Forty Years Ago

Canada recalls Quebec separatist violence 40 years on

"Mr Trudeau explained his actions in a televised statement.

"Violent and fanatical men are attempting to destroy the unity and the freedom of Canada," he said, adding that he would not tolerate "intimidation and terror"."

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"Meanwhile, Mr Trudeau came under severe criticism from his political foes. The Parti Quebecois leader accused Mr Trudeau of "a panicky and altogether excessive reaction", while the leader of Canada's third party, the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), accused Prime Minister Trudeau of using "a sledgehammer to crack a peanut".

But the public seemed to approve overwhelmingly of the tough approach.

Claude Belanger, a Quebec historian at Marianopolis College in Montreal, says that several polls at the time showed about 90% of Canadians - including those in Quebec - backed the measures."

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"James Cross was released in exchange for Cuban exile for his kidnappers - led by Jacques Lanctot. They eventually returned to Canada, and served short prison sentences.

Pierre Laporte's killers, led by Paul Rose, were found by police.

Rose and a fellow FLQ member were convicted of kidnapping and murder charges, with another member convicted of just kidnapping charges.

All were out of prison by the early 1980s. Now, all play roles in Quebec society as writers, film-makers and commentators."

Bring on Sun TV!!

"Since the crisis, separatists have sought, and failed, to achieve independence through two referenda - narrowly losing in the last one held in 1995.

The appetite for an independent Quebec now seems on the wane.

Some 60% of Quebec residents feel the issue has been settled, according to a recent poll, while former separatist leader Lucien Bouchard recently admitted that independence was unachievable."

Somebody should tell that to Duceppe.

PS: More from Pierre Laporte's son.

""Every 10 years there are news stories and each time it's a little more painful, each time the story changes," he told QMI Agency.

"They try to rewrite history, making the FLQ more acceptable, but in reality, they kidnapped a man and that man was my father."

One former FLQ member, now a prominent newspaper columnist in Quebec, is just one of many who have recast the violence 40 years ago in a softer light.

"We were responding to repression," Jacques Lanctot said in September. "We didn't want to kill anyone. We were radicals who wanted to wake the consciousness of Quebecers."

Laporte said that isn't a good argument.

"How can it be an accident when you kidnap someone? You're responsible," he said."

PPS: How Trudeau turned the October Crisis

"In Mr. Trudeau, the separatists chose the wrong opponent. The prime minister would not easily be intimidated. He had a strong sense of the dramatic and the theatrical: in 1968 he showed his contempt for a howling separatist mob, standing virtually alone on a reviewing stand as other dignitaries fled a shower of rocks and bottles. Asked to put troops on the streets by Montreal's municipal authorities, he did. Determining that sympathy for the terrorists was spreading among Montreal's volatile student population, he acted to seize back the streets using the War Measures Act to arrest almost 500 people - anyone who could "get more than five people on a street corner," one observer quipped. The 500 were put on ice not for what they had done, but what they could do.

The terrorists and their near sympathizers got the point. Radical separatist enthusiasm moved from frenzied to frozen. By the time the detainees were released, the moment had passed and the crisis was over. Better still, the moment for terror had passed.

Moderate opinion - the vast majority - was repulsed by the kidnappings and the murder of Mr. Laporte by his captors. Public opinion craved a leader who would stand firm, and in Trudeau Quebecers and Canadians found the man of the hour."

Some day I might recount my experiences with Trudeaumania and my opinion of the man. It differs from the view held by most of my fellow right of centre Canucks, especially those from Western Canada. For years I've felt I must be the only person west of the Saskatchewan/Manitoba border who admired the man and I still do. One of the reasons for my dissenting opinion was his steely resolve in dealing the the FLQ crisis. But then again, I was only twenty-one years old, and like the vast majority of twenty-somethings during that era and all before and since, I was naive and starry-eyed. But, even now with my gray hair and perpetually aching bones, I still think he did the right thing. We need a man like him as our next Conservative Prime Minister.