There's two or three significant differences.
First, Trudeau did not hang hot and heavy with a bunch who were assembling materials for a major detonation. They never actually put an order in for explosives.
Second, Trudeau and the Brebeufians were the rebel children of an elite, latter day Byrons. These Moslem kids are conformists, who have clearly opted for the Moslem warrior path.
I wonder how we would choose, if we had the choice? On the one hand, the structured path to full adulthood through facing challenges, entry into a society which makes values like Brotherhood, Honour, and Duty front-and-centre ... or the ennui of contemporary Canadian male teenagedom, with its decade long extension into the late 20ies, years typically spend in a jobless drift?
Third, Houde was rallying opposition to the war on the public stage. The Anglos would notice. Trudeau and his gang were 'inside' their communities, and probably were hardly noticed. (In those days, this is what the Church handled, in Quebec, who would refuse them facilities.)
Fourth, there was a lot less official surveillance of a much more homogeneous population in those days.
Drawing this parallel minimizes the importance of what is happening now. The new issue isn't that well-gnawed bone, racism in Canada. There is no 'rush to judgement' in the population. There is no reaction on the street.
These arrests, even if overblown, lead us to think about the kind of Canada we want, and the limits of 'multiculturalism'. Perhaps this is the source of the foreboding - we see, here, the outlines of things that limit our civic dreams.
In answer to the question of how Trudeau avoided
millitary service, Desmarais is the answer.
As to Trudeau's changing over the years, he never did.
Bi-ligualism was introduced to ensure Quebec never ever became fully intergrated with the rest of Canada, Multi-culturalism insured Immigrants would retain thier loyalty to thier home nation rather than Canada, the Charter was created to insure an ever changing list of rights
pitting Canadians against Canadians.
Douglas Fisher still does not get it....Trudeau was successful in his original objective...Ruin Canada and keep the Quebec seperatist thread alive for all time.
Trudeau tried and nearly succeded in bringing Canada to it's finacial knees, hoping this would drive Quebec out, if Not for the Tory Government of BM, we would have collapsed.
It should be the duty of All Canadians to journey once to the grave of PET and piss on it.
well said Durward... I've thought much the same on many occations and listening to the arguement of his supporters. It's interesting to see they say these were his great accomplishments, but for other reasons...not recognising that multiculturism will ultimately destroy a nations identity and bankrupt it's social programs. I'd join you at the pissing post but it's not worth the trip to the east... We'd have to push a way through the adoring fans who don't understand that rather then being our greatest PM he was in line with Jean Cretien, John Turner, and Paul Martin as one of if not the worst in actually contructing the Liberal Campaigns of the last 35 years...
Never let the issues be the issues in a campaign, spread fear and hate and make the opponent and their position the issue. The last 35 years of campaigns are clearly based on seperating East from West, Quebec from Canada, and the Maritimes from everyone else... run your campaign around public opinion and by playing devils advocate.
Didn't he ride down the streets of Quebec on a bike with a German helmet on during the invasion of France??
Nice, eh?
Trudeau, Chretien, Martin . . . all those names in one sentence makes my skin crawl.
How anyone can idolize any of these buffon morons is beyond me.
Paul Desmarias was about 17 years old when the war ended and was the son of an tiny Sudbury bus company owner.
Doubt if he pulled much weight in Montreal in the 1940's.A small player until the mid-1960's at least.
Probably got some kind of exemption. Will be interesting when Trudeau's military record is open to the public in 2020 if it hasn't already been purged.
I think durward meant Duplessis (sp?) not Demarais. I cannot agree that PET had the ulterior motive to destroy Canada in mind when he brought in the policies he did, much as I detest them and agree that they have in a very large degree done more harm than good to this country.
Posted at 2006-06-11 10:54:59 [PermaLink]It is amazing the things you do not hear about in the media. One day Canadians are going to wake up and smell the I am being ripped off coffee and burn the media outlets in an act of not terrorism but patriatism.
We live in a Socialist Industrialist state by definition Fascest. Smoking bans, Kyoto, the one ton challenge and fat pandemics can all be defined as victim bashing efforts in protecting industry while affording them new profit centers and paying for their destruction of our environment and standard of living from the public purse.
