Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was grilled repeatedly by students at Toronto’s George Brown College on this date in 1980. East-West tensions were running high and many Canadians were critical of American President Ronald Reagan’s methods of fighting communism in Central America. Trudeau was pressed on the issue.
“Don't ask me to run the United States. I haven't been elected there,” he snapped at one point when America activities in Central America were again raised by a student’s question.
The PM was also quizzed about his government’s decision to test the controversial American cruise missile over Canada. Trudeau refused to back down, arguing that the testing was part of Canada’s duties as a member of NATO. Anti cruise missile testing protestors also appeared and made their feelings known as the PM left the event.
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.