Trudeau's Troubles

Outside his homeland, Pierre Elliott Trudeau is still regarded by some people as a debonair political-intellectual with a certain Kennedy-like flair. But Trudeaumania has long since faded away in Canada. After eight years in office, the Prime Minister is increasingly seen by Canadians as an impetuous "philosopher king," contemptuous of both voters and Parliament. His economic policies are under savage attack, and his Liberal government (which has an 18-seat majority in the House of Commons) has become embroiled in scandal. His popularity and prestige have slipped so low, in fact, that some believe that Canada's major opposition party, the Progressive Conservatives, might win the 1978 national elections. Even one Liberal Cabinet member concedes that "if there were an election today, I wouldn't give us much of a chance."

Rambling Interview. The real signs of trouble for the Trudeau administration came last fall, when persistent double-digit inflation and climbing unemployment forced the Prime Minister to adopt price and wage controls--a Tory proposal he had ridiculed in the 1974 campaign. The policy itself received overwhelming public support, but its imprecise application (changes in the rules are still being made almost weekly) angered and alienated both labor and business. Complained one top appliance-company executive: "How in hell can you make plans for production when you don't know what the policy really is and can't find out?" Thundered Joe Morris, president of the Canadian Labor Congress: "This is an outrageous, unjust policy which we will never accept!"

Trudeau added to his political problems by a rambling TV interview last

December in which he announced that the "free market system" was dead. In effect Trudeau was really saying what many other leaders of industrialized countries have recently argued: namely, that new solutions, possibly government-imposed, would have to be found for the perennial problems of stagflation. But to most listeners, Trudeau's remarks seemed unnecessarily autocratic. He was accused by organized labor, business and the Tories of trying to move Canada toward a socialist dictatorial state. To quell the storm of protest, Trudeau was forced to make a public speech explaining that he did not mean to dismantle democracy but to improve its performance in Canada.

But by that time, the Trudeau government appeared to be involved in scandal. The first came in November, when Tory M.P. Elmer Mackay unsuccessfully petitioned Commons for a judicial inquiry into possible federal influence peddling in the granting of duty-free shop concessions at Montreal's airports. Mackay charged that Louis Giguere, a Liberal Senator and prominent party fund raiser, had made a $92,000 windfall profit from the timely purchase and sale of shares in Sky Shops Ltd., the concession in question. Mackay also charged that Health and Welfare Minister Marc Lalonde, who was Trudeau's principal secretary when Sky Shops renewed its concession in 1972, had been influential in getting the concession approved. Trudeau loftily told the House that he saw "no conflict of interest."

Last week there were fresh accusations, this time by Quebec Superior Court Justice Kenneth Mackay (no kin to M.P. Mackay). In a letter to Justice Minister Ronald Basford, Justice Mackay charged that two present Cabinet ministers had used "unwarranted attempts to interfere with the judicial process." The two--Health and Welfare Minister Lalonde and Minister of Science and Public Works C.M. Drury--allegedly got in touch with Mackay or his colleagues in cases dating back to 1969, asking for delays in trials and making other unspecified requests.

No Match. Instead of agreeing to a public inquiry, as the opposition demands, Trudeau asked Chief Justice Jules Deschenes of the Quebec Superior Court to look into the case and report his findings to Justice Minister Basford. At week's end, Deschenes's report found that the judicial approaches had been made by the two Ministers, and Drury offered his resignation. Trudeau, however, in a move that caused tumultuous outrage in the Commons, refused to accept it.

In 1974 the Trudeau government was re-elected partly because the Tories were then led by Robert Stanfield, a decent but plodding campaigner who was no match for the Prime Minister on the hustings. But last month the Progressive Conservatives chose a bright, aggressive new national leader--Alberta M.P. Joe Clark, who at 36 is the youngest party chief in Canadian history. Clark has plenty of work ahead in trying to broaden his party's base, notably in the Liberal stronghold of Quebec. But, given Trudeau's mounting troubles, the new opposition leader has a built-in opportunity to get Canada ready for a case of Clarkomania.

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