions that legislation amending the Combines Investigation Act would be introduced. A bill based on a report submitted by the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission on June 17, 1965, and exempting certain shipping conference practices from the provisions of the act, was given third reading in the House on October 5.

On January 12 in Toronto the Electric Reduction Company of Canada Limited was convicted...

During the year concern was expressed in several quarters about what form future federal funding for education might take, although Ottawa itself was quiet on the subject. Jobs for certain categories of university graduates were becoming scarce, even at the doctorate level. Had the spectacular growth of post-secondary enrolment and educational facilities in general been too great, and too unplanned? Had some public funds been spent unwisely? Such questions were not as yet answerable in a definitive fashion, but answers were being searched for and some clues pointed to them being affirmative. Time would tell.

Freeman Stewart, executive secretary of...

As the 1970s began the general economic downturn resulted in concern at various levels of society about one area of the economy which showed no sign of slackening. This was the health field where rapid increases in the gross expenditures on health services continued. Not only were manpower costs in the health field continuing to rise more rapidly than in the past but the demand for service was increasing as well. Quite clearly in the 1960s Canadians had accepted the belief that access to health care had become a right of all citizens and there was general acceptance of the...

Extensive and far-reaching developments in the public sector of social welfare overshadowed more limited, yet increasingly innovative, changes in the financially hardpressed voluntary sector. Official reports and proposals, and there were several important ones, were remarkable in their scope and the wealth of detailed recommendations; together, they provided a bewildering array of demands and expectations which present-day policy-planning could not handle comprehensively. The report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, tabled on December 7, produced 167 recommendations ranging from fairly minor matters all the way to proposals to multiply many times over government’s spending on day care...

Two subjects dominated the science scene during the year – control and abatement of pollution and speculation as to recommendations which might be contained in the report of the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy. Would the report, which was in the process of being written, recommend, for example, that Canada follow in the footsteps of the United States, fitting science to national goals, even though these goals are subject to constant change? At a meeting attended by some four thousand chemists in Toronto in June, speeches by Dr O. M. Solandt, chairman of the Science Council of Canada, and...

At the beginning of the 1970s organized religion in Canada presented a diffident, tortured, and contradictory profile. “…every Christian Church in Canada contains the same confusing pattern of both decline and growth, discouragement and hope,” wrote the Rev. E. L. Bader, csp, director of the Catholic Information Centre in Toronto (Globe and MailJanuary 23, 1970). “There is some indication that the local church is in for a bad time,” warned theUnited Church Observer(October 15, 1969). “There are signs that after many good years of big Sunday congregations, double-shift morning services, and doors swinging and lights burning in...

In the first year of the decade of the seventies the Canadian mass media were placed in the full glare of public searchlights as never before. Early in 1970 media people and some of their critics were given a hearing by the Special Senate Committee on Mass Media as it carried on its national accounting of public communication. The committee concluded its enquiry with a three-volume report in December. In October the media became so deeply involved in reporting North America’s first political kidnappings by the Front de Libération du Québec that the federal government curtailed their coverage under authority...

Two major new theatres opened their doors in 1970. In Winnipeg Allan Waisman’s 785-seat, poured-concrete building was generally well received and hopes were expressed that the Manitoba Theatre Centre would once more become the vital and dynamic company that it had been during much of the sixties. Toronto, with its wider range of theatres, was less affected by the introduction of a new one and by the end of the year it was far from obvious what the impact of the St Lawrence Centre was likely to be.

The future of the Neptune Theatre, Halifax, was somewhat clouded as the...

En 1970 le tnm a présenté six productions dont deux créations québécoises, un classique et trois œuvres d’auteurs contemporains. En continuant d’offrir en collaboration avec l’Education permanente de l’Université de Montréal des cours-conférences sur le théâtre, en publiant régulièrement un périodique sur la vie du théâtre au Québec –L’Envers du décor– et en invitant à maintes reprises les spectateurs à participer à une discussion sur le spectacle qu’ils venaient de voir, la compagnie que dirige Jean-Louis Roux répondait à deux préoccupations. La première était de combler le fossé entre le public, l’œuvre et le comédien. La deuxième, de...

The most common phrase in musical circles was “Canadian content” but the most frequently performed composer in 1970, his two-hundredth birthday, was Ludwig van Beethoven. Ensembles and soloists paid tribute to the master in countless concerts and broadcasts that must have covered almost his complete œuvre. EvenFideliowas staged in what appeared to have been only its third production in Canada, a quarter of a century after the first. An exhibit of Beethoven pictures and documents began a tour of Canadian cities at the Guelph Spring Festival. It had been organized by the Music Department of the Austrian National...

Politics dominated art as it dominated life in Canada in 1970. If the political events in the art world were not as widely discussed as those in Quebec, they were just as much portents of wide-sweeping changes, the full meaning of which stands to be revealed as the new decade begins.

It was partly just the temper of the year’s discussions. Even editor Robert Fulford inSaturday Nightvoiced the dismay of many ex-Trudeau supporters when he asked whether the government that had closed the Design Centres and was waging a cost war on the National Film Board was not...

To many sports enthusiasts the most outstanding achievement in Canadian sport was the resurgence of the Montreal Alouettes from a last place finish in the east in 1969 to Grey Cup champions in 1970. Manitoba’s centennial celebrations were dampened when the world hockey tournament was cancelled in Winnipeg, but most approved of the firm stand taken by Canada in international hockey. Vancouver-Garibaldi failed in its bid to host the 1976 winter Olympics, but Montreal defeated Moscow to host the summer Olympics for the same year. Herve Filion of Angers, Quebec, became the world’s leading harness race driver, and jockey Sandy...