The race to succeed Lester B. Pearson as party leader and Prime Minister took a historic turn on this date in 1968 when Canada’s Minister of Justice, Pierre Trudeau, entered the race. The fact he’d only been a member of the party for three years at this point made his eventual victory at the April convention all the more remarkable.
Upon Trudeau’s election to the Commons in 1963, it was obvious that Prime Minister Pearson had high hopes for the new Quebec MP. Trudeau was made Pearson’s Parliamentary Secretary and soon after was named to cabinet.
With his entry into the Liberal leadership race on this day 54 years ago, the Trudeau-era had truly begun.
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Liberal Party leadership candidate Pierre Trudeau acknowledges the cheers of delegates at the party's April 1968 convention in Ottawa. (Canadian Press)/caption
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Liberal Party leadership candidate Pierre Trudeau acknowledges the cheers of delegates at the party's April 1968 convention in Ottawa. (Canadian Press)/caption
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.