Partisanship paused in the Red Chamber on this date in 2000 as Senators paid tribute to Pierre Trudeau. The 15th Prime Minister had passed into history only a few days before. Conservative John Lynch-Staunton, for example, was one of those who delivered generous tributes that day.
“He personified in life, as he does in death, the enthusiasm and idealism arising from the centennial celebration of 1967, when, in one glorious year, Canadians set aside their petty differences and quarrels to celebrate their uniqueness and all that they have in common — a reality too often subjected to challenges, never so brilliantly resisted as they were by Trudeau,” Staunton a Quebecer, said. “Trudeau was one of a tiny handful of Canadian leaders with whom Canadians identified so emotionally and in whom they put their trust so strongly. The outpouring of grief that we have witnessed in the last few days is largely an expression of this heartfelt sentiment which transcends all partisanship, as all see in him what André Laurendeau saw when he summed up Trudeau as follows: ‘It is his taste for freedom. He demands its risks and its advantages.’ For this alone, we owe him an eternal debt of gratitude. May he rest in the peace he so richly deserves.
You can read all the tributes to the late Mr. Trudeau at this link: https://sencanada.ca/en/content/sen/chamber/362/debates/078db_2000-10-04-e#0.2.W54BJ2.R839RJ.KS2NPH.XJ1
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.