The Sober Swinger

I know I'm going to get blamed for not delivering a brand-new Canada within six months--but I've got four years to do it.

--Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968

When Pierre Trudeau succeeded Lester Pearson as Prime Minister of Canada nearly two years ago, he seemed just the man to lead his divided nation into a new age. He was a brilliant teacher of law, a respected liberal reformer, a trendy bachelor. Even in the U.S., which usually pays little more attention to Canadian politics than to the Albanian economy, Trudeau's Gallic glamour had its effect, possibly because Americans had such lackluster candidates of their own in 1968.

With the mid-point of his four-year term at hand, the love affair between Canadians and their dashing Prime Minister is undergoing a transition. As Trudeau methodically went about planning his "Just Society" during his first 22 months in office, old problems persisted--inflation, regionalism, Quebec separatism. Some Canadians grew weary of the image of their Prime Minister as social pacesetter. "I have had it up to here," said a recent letter writer in a Toronto newspaper, "with pictures of our charismatic Prime Minister on vacation, smiling affably and benignly in his impeccable ski suit at some invariably exclusive and expensive resort, or dancing with some invariably rich chick after dining on squab."

Arctic Issue. Some disenchantment was inevitable. More and more Canadians are beginning to learn, however, that while Trudeau occasionally behaves like a 50-year-old playboy, more often he comes on as a sober, responsible leader. Canadians thought that the Prime Minister's official house at 24 Sussex Drive might become a rendezvous for jet-set types. It is busy, all right, but as a member of Trudeau's Liberal Party describes it: "Labor leaders on Thursday. Next week businessmen. Maybe a royal commission. Hardly swinging."

Now the government has begun to gain momentum. Much of that momentum comes from its adroit moves to capture a rising nationalistic mood, largely directed against what Canadians see as growing U.S. domination. Trudeau has no intention of driving out existing capital, and he considers much of the mood mere "chauvinism." Even so, he moved swiftly last month to block the sale of Denison Mines Ltd., Canada's biggest uranium producer, to a U.S.-controlled firm, and to limit foreigners to one-third ownership of uranium companies. That formula may become standard in many fields.

Two weeks ago, as the U.S. supertanker Manhattan was heading north on its second experimental Arctic voyage, Trudeau responded to Canadian concern over possible future oil pollution by extending Ottawa's jurisdiction to 100 miles northward from its shores. The measure, in effect, establishes Canadian control over shipping through the Northwest Passage. Some Canadians wanted him to assert full-fledged sovereignty over the waters rather than mere jurisdiction, but Trudeau characteristically chose the more reasonable course. "This pollution legislation," he said, "is not jingoist. It is not anti-American." Nonetheless, Washington last week sent a strong protest to Ottawa.

The Prime Minister spent much of his first 22 months in office concentrating on long-range planning, modernizing the mechanisms of government so as to be able to cope "with the important, and not only the urgent." Trudeau is cutting the federal bureaucracy by 10%, or some 25,000 jobs, and has streamlined Cabinet procedures. Once he was fully in control of the executive machinery, Trudeau began to move, aided by a healthy Liberal Party majority of 46 votes in the 264-seat Commons, or lower house of Parliament.

He cut Canada's military commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in half; some 5,000 troops will begin withdrawing from Europe this year. Where Pearson stressed international peace keeping, Trudeau's foreign policy primarily emphasizes boosting Canada's exports. He started negotiations (at present still stalled) to recognize Communist China, a major consumer of Canadian wheat. Recently, Trudeau won some additional points in the wheat-selling West with a plan to wipe out Canada's crushing grain surplus by paying farmers to slash their wheat production by some 90% this year.

Aside from nationalism, Trudeau's most serious domestic problems have been inflation and the traditional antagonism between the federal government and the provinces. In the West, there is a long-standing distrust of Ottawa. That, for the present, means Trudeau. More serious than the West's suspiciousness is the separatist movement in Quebec. Trudeau, himself a French Canadian from Quebec, has worked hard to defuse fears of domination by English-speaking Canada. But the Quebec separatists are still mounting demonstrations and Trudeau's problems there are far from over.

Question of Priorities. From the start Trudeau has been deeply concerned with the question of priorities. His refusal to try to do everything--at once--has disappointed those who expected an outpouring of legislation and money for federal programs, and has prompted critics to accuse him of having "no heart." In a recent interview with TIME Correspondent Richard Duncan, Trudeau replied to those complaints.

"The art of government," he said, "is to do as much as you can for all sectors, but to order your priorities in such a way that you are doing most for the most needy first. You also have to make the other people understand that yes, they have a good cause, but since we can't do everything for everybody all the time, we have to choose."

By way of example, he noted that it is the "Middle Canadians"--the professionals, scholars, and middle-income types--who want "more justice for all and more money to help the poor and more money for the cities and more money for the quality of life in which they believe. But they are also the people whom we will have to tax most if we want to fulfill the course they proclaim loudest. Perhaps this is not always realized."

That statement sums up Trudeau's attitude toward government--and the governed. Like a professor in a graduate seminar, he would rather get Canadians to draw their own conclusions than to set everything out for them in simplistic A-B-C terms. That could prove politically suicidal, but there are signs that his way may be vindicated. Last August, the popularity of Trudeau's Liberal Party bottomed out at 39%. The latest reading is 43% and the curve still seems to be rising.

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