Any Liberal who claims a love for Democracy is a fraud the party has always been dedicated to the ellimination of personal rights and democratic process excluding the voting of the elite in dividing up the financial pie.
Corporations for decades have avoided taxes through charity contributions to the very permanent foundations who hire lobbys who control elected officials through political correctness.
Take a look at Canada Newswire the CNW group they sell an industry conduit to the 6 Oçlock news the new partner DNA13 in Ottawa goes further with their promo "Control of what is in the news and who gets to see it". Dalton McGuilty's crowd bragged about investments in software recently what they did not say was the investment was in a subsidiary of the CNW Group; IGLOO meant to save travel costs of Global governance advocates. IGLOO thanks the former PM for his investment very likely one of the secret Private trusts which recieved Billions of our tax dollars out of the control of even the Auditor General.
If Canada doesn't wake up soon there will be no Canada just a very large slave labor camp.
In an environment where information is so easy to find it is amazing so many are afraid to just look.
"where information is so easy to find it is amazing so many are afraid to just look."
More like 'too busy' or 'too lazy'. You need to actually think about something to be afraid of it.
Let me guess...he uses the excuse of youthful exuberance to justify his behaviour?
Posted at 2006-06-12 04:20:31 [PermaLink]Trudeau was a man caught up so completely in his times that he did nothing to resist the then contemporary trends and tendancies.
He just followed the flow.
Sensing an attitude of anti-Americanism, he adopted the counterpoint of the melting pot; multiculturalism.
Sensing that Québec nationalism was on the rise, he reacts with the cobble-pot balm of bilingualism.
Trudeau's cavorting with the Soviets, his erroneous belif that history was on the side of socialism, his trips to Siberia, "world of the tomorrow", and even the naming of his son *Sacha* (why not Fidel?) reveal such a pathetic and passive acceptance of what SOME intellectuals at the time saw as inevitable, that he should be re-baptised "Mr Reactive Inaction".
Trudeau represented, embraced and promoted everything the Americans rejected.
Simple as that.
Oh! And remember that sword-dance with the Saudis...actually a kind of pre beheading ritual!
Talk about a "dancing fool".
John:
I disagree that Trudeau was a Quebec nationalist supporter. On the contrary, he was its most fercious opponent and deeply held the volkisch ideas that many Quebec intellectuals held. In fact, official bilingualism was instituted to dilute the power of Quebec nationalism by offering services in French in the other provinces. So Trudeau federalized an intraQuebec dispute
In fact Claudio Véliz's last chapter of his Centralist Tradition of Latin America is particularly relevent with which to assess Trudeau and quebec politics from the Boer war to the constitution's.
Whatever the merits of bilingualism, I'll remark that thatit was unjust that the Quebecers felt alienated from their own province and a sense that the federal institutions didn't represent them.
xavier
Xavier: I don't think Trudeau was a nationalist either. And as you stated he was probably one of seperatism's most ferocious opponent.
That said, it's a good thing that more francophones are now in the federal civil service; they certainly have a right to their fair share of the posts.
However, the probleme with bilingualism is that it tends to favour francos over anglos, and this by the mere virtue of the fact that a much larger proportion of francos speak both official languages.
There is also another side to this that most non-Quebecers know nothing about and it's this; within the federal civil service INSIDE Québec the policies of linguistic balance are ignored.
Individuals with english as their mother tongue represent 13% of the province, yet anglophones in the federal gov't INSIDE Québec occupy a mere 4% of the posts.
So if francophones are "alienated", then what the heck am I?
I've a completely different take on the province's nationalism, as well. A take that has little to do with domination or oppression and a lot to do with factors few ever consider.
Québec's gyrations ( bump and grind it!) are due to the decline of The British Empire and the loss of the security and the identity that membership in that empire procured. The exact same process took hold in Australia at precisely the same time ( early 60s) and for many of the same reasons. Québec's post 60s rumblings, then, have nothing to do with Latin America, but have much in common with what was happening in other "ageing" British colonies at the same time.
The latin American *meme* emerges from the facile and erroneous view that Québecers, being francophone, are somehow "Latin", when in fact their mindset is thoroughly British working class.
The second major cause is due to the Toronto's phenomenal rise to economic and financial prominance at the expense of Montréal. When you lose a match after having always won, you tend to cry "sour grapes" and you threaten to pick up your toys and go home.